The GIST of Govt IT
The weekly show that breaks down ideas, innovations and decisions that cut through complexity and offer real insights from the intersection of technology and the mission.
Episodes
14 episodes
A Pause, Not a Pass on CMMC
On July 13, the Department of War hit pause on one of the most consequential compliance regimes in the defense industrial base. In Episode 14 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean break down the suspension of CMMC Phase II — the third-party as...
Fed Christmas in July? The OMB M-26-14 Holiday Rush Begins!
Level One by Christmas. Level Two by Valentine's Day. Level Three by Independence Day. That's the OMB M-26-14 logging mandate clock federal agencies are now racing against — and if you don't want to spend your holidays at the office, it's time ...
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The Founding Fathers' Guide to Federal IT
Happy 250th birthday, America. In this special shortened Fourth of July episode of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean keep it snackable for the beach-and-boat crowd — kicking off with a debate over favorite founding fathers before turning to a...
The Five-Dollar Agentic AI Hacker
Four days. A spare $500 mini PC from Microcenter. An open-source quantized model running on 512 MB of VRAM. And by Thursday morning, an autonomous AI agent named Jenkins was finding vulnerabilities, chaining exploits, gaining root, and maintain...
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An Apache Down. An ASV Up: Crossing the Rubicon for Autonomous Warfare
In Episode 10 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean are joined by David Hutchins, Director of Naval Systems and Defense Technology at Forecast International, fresh off SOF Week in Tampa to discuss the pervasiveness of autonomous systems and pl...
Quad Charts be Damned: Data Meets the Mission
For years now, the question for federal agencies has been the same: is your data ready for AI? In Episode 9 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean sit down with Andrew Churchill, who leads Qlik's Public Sector Business across the US and Canada,...
Minutes, Not Months: Inside the New Cyber Velocity Facing Federal Agencies
48 hours. That's the time it took for a federal employee credentials to be stolen as a result of a phishing attack, to being listed on a dark web marketplace. In Episode 8 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean sit down at Check Point's Engage ...
Iran Came for US Dams and We Got Lucky: Frontline Insights from the OT Fight
When Iranian-linked cyber actors hit U.S. water, energy, and government facilities through internet-exposed Rockwell Allen-Bradley PLCs during the sixth week of the U.S.–Iran military campaign, they did it with attacks that were eightfold above...
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Cupcakes & OODA Loops: Inside(r) Insights Into the New Federal AI Cyber Playbook
Last episode, we left you hanging with a question: when it comes to cybersecurity, what is the federal government doing to both leverage AI and defend against AI threats and most importantly, are we moving fast enough? In the conclusion of this...
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Vibe Hacking and Nation State Cyber Threats
Your router may not be your router. It could be a Russian surveillance device. In Episode 5 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean unpack a stunning two weeks in cybersecurity: the FBI's court-authorized takedown of a Russian GRU operation that...
A New Playbook for Small Businesses and Startups in Federal IT
From a startup consulting shop to a $1.4B IBM acquisition, Octo Consulting Group's story is one of the great growth journeys in government IT. Brian and Sean sit down with Jay Shah, Octo's former COO, who helped guide the company through every ...
Chaos, Change, and Opportunity in Federal IT
"Chaos." "Change." "Opportunity." Three words that surfaced in a room full of federal contractors when asked to describe today's government IT environment. Sean and Brian unpack what's really driving the disruption, from RIFs and FAR overhauls ...
Fighting Fire with Fire to Secure Federal AI Agents
There's a workforce inside your agency that nobody hired, no one trained, and nobody is watching. We're talking about AI agents. In Episode 2 of The GIST of Govt IT, Brian and Sean sit down with Elad Schulman, CEO and co-founder of Lasso Securi...
Moving Ideas to Mission Outcomes
Sean and Brian kick off the inaugural episode of The GIST of Govt IT, and they're diving into why speed and real results are suddenly the only things that matter in federal IT, what's actually exciting in first response tech, and which consumer...
