Can Maryland's Other “CIO” Cultivate Innovation in Government?

If innovation is driven by resource constraints, by "doing more with less," Sivak will be in the right place at the right time. Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley's 2012 budget included billions in proposed cuts, including hundreds of millions pared from state agencies. More difficult decisions will be in the 2013 budget as well.

The challenge now is how to bring ideas to fruition in the context of state government, where entrenched bureaucracy, culture, aging legacy IT systems and more prosaic challenges around regulations stand in the way.

One clear direction is to find cost savings in modern IT, where possible. Moving government IT systems into the cloud won't be appropriate in all circumstances. Enterprise email, however, appears to be a ripe area for migration. Maryland is moving to the cloud for email, specifically to Google Apps for Enterprise...