Women Leading the Way in Tech and the Public Sector

Tyler Podcast Episode 90, Transcript

Our Tyler Technologies podcast explores a wide range of complex, timely, and important issues facing communities and the public sector. Expect approachable tech talk mixed with insights from subject matter experts and a bit of fun. Each episode highlights the people, places, and technology making a difference. Give the podcast a listen today and subscribe.

Show Notes

Join us as we shine a spotlight on the remarkable women shaping the landscape of tech and the public sector.

On this episode, we discuss the remarkable strides made by women leaders in technology, the public sector, and in the critical realm of data access. We delve into insightful discussions with three trailblazers, Director of Data Services for the State of Maryland, Julia Fischer, Assistant Director of Budget and Performance in Pierce County, Washington, Julie Demuth, and Tyler's Director of Client Success, Marlin Jones, exploring their journeys, challenges, and triumphs.

We also look ahead to Connect 2024, which will be in Indianapolis, Indiana from May 19th to May 22nd. Registration is now open at: www.tylertech.com/connect

Learn more about the topics discussed in this episode with these resources:

• White Paper: Is Your Legacy Digital Infrastructure Putting You at Risk?
• Blog: Building Trust Through Effective Case Management
• Tyler Technologies & NACo: Modernized Systems from a Connected County
• Additional Resources for Counties
• Additional Resources for States
• Blog: Is it Time for Your County to Move to the Cloud?
• Blog: Women in Cybersecurity See Positive Growth
• Podcast: Leading Change: Women in Cybersecurity

And you can listen to other episodes of the podcast at this link: www.tylertech.com/resources/podcast

Let us know what you think about the Tyler Tech Podcast in this survey!

Episode Transcript

Julia Fischer: It is my lifelong goal to continue to help people understand first, right, about how geospatial data and visualizing data and looking at data and how you as a person interact with your surroundings, your world.

And so, by then applying that within government, it's, okay, do we have the right services in the right neighborhoods?

Are we meeting the needs, you know, of the constituents of Maryland based on the world that is actually around them? You know, both economically, geographically, environmentally, our technology is applied in every industry.

Josh Henderson: From Tyler Technologies, It's The Tyler Tech podcast. Your source for insightful conversations with thought leaders addressing the pressing issues in our communities.

I'm Josh Henderson, and I'm on the corporate marketing team here at Tyler. Thanks for joining us. In each episode, we dive into the essential topics shaping our society and shed light on the individuals, places and technologies empowering the public sector.

If you like what you hear, please consider giving us a five-star rating and review, subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and recommending the show to others. And today, we're bringing you our third and final installment in our Women in Tech series.

We've heard from so many amazing women throughout the month of March, exploring career journeys, tech industry and public sector insights, as well as the importance of diversity and equality, and ongoing challenges in the workforce. And today we have another very special episode.

We'll be hearing from three unique perspectives.

As the Assistant Director of Budget and Performance for Pierce County, Washington, Julie Demuth will join us to discuss how equitable access to data has benefited Pierce County's workforce and its residents.

We'll also hear Tyler's own Director of Client Success, Marlin Jones, about her amazing professional journey, and the importance of diverse voices in the tech space. But first, we'll learn about how the Maryland state government is utilizing open data and modernizing their digital infrastructure with Julia Fisher. Julia is the Director of Data Services and Geographic Information Systems for the State of Maryland's Department of IT and Geographic Information Office.

There is so much to dive into with Julia, so let's get to it. We hope you enjoy this episode. Julia, can you share with me a little bit about your career journey up to and including the work you're doing now at Maryland's Geographic Information Office?

Julia Fischer: Sure.

Yeah. I can I'm actually going to go back to, if I can, if you will, you know, humor me. So, when I was in college, I, transferred really last minute and I just needed a course to fill the day, you know, fill the fill the schedule.

And the teacher was like, there's these geography course that are available. And I was like, okay. Like, growing up, I'd always like maps. My dad is a map enthusiast, urban planner, you know, by trade. And also, he would plan these elaborate trips, and we would go all over the country.

And so, I really got to appreciate the geography all over, you know, the United States, the diversity and the beauty of it. And it really, you know, it was something that always intrigued me. But I didn't know you could study it. Right? It just wasn't something that was traditionally, what we were traditionally made aware of in school. So, I took a class, loved it. I said, can I take another?

Loved that one. And then they were like, you know, you can major in this. And I was like, stop. You are lying to me. Like, I was, like, I'm in, you know. So, geography is my major, GIS, geographic information systems was just really hitting its stride when I was in college. So that will give you a little sense of how old I am.

But so, I learned a little bit about GIS. That that was the career path that was available, within geography when I came out of college and the rest is history. And I just, since then, I went to a Maryland school, you know, I have, you know, worked in Maryland, and now I work for the state of Maryland, and I have for over 16 years. And it is just, it is my lifelong goal to continue to help people understand, first, right, about how geospatial data and visualizing data, and looking at data and how you as a person interact with your surroundings, your world, right? How impactful that can be, but also to then put yourself in other people's shoes and see how, what the geography is around their world.

And so, by then applying that within government, it's okay, do we have the right services in the right neighborhoods?

Are we meeting the needs, you know, of the constituents of Maryland based on the world that is actually around them, you know, both economically, geographically, environmentally.

I mean, our technology is applied in every industry. Find me an industry where it's not applied, and I will find you a way that we can apply it. So that is just I it's just been, you know, they say, you know, if you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life, like, because I just love being able to continue to offer opportunities for using the technology. And now really helping and, like, getting on that whole data bandwagon of data is so powerful. It can, you know, make, we say, if you can cause transformative change, and it really can. If you just look at the objective data, there's just so much opportunity.

If you add that spatial component, I mean, I've seen countless eyes just, you know, open up.

Josh Henderson: Now we'll get to some of the open data stuff that's happening in Maryland because I'm really fascinated by that.

But I'm curious just to give just as an overall, like, understanding of you know, the GIO, as well as just data within Maryland. Sort of, what are some of the what's the mission? What are some of the, you know, initiatives and goals, and what about it excites you?

Julia Fischer: So, the geographic information office here in Maryland was formally established with a GIO in 2012. It's been a little bit over a decade, and our mission hasn't changed since the beginning.

And that was that we're going to take the data and take the technologies that we know that agencies have, and we're going to evangelize, collaborate, and bring people together to improve government services, as well as lower the cost of those government services through that collaborative effort.

The second part of the mission and, again, I didn't set the mission my predecessors did, but they were way ahead of their time, and we've taken it and run with that as well, is that they were saying we will make, it is our mission to make data as open and freely available as we are able based on, you know, ensuring security and privacy of the data that we are stewards of as government entities.

And our mission at the very highest level has never changed. It hasn't needed to, because that's exactly what we continue to need to do today, is just continue to get out there, continue to empower, and we're really big on empowering others, not just doing the work for them, to understand the possibility, the power of data, the power of the technology, and the power of releasing that data out into the broader community. There are a lot of smart people in Maryland.

A lot. Much smarter than myself.

We have academic, right, institutions that are just bringing some of the brightest, to Maryland in, you know, federal facilities that are bringing the brightest to Maryland. But with the internet, like, it doesn't just have to be in Maryland. So, we are just thrilled to be able to continue to have a platform. To put as much authoritative data out there. And the problems that are solved, the new solutions, the new collab, correlations that are found, you know, within the data because we do get it out there and we do get it into the hands of all these really smart and driven and innovative and diverse, right, people from, you know, very different backgrounds, but very different perspectives as well. It all benefits the citizens of Maryland in the end. So, I, we are honored to play a part of the small part in doing that and continuing to push as much data out through those open data portals as we possibly can.

Josh Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And I you know, a lot of it is, especially working in government or working in the public sector, just in general, is getting that buy-in, to, you know, get a move away from those legacy systems, you know, bring your, bring your teams into sort of a modern digital infrastructure.

How have you seen, you know, the state of Maryland buy into that and buy into the idea that, oh, yeah, we need to modernize our tech. And, you know, how do you continue to see that happening?

Julia Fischer: It's interesting that because it doesn't start with modernizing the tech. It starts with modernizing the mindset.

Right? The people.

And I think if any government representative is telling you honestly, it's a mixed bag. And especially now people are, right, AI, there's, you know, there's a real fear around, technology and things where they're saying a bot is going to take over your job.

You know, those of us in the tech industry, we know that that's not it's not the start and the end of it.

And we really know that there's a lot of promise to being able to, again, fulfill our mission too, you know, which is many people's mission. It's improve services with, you know, the resources that we have, right? Continue to be more effective, continue to be more efficient, and we want to use technology in a smart way, right? In a controlled way and in a transparent way, right? Because I think in all of those, you build that confidence among employees, employees, colleagues, right, but that is how we're going to approach this, continuing to educate and outreach, because they all have a role to play. We are not trying to replace anyone. They all have a part to play.

They all are going to be contributing to the solution even as we advance out of, you know, the legacy and into the unknown, in many cases.

And so that role, I may have said it before, of evangelizing, it really is a large part of you know, my job, my manager's jobs, because we're the ones that are getting out in front of, you know, our colleagues and the other agencies and just helping them to understand, right, that this how it's going to help, acknowledging the fear, acknowledging the concern, and telling them, right, how we're all going to, you know, do this together.

But that's yeah. So, the technology is way ahead. Like, I mean, the technology is going whether we follow or not. And so, we do use the technology, right, as a way to prove, right, what we're saying. But it's really, it really comes down to the person-to-person conversations, and not just once, but continuously, and building that trust that is going to shift the culture and help us continue to advance.

Josh Henderson: Stay tuned. We'll be right back with more of The Tyler Tech Podcast.

Jade Champion: I hope you're enjoying listening to this episode of The Tyler Tech Podcast. My name is Jade Champion, and I'm here with Breanna Case to talk all things Tyler Connect 2024 in Indianapolis from May 19th to May 22nd.

Breanna Case: That's right, Jade. Our annual user conference is quickly approaching, and there's still time to register if you haven't already.

Jade Champion: And we have so much planned for this year, from special events to amazing speakers and plenty of networking opportunities. What are some highlights for 2024?

Breanna Case: We are really excited about some of the speakers we have coming to this stage. This year, you'll get to hear from best-selling author and FutureThink CEO, Lisa Bodell, chef, and author Jeff Henderson, as well as Black Ambition CEO, Felecia Hatcher.

Jade Champion: I also heard comedian Leanne Morgan will be performing at our Client Appreciation Event. We hope you're just as excited as we are to join us in Indy, where we're expecting over 5000 attendees and more than 800 sessions including product training and general education classes. If you still need to register, now's the time. Go to tylertech.com/connect. Now let's get back to The Tyler Tech Podcast.

Josh Henderson: Up next is Julie Demuth. Pierce County, Washington's Assistant Director of Budget and Performance.

And she walks us through what led her to local government and how the county is making the most of their data and technology.

Josh Henderson: Julie, thanks so much for joining us today on the podcast. So, let's jump right into your career journey and your career path. Can you just share with our audience a little bit about your career journey and touch on how you sort of came to decide on pursuing this career path?

Julie Demuth: Sure. I actually spent 12 years in the private sector at the start of my career.

And was just seeking to have something a little bit more meaningful in terms of my career. I left the private sector and started working for the nonprofit sector, and that led me to want to go back to school and get a master's in public administration.

So, it took a couple of years to do that. And then I landed here at Pierce County, working for local government and I’ve been here for about ten and a half years. So, my current role, I'm the assistant director of budget and performance, so I oversee our county's budget, all aspects of the budget, budget development through adoption, implementation monitoring.

And I also oversee our performance management functions of the county. So, I have a pretty robust research and data analysis team. So, between my budget team and my research and data analysis team, technology is a huge component of the work that we do. On the research and data analysis side, we're using technology to you know, churn through a ton of data, trying to draw insights and analysis from that data to help inform decision making.

Whether it's our elected officials making policy decisions, whether we're making resource allocation decisions in our budget, my primary goal is that key decisions of our county are supported by evidence, and data-driven decisions. So, you know, and being in a government entity, I think technology is, it's huge. And the world around us, you know, private companies, society. Everyone's innovating.

Things are changing so quickly.

So, in order for us to stay relevant within the government space, we need to continue innovating as well. And that's where technology comes in and plays a huge role in helping us deliver more efficient and more effective services for the constituents that we serve.

Josh Henderson: What are some significant ways that you've seen data and equitable access to data benefit Pierce County?

Julie Demuth: We launched our open data program back in 2017.

So, we've had our program in place for a while and each year we've been incrementally growing the program.

You know, originally, it started out with making performance data available to the public, so putting our performance measures out on our open data platform and making all of the underlying data accessible to constituents.

It's really grown from there into, you know, the analysis that we're doing to help support decision making.

So recently, we've developed a lot of, I think, really important dashboards in our county's priority area. And so, in Pierce County, housing and homelessness is a really significant issue that we're trying to tackle here. So, we have created a dashboard that shows the, not only the dollars that we're putting towards homelessness, but the outcomes of those dollars, you know, how many people are we impacting? How many people are able to exit to permanent housing.

And that data is really helping to drive, decision making, you know, looking at the programs and the services that have the best outcomes and are most cost effective. So, I think from a resident standpoint, being able to analyze that data and show our residents that we are making the best decisions possible, demonstrates, you know, the work that we're trying to do and the progress that we're making in important issue areas.

Josh Henderson: Yeah. And, I mean, a lot of the work the county governments are doing, modernization is obviously a huge component of that, moving into the digital space, you know, recognizing the importance of open data, things like that, as you mentioned. So how would you personally describe or what in your opinion, is the importance of modernizing your tech systems and creating efficiencies through tech, for the county's workforce and its residents?

Julie Demuth: Well, we are a government entity, so we have limited resources, right? So, the more of, more we can utilize technology to make our jobs easier the better benefit that we're giving to the public.

So, technology has helped make, you know, our data collection efforts more cost effective, our ability to analyze the data, easier. It's more streamlined.

We put a lot of effort into automating data updates so that the data that we are providing to the public, it's timely, it's relevant, it's useful.

So, technology is key in all of that. And years ago, it is a lot of manual data collection, tracking things on Excel spreadsheets, it was just a little overwhelming, and it's hard to, really put that information to good use. So, technology helps us make everything more effective, easier to do, especially with, you know, lean resources that governments typically have.

Josh Henderson: How much of it is buy-in would you say? From, you know, from your teams, from leadership, how much of it is it is buy-in from your perspective?

Julie Demuth: Lots. It's a lot of change management.

You have to demonstrate the benefits.

I would say we've had pretty good success with buy-in. We are a county that's really interested in modernization and utilizing technology the best way that we can.

So, we have, our departments fully support it. And I think as long as we can show the benefits and show the gains, it's pretty easy for us to get buy-in.

Josh Henderson: What can you say are some of the, you know, highlights of your time there?

Or, you know, what keeps you, what keeps you excited day-to-day working for Pierce County?

Julie Demuth: I never knew that local government could be so interesting.

It changes on a day-to-day basis. I mean, the challenge that came up yesterday is a different challenge that came up today. There are there are a lot of politics in local government that I never thought occurred.

So, it's just it's constantly being challenged.

It's constantly also being able to do things better and having the support to do that, you know, we are constantly looking at better ways to do things, not only for our budget, but in all of the data analysis work that we do. You know, how can we improve our county services, how can we make things better if our constituents?

Josh Henderson: And our final guest on today's episode is Tyler's very own Director of Client Success, MarlIn Jones.

When it comes to the technology needs of the public sector, Marlin knows all about that and shares a bit about her path to this role and her perspective on working as a woman in tech.

Marlin, thanks for joining us. Can you just share a little bit about your journey in tech and touch on how you sort of to decide on pursuing this career path that you're on?

Marlin Jones: Yeah.

The path that I took to get to where I am today was a long winding fork in the road, until I finally made it to the right yellow brick road.

I went through so many different diverse jobs where I was a manager of a comedy club, I was manager at a doctor's office.

And when I stepped into my first job, where I really got to see how things were made. It was like a look behind the curtain for all of my Wizard of Oz fans. I got to really understand what technology can do. And I wanted to be a part of that.

And once I got in there, and I could really see how excited people were, the excellence that was happening, I just could not stop taking on more and more opportunities to learn about technology. And I think the fact that it is so ever changing, I think that's the part that I love the most. So, I found my home in technology, and it's one of those things that we know is never going to go away. So, there's no place like technology.

Josh Henderson: What do you take away from that?

What do you take away from, you know, working with clients from hearing their successes, their failures, what are some of the things that kind of, like, light you up day-to-day in dealing with clients?

Marlin Jones: The things that just light me up, it gives me great joy, it's just knowing that clients are choosing us, and they trust us. And that when that aha moment or that light bulb turns on, or they say, oh my gosh, I've been doing this the hard way for five years. There is nothing better for me. I find such great joy in just knowing that I'm, get to help people day in and day out.

Josh Henderson: And you know, having celebrated Women's History Month in March, and focusing a lot on Women in Tech here on the podcast. Marlin, I wanted to ask your opinion on why you think it's important to have a diverse and equitable workforce and why it's ultimately beneficial for a company to have a variety of voices and backgrounds and experiences on their staff?

Marlin Jones: My goodness, such a great question about how to get more people more diverse people at the table. One, because you've got to hear the voices of the other people. When you go in with so many like-minded people, you come out with a like-minded product that is not going to service everyone out in the community. When you get more people, you get more questions, you get more what if’s, you get more, information that you can use to make a product that is, going to be more consumed by your audience because you've taken a lot of those extra things into consideration.

So, for me, if your own if your only taking answers and information regardless of which side or which race you are. If you're only taking information, from people that act and think like you, you're doing, you're doing yourself such a disservice because it's so important.

Josh Henderson: And that's it for today's episode. Many thanks to Marlin Jones, Julie Demuth, and Julia Fischer for joining us on this episode.

Advancing equity and inclusion for women in the workforce is essential for fostering a diverse and dynamic public sector. Embracing gender diversity not only promotes fairness and equality, but also unlocks a wealth of untapped talent and perspectives. By providing equal opportunities for women, public sector agencies can harness the full potential of their workforce. From leadership positions to technical roles, ensuring gender equity cultivates an environment where innovation flourishes, and government services are more effectively delivered to all residents.

Tyler Technologies creates solutions made for the public sector and has experts with government experience ready to support you on your journey.

I hope you're excited about what the future holds and will reach out to us at podcast@tylertech.com to connect with a subject matter effort if you'd like to learn more.

And whether it's empowering your workforce or modernizing your digital infrastructure, or something else entirely. We want to hear from you about what you'd enjoy hearing more of and how we can make The Tyler Tech Podcast even better.

Fill out our audience survey in the show notes today to let us know how you heard about the show and your ideas for future episodes.

And don't forget to leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. For Tyler Technologies, I'm Josh Henderson. Thank you so much for joining The Tyler Tech Podcast.