Caron Beesley

If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s that a pandemic is the mother of invention. This is nowhere more evident than in higher education. To ensure the seamless delivery of quality learning, colleges and universities have rushed to add or upgrade their IT, edtech, and monitoring tools.
But this isn’t necessarily a good thing. Too many tools—many of them operating in silos—can be cumbersome for students and educators to use and time-consuming for IT teams to support. They also was...

Bipartisan members of the House recently introduced legislation that would require the government to drastically modernize the United States’ digital identity infrastructure. At the same time, lawmakers are calling on the Office of Management and Budget to examine the feasibility of a federal governmentwide digital identity verification system.
Both efforts are long overdue. Unfortunately, the absence of secure, accessible, interoperable digital credentials increases security vulnerabilities,...

As cyber threats evolve and business models change, maintaining a mature cybersecurity program can be challenging. You need to be confident that your organization’s current security tools and techniques are effective. All it takes is a software misconfiguration or a delay in patching a system for vulnerabilities to creep into your IT environment.

Fortunately, the Center for Internet Security (CIS) provides a set of standards that your organization can use to gauge the effectiveness of its cybersecurity program. These 18 standards – known as CIS Critical Security Controls – evolve each year to

Even when these vulnerabilities are addressed, new ones creep in over time. It’s a frustrating scenario for any CISO or CIO looking to achieve a mature and reputable cybersecurity posture and comply with security control frameworks such as NIST, ISO, and more.
The trouble is, the methods available to assess the effectiveness of your security controls require significant manual effort, expertise, and analysis. They can also be costly. Consequently, your security teams may miss important vulner...

Since schools transitioned to remote learning, districts have added or upgraded their IT education technology and monitoring tools to provide better outcomes for all. But it’s not necessarily a good thing. The saturation of edtech tools may be leading to wasted money, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities. In 2020, the deployment of edtech tools in schools increased by nearly 90% year-over-year. With such a heavy reliance on technology, tool sprawl seems almost inevitable. But it doesn’t h...

Amid a rising tide of ransomware attacks against governments and schools nationwide accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, tech pros are prioritizing investments in core technologies to manage risk, including security and compliance, network infrastructure, and cloud computing.
But implementation is hampered by dwindling resources and access to personnel training, according to a new survey by SolarWinds. The report finds a lack of budget and resources are the top challenge to utilizing technol...

Since the passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act in March, state and local government officials have been mulling their spending priorities. Where will the $350 billion in direct aid to state and local agencies go?
But perhaps the bigger challenge is limiting and monitoring the fraud, waste, and abuse that has plagued other agencies. For example, in Maryland, an estimated $500 million was paid out in fraudulent unemployment claims during the pandemic.
As states and localities s...

There’s a lot to think about when starting a business, and expenses are one of them. The costs you incur now can help you determine if you need to secure funding, at what point you’ll break even, and where you can realize savings.
While the average cost of starting a business can run into tens of thousands of dollars, many small and microbusinesses – particularly home-based companies – can get started for much less.
Here is a list of 25+ small business expenses (grouped by category), plus tip...

Intelligent automation technologies offer significant value to federal government agencies, if implemented strategically. The latest shiny new technology may claim to support unlimited automation opportunities – built and deployed with ease – but it’s rarely that simple. This is especially true when applying intelligent automation at scale. Technology and tooling are table stakes; that’s the easy(ish) part.
I previously led the establishment and direction of the U.S. Army Financial Management...

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed glaring inefficiencies in existing methods of vital records management, including a lag in cause-of-death reporting and delays in providing families with vital records for their loved ones.

But with federal pandemic relief funding on the way, now is the time for state and local governments to modernize their vital records management systems (VRMS) and reap the benefits. But what should governments look for in a VRMS? Here are four capabilities to consider.