What Denver’s new chief data officer has in store for the community

In Denver, a new chief data officer is in town. And while he’s only been on the job for about a week, Sean Greer’s nearly two-decade career in technology has prepared him well. 

Before stepping in as CDO for the city and county of Denver earlier this month, Greer served as Denver’s IT director of service delivery for several years and worked in different IT positions at the Denver International Airport for 12 years.

Watching how technology — and the ways it is used — has evolved over the years has motivated Greer to ensure the services that government provides for its residents are seamless and efficient. 

Greer, for instance, spearheaded Denver’s Automation Center of Excellence, an initiative aimed at leveraging intelligent automation tools to improve call center operations, security services, customer experience and other services. The automation center has helped save the city $2.9 million and more than 54,000 hours of staff work, Denver officials said in a statement announcing Greer’s new position. 

One project under the center, for instance, is the Denver Snow Angels program, a platform that matches homes that need help with shoveling snow on their property with volunteers in the area using automation and GIS mapping data. 

In a Q&A with Route Fifty, Greer discussed how his previous experiences and projects will help guide his future endeavors as chief data officer. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Route Fifty: Why is the role of chief data officer important to you? How can data be used to better serve those working in government and the residents you’re serving?

Greer: There's a term that's been out there for a long time: Knowledge is power. And data essentially can be translated into knowledge and intelligence, and with that intelligence, we're going to be able to make better informed decisions on how we operate city services, but also where we apply those to these services to make the biggest impact. How [close] can we get to a personalized experience with your government and be able to address the person and not the group? I think that's going to be a challenge. But I think that's the challenge we're willing to accept. And overall transparency is what [data] has the power to provide, of what we're doing, and how we're making an impact.

Route Fifty: In general, what are some of the priorities you have in mind when it comes to improving Denver's data strategy?

Greer: There are [more than] 50 agencies in the city, spanning everything from the police department and the sheriff's department all the way to those that run the golf courses here in Denver. The top priority is building relationships with business leaders throughout the city to better understand their problems, their gaps, and then we can start building a data strategy after I understand what the current landscape is and where the business needs us to go. 

So the key will be having a collaborative approach with all of those different agencies and understanding what their business goals, objectives and strategies are, and then partnering that with how we can help them from a data perspective to meet those objectives. But the most important thing is, the data can't become valuable until it's addressing an actual strategy or need that those agencies have. 

Route Fifty: In your new role as chief data officer, will you be able to continue previous work like your efforts at the Automation Center of Excellence? 

Greer: The Automation Center of Excellence was a citywide rolled-out program, so I'll absolutely carry that with me. Whether it be the governance models or the adoption strategy, I will be able to infuse some of those ideas in this new role, because it's very similar to the way the data program would roll out throughout the city. It's going to service all the agencies, and this one's just a little bit larger, and it goes to the citizens. But I think my knowledge of what tools and capabilities are available and all the different areas that I led before are going to lend itself to great collaborative conversations between those groups. 

Route Fifty: Thinking back to your time as the IT director of service delivery, what are some lessons learned from your experience in that role? How will it help inform or guide new ideas you have as chief data officer? 

Greer: I've learned in every role that I've been in. I've had the awesome opportunity to lead application teams, infrastructure teams, strategy [and] portfolio management teams, and I really think all of those things encompass [what] I will take with me into this role, because I could have probably done all of those roles better if I had better data visibility and reporting and the ability to make data-driven decisions on those approaches. 

Now for the second part of your question, artificial intelligence and generative AI are such powerful tools that are going to be available for us to deliver better services. But in order for those tools to be impacting, the underlying data that it’s deriving its decisions and its information from is the most important thing. So to your [previous] question, the data quality, security and compliance is going to be paramount to AI and gen AI and how big of an impact it can make. It's a typical saying that whatever you put into something is what you're going to get out. If we put bad data in, we're going to get bad decisions out. We're going to have to do a really good job of making sure that we're putting good data into those models. 

Route Fifty: What challenges do you run into working in government technology? 

Greer: Challenges are hard because you're addressing such a vast population of different aids and services that it's really hard to be able to address all of them. At times, it's picking and choosing and prioritizing. So I think that's a challenge that will never go away. Obviously, we're constrained by the environment and budgets and rules and regulations that are there for good reason, but they do pose challenges to delivering at a cadence that that other other industries can deliver on. 

But overall, I think the goal is constant improvement. Are we better today than we were yesterday?