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Ever to Conquer: The Relentless Pursuit of Public Sector Innovation
RedLeif's PubSec Newsletter
Welcome to this week's edition as we continue building a coalition of leaders from all across the public sector ecosystem. This weeks briefing includes:
This Week in DOGE: Opportunities for secure modernization continue being uncovered
AI and PubSec Innovation: The US Dep. of Treasury Leans in and Utah partners to enhance its AI governance framework
Digital Transformation: The vulnerabilities and costs of legacy systems continue being exposed
Public Policy: The Trump Administration has begun overhauling the FAR
Procurements and Partnerships: Google, GSA, and DOGE show the blueprint
Cybersecurity & Data Privacy: The Whole-of-Society approach continues gaining steam
Onward!
"This Week in DOGE": Efficiency and Fraud Prevention (relevant to FED 🏛️ readers)
The Department of Government Efficiency continues its mission to streamline operations and tackle waste, fraud, and abuse across federal programs. FedScoop reports on DOGE's engagement with the Office of Biometric Identity Management, including discussions around the complex HART program, highlighting the department's expanding influence on federal administrative functions.
A recent 60 MINUTES report brought the scale of fraud elimination into sharp focus, illustrating the immense task within government programs. While the report centered on federal fraud schemes, the methods employed by sophisticated criminal networks frequently impact state and local programs as well. The establishment of DOGE signals a renewed commitment to operational efficiency and fiscal integrity that creates both challenges and opportunities for agencies and their technology partners.
Key Concept: Operational Security (OPSEC)
The process of identifying critical information and determining actions to prevent adversaries from obtaining sensitive data that could compromise operations, balancing transparency needs with protection of essential assets.
Public Sector Executive Takeaway
The opportunities to modernize legacy systems and make government exponentially more efficient are almost infinite. When strong executive backing, technical talent, secure access to data, enterprise visibility, and a money trail are combined, the recipe is pretty straight forward - it’s the cooking that can be difficult. If you’re being expected to deliver DOGE-like results for your organization: follow the data, follow the data, and communicate accurately and consistently.
Industry Executive Takeaway
Aligning to executive priorities is important and we should all want to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse, but using an executive priority as a talking point can do more harm than good if it’s not done effectively. Understand the “why” behind the priority and be able to clearly articulate clearly and tangibly “what” your solution will do to help your prospects deliver a major win to the executive. The “how” matters with technical stakeholders but with just about every other PubSec stakeholder - if you’re explaining how it works, you’re losing.
🎙️ Check Out The Latest Episode of the Ever To Conquer Podcast 🎙️
AI and PubSec Innovation: Transforming Public Services (relevant to both FED 🏛️ & SLED 🛷 readers)
Artificial intelligence is increasingly viewed as key to modernizing government operations and improving service delivery. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently suggested that "AI could help offset potential IRS workforce cuts" by enhancing tax collection efficiency—signaling growing federal interest in AI for complex administrative tasks. The Secretary notes: "Through smarter IT and this AI boom, we can enhance collections" without relying on inexperienced staff.
At the state level, Utah has partnered with a nonprofit to strengthen its AI governance framework. This proactive approach indicates growing focus on ethical AI implementation to ensure fairness, transparency, and accountability. Looking abroad provides instructive examples of successful government AI implementation. Wyatt Kash interviewed Estonia's Ambassador, highlighting their advanced use of AI to deliver integrated digital services to citizens, offering valuable lessons for U.S. agencies.
Key Concept: Responsible AI Governance
The establishment of frameworks for the ethical development, deployment, and monitoring of artificial intelligence systems, ensuring they operate transparently, fairly, and in alignment with organizational values and regulatory requirements.
Public Sector Executive Takeaway
Understanding that AI is really just an accelerant on the use of data, the ability to leverage AI’s power securely is directly related to the strength of your data governance and data hygiene. Those things sound boring to many but they are the foundation upon which your AI house will be built. The foundation will either be strong enough to scale or will crack under the pressure.
Industry Executive Takeaway
Everything everyone is selling these days is AI which means slapping the AI label on your deck and repeatedly talking about AI is just noise to your prospects. No matter what a strategic plan says, the prospect’s pain point is not AI - it’s the problem that the secure use of AI can solve for them. Showing them you understand their pain and building the trust necessary to earn the opportunity to solve it will stand out in the midst of all the AI noise.
Digital Transformation: Addressing Legacy Systems (relevant to both FED 🏛️ & SLED 🛷 readers)
One of the most persistent challenges for government agencies is the modernization of aging IT infrastructure that hinders efficiency, increases security risks, and complicates the adoption of modern digital services. An inspector general report revealed that widespread vulnerabilities within the VA's legacy KVault critical data system "could be catastrophic" if exploited. This underscores the urgent need for robust, secure data management solutions.
The Department of Defense is actively seeking ways to accelerate technology adoption through the Software Fast-Track (SWIFT) process, which aims to streamline software authorizations by examining risk criteria, current capabilities, and business practices. The Pentagon is actively seeking industry input on this initiative, creating opportunities for vendors to influence policy.
Key Concept: Technical Debt
The accumulated cost and complexity that results from choosing expedient technology solutions over optimal ones, creating systems that become increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain, secure, and enhance over time.
Public Sector Executive Takeaway
There is tremendous opportunity to retire the compounding costs of legacy tech debt that continues rising at exponential rates. For far too long, the only option for CIOs and their teams was to outsource to an SI on a time and materials basis for customer developments that consistently run way over budget and timeline on the backs of endless change orders. No longer is that the case - modern data capabilities put you back in command and can free your from the false choice between settling for COBOL or being responsible for another multi-year IT system boondoggle that fails to deliver.
Industry Executive Takeaway
It all begins with user stories and personas. Legacy systems remain in operation largely because they support critical functions for so many different stakeholders across the enterprise. Spend the time to understand who the users are, what they depend on the system for, what data is necessary to complete transactions, and what an affordable and effective future state for that workflow could easily look like. Here’s the thing, the public sector employees forced to use legacy systems aren’t exactly huge fans of the limited functionality and tragic user experience. They want to see change too - so help them be the change.
Public Policy: Data, Copyright, and Regulatory Changes (relevant to both FED 🏛️ & SLED 🛷 readers)
Significant shifts are underway in federal acquisition policy with potential ripple effects across all government levels. The Trump administration has begun overhauling the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to make procurement quicker, more efficient, and less burdensome. A new website, acquisition.gov/far-overhaul, provides details and solicits feedback, offering a chance to influence new acquisition policies.
The legal and policy implications of AI continue to evolve, particularly regarding copyright. Thomas Höppner discusses the US Copyright Office's report on AI training and copyright, followed by the unexpected firing of the Director. This development creates uncertainty for both government agencies and technology companies developing AI solutions.
Key Concept: Policy Cascading
The process by which federal policy changes flow downward to influence state and local government decisions, creating ripple effects that impact procurement priorities, funding availability, and program implementation at all levels.Key Concept: Policy Cascading
Public Sector Executive Takeaway
Procurement design is every bit as important as solution design when looking at PubSec technology projects. And yet - procurement reforms and best practices are all too often an afterthought placed on the back burner. The reality is that most IT projects are placed on a trajectory for success or failure at the procurement stage. It’s critical that user stories drive the design of any purchase AND that the procurement office clearly understands what problem you’re trying to solve, who would be impacted by the solution, and how success of the project will be measured so they can be a teammate that helps accelerate your roadmap rather than becoming a barrier to your progress when they have questions.
Rather than expecting them to simply "complete the technology transaction”, take the time to build trust and partnership with them that leads to them collaboratively developing process reforms that increase both public trust AND speed of acquisition.
Industry Executive Takeaway
Understand the acquisition strategy and recognize that an RFP, ITN, ITB, and RFQ are all fundamentally different processes that require different approaches. Identify the stakeholders in your audience and equip them with the information they need to select you AND be a champion or influencer when the team is deliberating. A major part of that process is helping procurement and business executives understand that just about everything a PubSec CXO could ever need has already been competitively procured on a cooperative purchasing agreement and that a traditional RFP won’t do anything but add time and costs while limiting access to a marketplace of solutions.
Procurement and Partnerships: Driving Efficiency and Inclusion (relevant to both FED 🏛️ & SLED 🛷 readers)
Efforts to make procurement more equitable are gaining momentum. Xavier Hughes of Prokur welcomes Sam Cornale as a thought partner, aligning on the goal of making government procurement more efficient, inclusive, and transparent. Meanwhile, Michael Garland highlights a productive partnership between GSA and Google, showcasing how collaboration with private sector innovators can yield significant benefits for federal operations.
Key Concept: Modern Procurement
The strategic use of technology, data analytics, and collaborative partnerships to transform government purchasing from a compliance-focused process into a value-creation function that enhances efficiency, transparency, and equitable access for diverse suppliers.
Public Sector Executive Takeaway
Strategically-negotiated enterprise agreements are a growing trend and that’s a good thing for the taxpayer, the enterprise PubSec CXO, and the good actors in the industry. Recognize the difference between “license to hunt” discounts and true enterprise buying power. Pre-negotiated discount structures that waterfall with tiers of enterprise adoption are a great way to maximize value across the enterprise in a way that is a win for the buyer and a win for the seller.
Industry Executive Takeaway
Out - a productivity software provider signing an enterprise agreement and then charging individual agencies within that same enterprise as much as 70% more for the exact same license under the exact same enterprise agreement. They’ve effectively been able to get away with responding to a prospect asking “how much does it cost?” with “how much money do you have?” Legally allowable under the enterprise agreement? Sure. Behavior that indicates they can be a trusted partner? Absolutely not.
In - enterprise deals like the one Google worked with GSA and DOGE. Clear and transparent pricing that drives enterprise discounts with adoption. PubSec execs want clearly understood pricing that can be compared against the benefit so they can do basic value calculations. There’s a lot of revenue to be had for companies that lean into transparency in an effort to build trust.
Data Privacy: Balancing Security and Innovation (relevant to both FED 🏛️ & SLED 🛷 readers)
As government agencies adopt more sophisticated data analysis tools and AI capabilities, the imperative to protect sensitive information grows stronger. The recent cybersecurity incidents highlight the interconnected nature of data vulnerabilities across public and private sectors. Agencies must implement robust data protection measures while still enabling innovation that drives improved service delivery.
Jen Easterly emphasizes that protecting sensitive data requires a whole-of-society approach, with government and industry sharing responsibility for safeguarding critical information. This collaborative model becomes even more essential as AI systems require vast datasets for training and operation, creating new privacy considerations at the intersection of innovation and security.
Key Concept: Privacy-Preserving Innovation
The development and implementation of advanced technologies that deliver improved capabilities while maintaining robust protections for sensitive data, often through techniques like differential privacy, federated learning, and secure multi-party computation.
Public Sector Executive Takeaway
Whole of Society is exactly right - if cyber criminals do not care what branch or level of government or how they compromise public sector data then our efforts to defend the data must be a collective. Constituents don’t care how their data was compromised nearly as much as they care that it was compromised. So whether it is a PubSec collective of federal, state, and local or it is private sector entities that integrate with or access PubSec data, modern cybersecurity requires a Whole of Society approach.
Industry Executive Takeaway
There’s tremendous value delivery where you build a coalition of prospects across jurisdictions and proactively present the collective with enterprise pricing they could never achieve on their own. The approach supports a collective defense, increases access to premium solutions, and accelerates pipeline growth.
Conclusion
This week's intelligence briefing highlights the interconnected challenges and opportunities facing both public sector leaders and their industry partners. From defending against sophisticated cyber threats to strategically adopting AI, modernizing legacy systems, navigating complex policy decisions, and reforming procurement, success requires collaborative approaches that leverage the strengths of both sectors. As workforce changes and policy reforms reshape the landscape, government agencies and technology providers must focus on shared goals of efficiency, security, and improved service delivery to forge productive partnerships that deliver meaningful results for citizens.