Keeping IT Brief: The Power Perspective

What makes a great leader? 
It starts with the right mix of people. 
In this episode of Keeping IT Brief: The Power Perspective, host Tracey Aubey talks with Natalie Buda Smith, Chief AI Officer at the Library of Congress, about building teams where people can challenge ideas, bring different perspectives, and actually make the work better.
Natalie gets real about what failure taught her early in her technology career, why a little healthy disagreement can be a good thing, and why leaders shouldn’t be threatened by people who know more than they do.
The conversation also explores what happens when AI gives everyone access to more information, more expertise, and more ways to solve problems. For leaders and teams, that creates new opportunities—but also new questions about focus, trust, governance, and how to keep people moving toward the same goal.
You'll also hear:
🔹  Why the best teams don't necessarily think alike
🔹  The value of curiosity and resilience 
🔹  How AI is changing teams 
🔹  Why respectful disagreement can lead to better decisions
🔹  The importance of trust and governance in innovation 
Natalie’s advice for emerging leaders is refreshingly simple: stay curious, expect to learn along the way, don’t panic when you get something wrong, and keep going.
The future is powered by perspective.
#KIBTPP #Leadership #AI #Innovation #GovTech #FederalIT #LibraryofCongress #GovForum
Keeping IT Brief: The Power Perspective with Tracey Aubey features conversations with government and industry leaders on federal IT, cybersecurity, AI, and the collaborations, culture, and technologies transforming how government operates.

Follow the show on your favorite podcast platform, and discover more conversations with the FORUM Media Network at GovForum Podcasts.

AI can sound completely confident—and still be wrong.
So how do you know when you can actually trust it?
On this episode of Keeping IT Brief: The Power Perspective, host Tracey Aubey talks with Rajesh Lingam of Adobe, an AI evaluation specialist and TrustOps researcher, about what it really takes to make AI trustworthy, safe, and ready for real-world use.
The problem? AI doesn't always fail in obvious ways. Sometimes an answer looks polished, sounds convincing, and is almost entirely correct—with one small mistake that changes everything. Think $4.7 million becoming $47 million. Or an AI confidently making up information it doesn't actually know.
Rajesh explains why AI evaluation requires a different approach than traditional software testing, what organizations should measure before deploying an AI system, and why "it worked when we tested it" isn't enough.
The conversation covers AI hallucinations, bias, responsible AI, AI safety, AI governance, grounding, TrustOps, and agentic AI—including what happens when AI moves beyond answering questions and starts making decisions and taking actions on our behalf.
Inside the episode:
• Why AI can sound right while being wrong
• How AI hallucinations create real-world business risks
• What AI evaluation actually measures
• Why accuracy, bias, safety, and grounding matter
• What TrustOps means and why it matters now
• What leaders should ask before deploying AI
• Why agentic AI raises the stakes for trust and oversight
The question isn't just "Can AI do it?"
It's "Why should we trust it to do it?"
AI isn't slowing down. The challenge is making sure our ability to evaluate and govern it can keep up.
The future is powered by perspective.
#KIBTPP #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #GenerativeAI #TrustworthyAI #AIEvaluation #AIHallucinations #ResponsibleAI #AIGovernance #TrustOps #AgenticAI 
Keeping IT Brief: The Power Perspective with Tracey Aubey features conversations with government and industry leaders on federal IT, cybersecurity, AI, and the technologies transforming how government operates.
Follow the show on your favorite podcast platform, and discover more conversations with the FORUM Media Network at GovForum Podcasts.

Cyber threats aren't just moving fast anymore—they're moving at AI speed.
So what happens when attackers can automate, adapt, and strike faster than ever before? And does collecting more cybersecurity data actually make anyone safer?
In this episode of Keeping IT Brief: The Power Perspective, Tracey Aubey sits down with John Harmon, Regional Vice President of Cyber Solutions for Global Public Sector at Elastic, to talk about OMB Memo 26-14 and why it's changing how federal agencies think about cybersecurity logging, threat detection, and network visibility.
John brings more than two decades of experience in cybersecurity, including time at the NSA, and breaks down one of the biggest shifts happening in federal cyber right now: moving from a "collect everything" mindset to focusing on the information that actually helps security teams find threats and respond when something goes wrong.
The conversation covers how lessons from previous industry cyber incidents helped shape today's cybersecurity policies, why agencies are rethinking how they store and use log data, and how AI is changing the game for both defenders and attackers.
You'll also hear:
🔹 Why more data doesn't automatically mean better security
🔹 What OMB Memo 26-14 means in plain English
🔹 How AI is helping analysts spot threats faster
🔹 The growing challenge of AI-powered cyberattacks
🔹 Why visibility is becoming one of the most valuable tools in cybersecurity
🔹 Practical advice for agencies working toward stronger cyber resilience
One of the most interesting takeaways? The future of cybersecurity may look less like humans versus machines and more like humans working alongside AI teammates.
Whether you're in federal IT, cybersecurity, government contracting, or just trying to keep up with how AI is reshaping technology, this conversation offers a practical look at what's changing—and what's coming next.
The future is powered by perspective.
#FederalCybersecurity #Cybersecurity #ArtificialIntelligence #FederalIT #GovTech #ThreatDetection #NetworkVisibility #CyberDefense #OMB2614 #CISA
CISA’s Logging Reference Architecture for OMB M-26-14
Keeping IT Brief: The Power Perspective with Tracey Aubey features conversations with government and industry leaders on federal IT, cybersecurity, AI, and the technologies transforming how government operates.
Follow the show on your favorite podcast platform, and discover more conversations with the FORUM Media Network at GovForum Podcasts.

Building software faster isn't necessarily the same thing as moving faster.
If an organization can't securely deploy it, operate it, and get it where the mission needs it, how much value is it really creating?
On this episode of Keeping IT Brief: The Power Perspective, Tracey Aubey talks with Jamie Holcomb, COO of Electrosoft, about the growing connection between AI, cybersecurity, software mobility, and mission readiness.
With more than 30 years of experience in technology and cybersecurity, Jamie has worked across the defense, intelligence, and civilian sectors. He previously served as CIO of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and as a U.S. Army company commander.
Jamie explains why software mobility is becoming essential to modern defense operations—and why developing software quickly isn't enough. The real advantage comes from being able to securely deploy, operate, and scale software across different environments and mission partners.
The conversation also digs into what happens when AI dramatically increases the amount of software organizations have to manage. That means more than writing code faster. Leaders have to think about security, governance, interoperability, monitoring, sustainment, and trust from the beginning.
And there's a bigger lesson here: modernization isn't just about replacing legacy technology. It's about changing how organizations work, empowering people, and measuring success by mission impact rather than how much software gets built.
Jamie also shares a simple way to think about the balance between speed and security—and the conversation somehow gets into VHS vs. Beta, tacos, and why you should be able to explain technology to your grandmother.
#Electrosoft #KeepingITBrief #ThePowerPerspective #GovCon #AI #Cybersecurity #SoftwareMobility #DefenseTech #FederalIT #GovTech #SoftwareModernization
The future is powered by perspective.
Keeping IT Brief: The Power Perspective with Tracey Aubey features conversations with government and industry leaders on federal IT, cybersecurity, AI, and the technologies transforming how government operates.
Follow the show on your favorite podcast platform, and discover more conversations with the FORUM Media Network at GovForum Podcasts.

Ever wonder why some tech upgrades actually make life easier… and others just create more meetings and headaches? This week on Keeping IT Brief, we’re cutting through the hype around AI, cloud tech, and digital transformation to talk about what actually works in the real world.
Our guest, Abinaya Mettupatti Sivagnanam, Cloud Development Manager at General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), joins us to break down what it takes to modernize systems in high-stakes environments where security, reliability, and efficiency really matter.
From Salesforce optimization and smarter workflows to AI in enterprise technology, Abinaya shares what organizations are getting right—and where they’re making things way more complicated than they need to be. She also talks about creating OrgLimit Monitor, a Salesforce AppExchange solution built to help organizations spot platform risks before they become expensive problems.
In this episode, we get into:
 • The biggest changes happening in cloud development and digital modernization
 • Why so many teams struggle with workflow efficiency
 • How to build systems that are secure, scalable, and actually user-friendly
 • Where AI in the workplace is making a real impact—and where it’s mostly buzzwords
 • What the future of enterprise technology and digital transformation could look like
If you’re into AI, cloud computing, workflow automation, tech trends, or the future of work, this episode is packed with practical insights and zero fluff. 🎧
#DigitalTransformation #CloudComputing #ArtificialIntelligence #GDIT #WorkflowAutomation #EnterpriseTechnology #GovTech #Innovation #Leadership #FORUMPodcastNetwork

Follow the show on your favorite podcast platform, and discover more conversations with the FORUM Media Network at GovForum Podcasts.