{"id":236424,"date":"2026-04-27T19:08:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/27\/state-cyber-leaders-name-salesmanship-listening-as-keys-to-success\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T19:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:35:08","slug":"state-cyber-leaders-name-salesmanship-listening-as-keys-to-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/27\/state-cyber-leaders-name-salesmanship-listening-as-keys-to-success\/","title":{"rendered":"State cyber leaders name salesmanship, listening as keys to success"},"content":{"rendered":"

State cyber leaders name salesmanship, listening as keys to success<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/statescoop.com\/state-cyber-leaders-nascio-2026-keys-success\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-04-27 19:08:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: statescoop.com<\/a><\/p>\n

When it\u2019s time to choose a new security feature to roll out inside the Michigan state government, Rex Menold, the state\u2019s chief security officer, isn\u2019t the one who decides. It\u2019s not because he\u2019s new to the role (he started in January), and it doesn\u2019t seem to matter that he\u2019s been with the state since the late 1990s. The way it works, he told a conference audience in Philadelphia on Monday, is that the agencies decide.<\/p>\n

The system, Menold said, derives from a self-awareness by the state\u2019s technology bureau that it doesn\u2019t have all the answers: \u201cA lot of times we think we can make decisions for the agencies about priorities when we don\u2019t necessarily really understand their business,\u201d he said. Sometimes, he continued, even after all his years with the state, he\u2019ll pitch an idea that he thinks an agency head will love and get a response like: \u201cThat interests us zero percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

His description of the democratic process used to prioritize security upgrades was a response to a prompt by organizers of a session at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers\u2019 midyear conference. The topic was \u201cthe business of cybersecurity.\u201d And the business of cybersecurity, according to those who practice it, is less a matter of technical details than saying the right things to the right people.<\/p>\n

When talking to state legislators, Menold said, it helps to frame cybersecurity funding in practical terms: \u201cIf you explain how does that impact their town, how does that impact their email system\u2026 a lot of legislators would love to say they cut $10 million. Almost none of them want to say that we cut these three projects that make it more risky for you to log in and get services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Watson, who was Virginia\u2019s chief information security officer until he was this month named the state\u2019s CIO, said there\u2019s a piece of universal business wisdom he\u2019s long employed: \u201cunderstanding how to hit that one thing…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State cyber leaders name salesmanship, listening as keys to success https:\/\/statescoop.com\/state-cyber-leaders-nascio-2026-keys-success\/ Publish Date: 2026-04-27 19:08:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":236425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/04\/2805c5e4-aa3b-4f5f-b090-940559a0cb981-2.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-236424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236426,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236424\/revisions\/236426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}