Chief Technology Officer, MAXIMUS INC
Mike Raker, Chief Technology Officer at Maximus on Fed Gov Today
In this interview with Mike Raker, Chief Technology Officer at Maximus, the focus is on leveraging technology to transform ...
About Mike Raker
In a September 2024 interview, Mike Raker, Chief Technology Officer at Maximus, discussed the role of technology in improving government customer experience. He stated that government services should maximize engagement with citizens and described a transition from traditional methods like phone calls and emails to multimodal engagement including social media and text. Raker emphasized that the industry-government partnership should focus on adapting technologies used in personal lives to better serve citizens. Raker said that as technology accelerates, it is important to consider the desired outcome and how technology can enable better, faster, or cheaper service delivery. He noted that the transition requires both traditional change management and adaptation to new technologies. On measuring results, Raker stated that the ultimate measure of success remains whether citizens received the intended service on time and were served well, while adding that AI-enabled services require additional measures to ensure models are not drifting and are providing the intended feedback.
Transcript (14 segments)
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Interviewer0:03
Welcome back. This week is the six-month anniversary of the White House executive order on customer experience. Agency CX leaders say some of their most important partnerships inside agencies are their technology counterparts. Mike Raker is Chief Technology Officer at Maximus. Mike, welcome. Thanks for joining me. What do you mean when you talk about the next generation of customer experience in government?
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Mike Raker0:24
Yeah, I think if you look at the executive order and other things that are going on, it's really about how do we make sure we maximize the engagement with our citizens. Government is in place to serve citizens, so in all aspects of providing those services, how do we make sure that we can deliver the services that they need and the technology that they want for whatever is necessary.
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Interviewer0:46
What are some of the technology that agency CX people are relying on those tech counterparts across agencies to really do their job?
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Mike Raker0:54
Sure, yeah, good question. If you look in the past, most of the engagement has been through traditional means: phone calls, emails, web, and the like. And we're transitioning to how do you think about all multimodal methods of engagement, so social media, text, anything that we use in our personal lives to communicate and exchange information with commercial companies is what the government's bringing to citizen-enabled services.
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Interviewer1:22
What should government professionals understand about that transition of commercial technology to their usages that maybe they haven't had a chance to wrap their arms around yet?
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Mike Raker1:30
Yeah, that's a good question. I think one, the technology is there because we use it in our personal lives. But I think it's also about the adaptation to what's unique about the government space that we may not do in our commercial lives. So how do we make sure we extend to the maximum edge so that we can have the accessibility options that are necessary in that space? What are the unique policy and other aspects that a government organization has to enable and deal with that maybe a commercial entity can make different choices around? And so I think that's where the industry and the government partnership is really about having those conversations and making sure we can transition the technology that we use in our everyday lives into how we use them to have the government better serve citizens.
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Interviewer2:16
A lot of CX people that I talk to across agencies are talking about particular pieces of technology and maybe aligning them to their mission rather than the reverse. Is there a risk in that in your view?
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Mike Raker2:27
I understand the desire to think about emerging technologies, and I think that's probably wise. But it strikes me that there's a chicken and egg problem potentially. There always is. As technology continues to accelerate and move forward, we want to use it in different ways, but we always have to think back, in my mind, to what's the outcome we're trying to deliver? What is the set of use cases and how do I deliver that service to the citizens of the United States? And then how is technology an enabler to do it better, faster, cheaper, reach more people, have a better outcome for what we do? And I think if we always keep that in mind as a government-industry partnership, we'll be well served in the application of that technology.
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Interviewer3:09
How much of the transition to what you're describing is going to be traditional change management type things, and how much of it's going to be adapting to these new technologies that agencies will be using for the first time or using at scale for the first time?
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Mike Raker3:22
It has to be an equal part of both. I think we've all seen in our personal lives as new technology comes along, we have to understand how to use them. So there's an educational component of that. There are feedback loops to make sure that as that technology is applied into new areas, that we're effective communicators of this is how you use that technology. In some cases, as Mr. Schmidt had said, as AI starts to come in, how not to use that technology. So the change management process, both internal to government and then outreach to citizens, is a critical part of making sure that that technology can truly achieve the goal that it needs to achieve.
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Interviewer4:04
You mentioned some of the building blocks: the AI, the chatbots, and text and so on. Does one measure the results the same way for those kinds of technologies that one does through the more traditional means?
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Mike Raker4:16
I think on one hand, yes, because we still want to make sure that the end outcome that we're delivering to citizens is the same. Did they get the service? Did they get it on time? Were they served well by the overall organization? I think there are some additional measures that we need to think about in terms of those technologies, particularly as we start to look at AI-enabled services and the ways that we're using them, to make sure that they are truly delivering the outcomes they want. We can measure things like, is the AI and the models drifting? Are they truly giving us the feedback that we want? But always to that ultimate goal of making sure that the outcomes that are intended of the service are being delivered as the ultimate measure of success.
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Interviewer5:01
Mike, it's great to have you on the program. Thanks very much for your time today.
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Mike Raker5:04
Thanks for having me.