Recently, my colleague David Berlind introduced me to Carolyn Lawson, the CIO of California’s Public Utilities Commission. For a couple of months now, I’ve been working not just on Web 2.0 Expo, but on a new set of events the TechWeb/O’Reilly team will produce focused on the use of Web 2.0 in government, and David was excited to connect me with someone with a passion for public service, great insight into the challenges of government and technology, and an extra helping of leadership savvy.

Over lunch (for which we needed separate checks, since government employees can’t take freebies for anything over a couple of bucks), I asked Carolyn about her thoughts on the potential for the principles and technologies of Web 2.0 to transform government (and recruited her to speak at Web 2.0 Expo). As she gracefully articulated the challenges and the potential, I began to get a sense of a woman who has risen to a position of authority and power not because of her passion for technology (though she is clearly an expert), but because of her dedication to people: both the teams she leads and the public she serves. When she talked about what drives her – a firm belief that she serves the public good, that citizens rely on her teams’ systems for their safety and well-being, that her work helps people survive in a harsh world – I got shivers down my spine. And I knew that I had found the person I should profile for Ada Lovelace Day.

What is Ada Lovelace Day? It is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology, named in honor of one of the first computer programmers. A few months ago, Web 2.0 Expo Europe speaker, social software consultant, and inspiration in her own right Suw Charman-Anderson published the following on PledgeBank.com:

“I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if1,000 other people will do the same.”

What a great idea, Suw. Here’s my interview with Carolyn:

How did you get started in technology?

Out of self-defense. I was an administrative assistant at a brokerage firm; our office was in Northern California and the main office was in Southern California, and the network would constantly go down. I’d call the guys in SoCal and they’d say “what did you do?” It got tiring. So I went to Borders and bought a book on NT 3.5 and read it. I did it to avoid them, to avoid always calling for help.

Then I talked my way into my first real IT job at a property management company. The hiring manager thought I could handle the customers. I was good with the technology, but he hired me because I spoke like a human being.

After that, I decided I wanted to find out what it would take to become an IT project manager. So I applied for a job as one just so I could ask a lot of questions and use the information to make a plan. They only gave me the interview out of courtesy, but I guess they liked the questions I asked, and they found my curiosity “really entertaining,” and they actually gave me the job!

So how did you end up running IT for the Public Utilities Commission?

I eventually got a job with the California Department of General Services, working to consolidate technology across 7 teams at 12 different sites reporting to several different divisions within the department. It was a very challenging job, and I took a 40% pay cut with the move, but as I interviewed the people who supported and used these systems, and got to know them and what they struggled with daily to get their jobs done, I got very attached to them. This was also why I became a student of organizational leadership; we needed to think through the business organization to solve this problem.

You’ve spoken previously about your sources of inspiration; talk a little bit more about what drives you and why organizational leadership is so important.

I believe that what we do in government really matters. It matters to the people we serve. For example, when I started working with the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, the team there was really the working wounded. They were overworked, underpaid, and they hadn’t been appreciated. They’d lost the spark. But the problem they are there to alleviate is enormous. In the state of California, the DADP has less than 400 people. And five new people per day per employee seek treatment for addiction. I worked with this team to get them refocused on why they’d chosen this line of work in the first place. When you work in the public sector, each agency that exists was established because there is a particular need. And if you go back to that, you understand who you serve.

I helped the team at DADP refocus on what they were there to do and why it matters. I asked them, “when you don’t show up for work, what happens to your new five people?” It took a while, but eventually they were so reengaged that fights were breaking out about whose five new people were in greater need. One employee shouted out “My five people have kids!” And productivity went up, absenteeism went down, and the department got back to doing its best work.

And yet government agencies suffer from a reputation for ineffectiveness and excessive bureaucracy. Can you put that into context for us from where you sit?

Bureaucracy is really a system of checks and balances. For instance, there’s a lot of bureaucracy in the IT procurement process. The process can seem closed, cold, and even stupid at times. But there is so much money at stake, and frankly, some IT vendors are really vultures, who see government as a cash cow; these processes are in place to protect the public funds that are spent. It’s definitely not the way the private sector does it, but there’s a reason.

Speaking of IT procurement, as a public agency, we also want to support our own economy, which means working with many smaller, local vendors, many of whom really have trouble navigating the process. We have to work with them to understand what’s required, and how it’s different from selling to a company. People don’t realize that we can’t meet with vendors casually before we go into a procurement cycle. The rules are written such that our hands are tied. If we meet with them beforehand, we generally have to disqualify them. Most vendors don’t understand this.

[Note: Carolyn will be explaining how companies can sell to the public sector in her talk on Friday April 3 at Web 2.0 Expo.]

As CIO of the California PUC, you have a gigantic job. How do you stay focused? How do you prioritize?

The team. I have a really great team. I have a wonderful project management team, and a wonderful development group, and it’s all about conversation and interaction with them. If I have a rule, it’s “lead by laughter.” You have to rely on the people around you, and the biggest challenge is getting folks to a place where they understand how much you really trust them. I tell my people “I can’t function if you don’t step out of the box.” Once that realization sinks in, it’s really wonderful.

I’ve had several positions in state government and the typical pattern is that in the first six months, the leadership starts to get it. In the second six months, the team gets it. Then stuff starts bubbling up from the trenches and we really get moving.

I have to rely on the team, and the team has to work “outside the box,” because our budgets are so small. Most companies look at our budget and say “you can’t possibly function on that.” We have to find different and interesting ways of thinking about the technology we already own. People look at the maze of frightening legacy applications and wonder why we haven’t updated, and the answer is that we have to make incredibly tough choices, and we have to function 100%. Sometimes we have to make choices between providing services to the public and updating our technology, and it’s a question of where we draw the line.

Technology hasn’t always been a friendly environment for women. Have you had challenges you think were specific to your gender, and do you see this changing?

It’s getting a lot easier for women. When I worked at the property management company, I would show up to fix things and people would say, “Ok, where’s the network guy?” and I’d say “That’s me.” And they’d say, “No, I mean where’s the guy who’s going to actually fix the network?” And I’d just have to smile and say it again.

There’s less of that working for the state. It’s more controlled in government; if someone implied I wasn’t capable because I was a woman, that person could lose their job.

So it’s more of a meritocracy in the public sector?

Yes, I think so in some ways. Partly because of why people come to the public sector. If you believe in public service, you care a lot less about climbing the ladder – and ironically you climb it a lot faster that way. Also, there’s so much opportunity to work with folks at different levels, on committees and so forth, so you routinely get exposure to people several rungs up the ladder and the chance to build trust. A lot of us have worked in a lot of different roles over the years and we try different things, do different things, and mix it up. Sure, there is bureaucracy in the way; to advance, you have to take civil service exams, that kind of thing. But it’s fair. I have a hard time believing that I’d be a CIO today if I’d stayed in the private sector.

What do you think most needs to change about government technology now?

The culture of “no.” That can definitely be there, and we need to change it. There’s a mandate for change now, and it’s a great time to answer that call. The way to change it is to set a cultural expectation across the board. The old way was to beat down the chain; now we know we can make so much more happen by empowering peer groups. It used to be that 80% of the departments hired vendors to do their websites at a hefty cost. We didn’t really have that money; it was being taken off other important projects. So instead, we created a webmasters working group, and together these folks learned to do it themselves at a fraction of the cost. It wasn’t the technology they had to learn, it was how to get around all the obstacles and how to make the process work.

You’ve said before that you’re excited about how the government can adopt the principles of Web 2.0 to bring about change. What are the limits of this?

In Web 2.0 they say “fail early and often.” We can’t do that; we’re the government. We can and have to experiment, but we have to limit our exposure. When you’re serving the public, you have to be there for the people you serve.

What advice do you have for women interested in technology?

Don’t look back. Just go for it. The barriers are coming down, so there’s no reason not to get where you want to be. Just find the thing you love and go for it regardless of what it is.

Also, though, don’t count yourself as a woman. If you set yourself apart as a woman, you are inviting others to do the same. You are who you are and what you contribute, not your gender.

Tags: ada lovelace, ALD09, ALD09post, carolyn lawson, government 2.0, IT, public service

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