The Buzz with ACT-IAC

Latest Episodes:

In Conversation with Government IT Leader Sandy Barsky Oct 19, 2021

Show notes

This week, The Buzz with ACT-IAC celebrates Sandy Barsky’s retirement from the General Services Administration (GSA) after an almost 40-year career in government. In this episode, Sandy sits down with Todd Hager, Industry Chair of ACT-IAC’s Emerging Technology Community of Interest (COI) and Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Macro Solutions, to reflect on a career that began as a GS-3 supporting GSA’s cataloging.

ACT-IAC would like to thank Sandy for his years of public service and his many contributions to the ACT-IAC community as a senior leader and speaker, as well as for his contributions to the Emerging Technology COI. With Sandy’s leadership, the COI developed several bodies of knowledge around emerging technologies which are accessible here and open to the public. Along with this, several of the Artificial Intelligence frameworks were recently covered in Forbes here.

Congratulations Sandy!

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Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform to never miss an episode! For more from ACT-IAC, follow us on LinkedIn or visit http://www.actiac.org.
Learn more about membership at https://www.actiac.org/join.
Donate to ACT-IAC at https://actiac.org/donate.
Intro/Outro Music: See a Brighter Day/Gloria Tells
Courtesy of Epidemic Sound
(Episodes 1-159: Intro/Outro Music: Focal Point/Young Community
Courtesy of Epidemic Sound)

Burning Questions: How Waste Management Practices Contribute to Pollution Oct 12, 2021

Show notes

The United States produces almost 300 million tons of municipal solid waste per year - everything from food to furniture to packaging to electronics. Everything we throw away has to end up somewhere, and the practices and policies that govern this process have a profound effect on our natural world. As we consider ways to combat and mitigate the threat of resilient infrastructure, we will have to confront the problems in our waste management systems.
This week on The Buzz, host Colin Larsen is joined by Denise Patel and Dr. Tok Oyewole from the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, or GAIA, a non-profit dedicated to advancing solutions for waste and pollution and ensuring our planet’s resources are sustainably conserved. They discuss the state of trash, bust some myths about waste-to-energy technologies, and make recommendations for how communities can create alternative systems to reduce their environmental impact.
GAIA website: www.no-burn.org
Background on municipal solid waste incinerators: https://www.no-burn.org/failing-incinerators/
Building a zero-waste world: www.zerowasteworld.org/zwmp

GAIA Reports:
All Talk and No Recycling
Resources on Chemical Recycling
Tale of Five Cities

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ICYMI: How Contact Centers Drive Inclusivity Efforts Sep 28, 2021

Show notes

This week, The Buzz presents a recording from ACT-IAC's 2021 CX Summit.
The pandemic has increased the public's expectations and the government's drive towards the delivery of digital services to the public and to its employees. This panel discussion focused on some concrete ways that federal agencies have utilized contact centers to reach diverse and underserved audiences, and the impact these centers have had on both employee and customer experience.
Speakers:

Mary Ann Monroe (Moderator), Senior Director, Customer Engagement Solutions and Services, Maximus
Angeline Boey, CDC-INFO Operations Lead, Division of Communication Services, CDC
Trisha Dang, Deputy Director, Veterans Relationship Management Program Office, VA
Michelle Morris, Managing Client Partner for Public Sector Customer Experience, Verizon

2021 ACT-IAC Awards: https://www.actiac.org/awards_nomination_form

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COVID Conversations: Government CX Leader Brian Whittaker Sep 21, 2021

Show notes

The Buzz with ACT-IAC presents COVID Conversations - reflections on life and work during this historic time period with members of the ACT-IAC community.
This week, host Colin Larsen is joined by Brian Whittaker, Chief Experience Officer at FDIC* and host of The Buzz's CX discussion series. Brian shares insights about his job transition during the pandemic, learning how to lead a remote workforce, dealing with stress, and his CX goals for the future.
Brian's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bwhtt/
*At the time of recording, Brian was serving as the Director of Design and Development at the CFPB

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Shark Tank: Innovative Solutions to Procurement Challenges Sep 14, 2021

Show notes

On October 14th, ACT-IAC’s Emerging Technology and Acquisition Communities of Interest (COIs) will be hosting a Shark Tank competition focused on making acquisitions easier, faster, and simpler. Government agencies, academia, and industry will have an opportunity to pitch ideas on how federal government can leverage emerging technologies to solve federal acquisition challenges. On this episode, to cover the competition in more detail and provide an overview of the submission process, The Buzz is joined by Mike Rice, Co-Founder of CornerStone IT, LLC, and Cindy Good, Management and Program Analyst for the Bureau of Fiscal Service’s Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation.

All pitches for the competition are due on September 20, 2021, here. Not pitching, but plan to attend? Make sure to register here.

In order to help inform the development of potential participant’s pitches, the Emerging Technology COI's Primers and Playbooks are available for review - listed below are links to each of the documents. Along with this, potential participants can review emerging technology use cases from across the government via the National Use Case & Solutions Library (NUCSL) here. Have questions? Chat us on our event page here: https://lnkd.in/e2Z5EM2p.

Primers and Playbooks
Blockchain Primer: https://lnkd.in/ez9Nusk
Blockchain Playbook: https://lnkd.in/e8eqEBn
AI Primer: https://lnkd.in/e2RRhSp
AI Playbook: https://lnkd.in/eP2SRXZ
Intelligent Automation Primer: https://lnkd.in/eZD6nbh
Intelligent Automation Playbook: https://lnkd.in/e2G2FfZ

Did you know? The Emerging Technology COI’s AI frameworks were recently covered in Forbes! Check out the article here.

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From the Archives: CX Recommendations from 2020 Sep 07, 2021

Show notes

This week, The Buzz presents a recording from ACT-IAC's archives.
ACT-IAC's 2020 CX Summit occurred in a particularly challenging year for customer experience. COVID-19 spotlighted the gaps in agencies where progress hadn't happened. while also highlighting agencies where those improvements had already been made.
The virtual event was closed out by a fireside chat between Kathy Conrad and Robert Shea. They discussed Robert's role in the Presidential Election Project, how to expand the focus on CX, how to measure progress, how to improve trust in governance and how to shift to digital access.
Kathy Conrad is the Director of Digital Government at Accenture Federal Services
Robert Shea is the National Managing Principal of Public Policy at Grant Thornton Public Sector
This recording has been condensed for time.
Want to learn more about how the federal government is adapting their CX policies and strategies to meet the challenges of today? Register now for ACT-IAC's 2021 CX Summit to hear more insights: https://www.actiac.org/act-iac-event/cx-summit-2021

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How to Maximize the Value of End-of-Year Dollars Aug 31, 2021

Show notes

With the end of the federal fiscal year fast approaching, agencies will be looking to use their leftover budget in a rush of 4th-quarter contracts. How can government and industry work together to ensure those end-of-year dollars are best spent to maximize an agency's mission objectives?
To answer that question this week, The Buzz is joined by Greg Giddens, former CAO & Exec Dir, Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and Construction & Office of Modernization at the VA, Luwanda Jones, Deputy Chief Information Officer of the Office of Strategic Sourcing at the VA, and Bryan Schromsky, Managing Partner of Federal Government & Public Safety for Verizon.
This episode was produced in partnership with Verizon. For more information about Verizon's Federal IT Modernization solutions, visit verizon.com/federal/

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CX Discussion: Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast Aug 24, 2021

Show notes

CX Community of Interest leader Brian Whittaker hosts another interview with a customer experience difference-maker in the federal government.
This week, Brian sits down with Amber Chaudhry, Customer Experience Lead at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
They discuss Amber's work streamlining customer experience at her previous role at the SBA, adjusting to a new workplace during the pandemic, and breaking down data silos to see a more complete picture of customer sentiment.
Amber's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amberchaudhry/

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COVID Conversations: Former NASA CIO Renee Wynn Aug 17, 2021

Show notes

The Buzz with ACT-IAC presents COVID Conversations - reflections on life and work during this historic time period with members of the ACT-IAC community.
This week, host Colin Larsen is joined by Renee Wynn, former CIO at NASA, who shares her experience helping NASA transition to a remote environment, her strategies for promoting human connection as a manager, and her plans and goals for the future, however uncertain it may seem.

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Reflections on a Career in Federal Service with Soraya Correa Aug 10, 2021

Show notes

This week, The Buzz with ACT-IAC bids a fond farewell to Soraya Correa, who retired last month after a 40-year career in government.
In this episode, Soraya sits down in conversation with colleague Harrison Smith, Director of Enterprise Digitization at the IRS, to reflect on a career that began as a GS-4 clerk typist in 1980, and ended more than 40 years later as the Chief Procurement Officer at the Department of Homeland Security.
ACT-IAC would like to profoundly thank Soraya for her years of public service, as well as her many contributions to the ACT-IAC community as a senior leader and speaker.

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