If you’ve worked in the government technology media space over the past couple of decades, chances are you have met or are at least familiar with George Jackson, chief content officer for the “Fed Gov Today” news program and host of the newer “State Gov Today” broadcasts. George has been a fixture on the government media landscape for years, with a resume that includes work with longstanding govie publishing house GovExec as well as “Government Matters” – the predecessor of “Fed Gov Today.”
In this episode of “Gov & Beyond,” George spoke with hosts Luca Pagni and Joyson Cherian about his career path, the types of guests he wants for his broadcasts, the interview topics he views as the most significant at the moment and lots more.
From Tennessee to D.C.
As with many of the guests on Gov & Beyond, George said he did not begin his career with a sharp focus on either government or technology. And despite his reputation as a D.C. insider, his broadcast career began well outside of the Beltway in Johnson City, Tennessee, where he worked as a local TV news producer and then anchor. When his then girlfriend, now wife, lobbied for a “move back up to the big city,” George landed in the D.C. area and got a job at ABC7 and News Channel 8 producing a show called “Capital Insider with Morris Jones.”
While that show did not focus specifically on technology issues, those issues ultimately found their way into those broadcasts when big stories such as the rocky rollout of the federal government’s Healthcare.gov website and a major data breach at the Office of Personnel and Management became part of the show’s coverage. George said the program hosted interviewees familiar with those issues, including Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman and former Federal Computer Week Editor Troy Schneider. George apparently took notice of what these journalists had to say and saw his future career path in that space.
“At that point, I thought there isn’t really a TV show out there that covers this in a targeted way, so I came up with a pilot for a TV program that became ‘Government Matters,’” he told Luca and Joyson. “‘Government Matters’ became a thing – started as a weekly show, it expanded to nightly. Our team expanded, and I continued leading that for roughly eight and a half years until 2020.”
After that, the COVID-19 pandemic destroyed the government tech events market, and George was hired by the GovExec organization to help refocus its public sector events operations to a more online approach. He eventually was named the company’s vice president of events and established GovExec TV, an on-demand service that ultimately produced more than 100 episodes per year. He also became the organization’s de facto figurehead, serving as host and/or moderator for hundreds of in-person and online events over the five years he worked there.
A Light on Government’s Hidden Gems
George made the move to “Fed Gov Today” in July 2025. He noted that the show differs from “Government Matters” in its more extensive focus on digital promotion and “short, snackable content” ripe for posting on social media. He also pointed to the show’s prioritization of strong production values. “We produce beautiful video,” he said. “My chief creative officer spent more than 10 years at NBC4 Washington…He builds beautiful stuff, knows post-production, graphics, music, animations, and he layers in a lot of artificial intelligence into his work to make that even better. So it’s much more sophisticated than it ever used to be.”
Asked about the type of guests he likes most for his shows, he said he prefers the executives who are most responsible for conducting the business of government – chief acquisition officers, chief human capital officers, chief financial officers, chief information officers, deputy secretaries, as well as their counterparts on the industry side of the equation. He wants those folks not only to serve as guests but also to be his audience.
With regard to the topics he’s most interested in, he outlined “four primary buckets” or types of issues: information technology (which he called the biggest bucket and one that spills over into all other areas), acquisition, workforce and personnel issues, and financial. He also noted his preference for staying non-partisan and non-political. From a technology perspective, George said he’s interested in quantum computing, an area he believes has been unjustly overshadowed by the hubbub around AI.
George’s enthusiasm for the government tech mission and those who work to promote its success clearly came through in the interview. And he expressed pride in his role in shedding light on the efforts of those government professionals, many of whom he noted often labor in obscurity and do not always receive the credit they deserve for their accomplishments.
“At heart, I’m still just a kid from West Toledo, Ohio, and metro D.C. to me initially was a very intimidating place,” he said. “And the public sector community and the people in it made that much smaller for me. It made me feel like I was part of the fabric of the most important city in the world.”
Listen to the podcast or read the transcript below for more from George, including his thoughts about the differences between federal and state/local government audiences and his take on the diminished prominence of traditional TV in the new media landscape. And as always, the podcast ends with some fun questions, where you’ll find out about George’s favorite Spielberg movie and his least favorite song (sorry, Smashmouth).
Timestamps
0:44 – George’s roots in journalism and career path
8:08 – Fed Gov Today, State Gov Today and what makes a good guest for their podcasts
17:29 – State Gov Today’s development and future growth
24:26 – Emerging trends in government media
30:28 – The future of video content delivery
38:07 – Smash Mouth’s replay value after 25 years
Transcript
Intro: Welcome to Gov & Beyond. I’m your host. Luca Pagni, here with my co-host Joyson Cherian. This podcast features conversations with the newsmakers and influencers at the center of today’s public sector news cycles from our studio at W2 Communications, let’s go Gov & Beyond.
Luca Pagni (LP): Welcome, everyone, to Gov & Beyond. I’m your host, Luca Pagni, here with my co-host Joyson Cherian. We’re excited to be joined today by George Jackson, Chief Content Officer of Fed Gov Today and host of State Gov Today. George, welcome to the show.
George Jackson (GJ): Luca, Joyson, I am so excited to be here. Can I say it? Let’s go Gov & Beyond!
LP: There you go. Well, George, we know you have quite a decorated media background. Could you tell us and our audience a bit more about your background and your journey to Fed Gov Today, and now ultimately State Gov Today?
GJ: Sure. Like the two of you, I’m a graduate of the great school of the University of Maryland. Got my broadcast degree in broadcast journalism in 2006. After sending out resume tapes all across the country, I got my first gig in Johnson City, Tennessee, the Tri-Cities’ market ‘92 in the TV landscape. I started there as an overnight producer, which means usually I’d come in at 10, 11 o’clock at night, I’d work through the wee hours. It was me and one other colleague over there, and each night we would produce roughly two hours of morning news. It was pretty dead inside of Johnson City’s old post office where the TV station resided, and largely the only noise in the background were a series of scanners that tracked fire, EMS, police, and with breaking news coming through from time to time. After a while, I would take, you know, a camera, some tripod and sticks, lighting, and go out and shoot it myself, and run those pieces on the morning newscasts. I think I kind of beat the management a little bit into submission. After a little while, they just said, “Okay, this guy’s going to work his way on air, whether we like it or not.” And they moved me back to the daytime hours. I was a vampire no longer. It was wonderful, and I worked there in East Tennessee for about five years. My then girlfriend, now wife, wanted to move back up to the big city, Metro D.C. I got a job at ABC7 and news channel 8, number eight in the country as far as market size goes. My first TV program that I was producing, and at this point I had moved back behind the camera, was a show called Capital Insider with Morris Jones, longtime news anchor, spent time in L.A. and Miami before kind of settling down in D.C. It was focused largely on things happening inside the beltway that had resonance outside the beltway, or even around the world; things like politics, national security, legislation. Really good, important show. Morris was a wonderful mentor, both on the broadcast component, but also the way that he approached the news.
Through that coverage, I kind of tripped over public sector information technology. It was around the time of the somewhat rocky rollout of healthcare.gov, the OPM data breach, and we hosted a lot of interviewees that were either reporters, contributors to the nonprofit landscape, or subject matter experts more generally, and I brought in, I think, a few past Gov & Beyond podcast interviewees, and both Nick Wakeman, Troy Schneider, a number of others who could kind of explain why this was happening and why it was important, not just for government but for citizens alike. At that point, I thought there isn’t really a TV show out there that covers this in a targeted way, so I came up with a pilot for a TV program that became “Government Matters.” I hooked up with a few folks on the sales side of the house over at ABC7. I had a wonderful mentor in Steve Vito, who’s been a longtime contributor to the public sector marketplace, kind of served as my training wheels initially because I didn’t know very much at all about how public sector worked back in 2013, and it was nice to have, you know, a guide or sherpa to make sure that I knew what was newsworthy and relevant and important to the public sector marketplace. “Government Matters” became a thing, started as a weekly show, it expanded to nightly. Our team expanded, and I continued leading that for roughly eight and a half years until 2020, middle of the pandemic, I decided to make a career shift over to GovExec, the biggest public sector media company in the market. During the pandemic, and Joyson I’m sure that you remember this, Luca, I think you were still relatively early in your career at the time, in-person events just went poof, disappeared. And overnight, these media companies had to figure out a way to flip those virtual. GovExec was in that boat, and I think they realized because they were very savvy that they needed someone with a strong writing, producing, engagement-oriented aspect to make those public sector events that were hosted wholly online stand out from the pack. So I joined their events business. Later, I would lead it as vice president of events for a few years. But almost immediately started standing up what would become GovExec TV, their own TV vertical, largely on demand, largely gated for registration, but that grew over time to be my primary job. Probably more than 100 episodes a year. I served as the primary host and got roped in to MC and moderate a lot of GovExec’s hundreds of either in-person or online programs each year. Spent about five years there, loved it, learned so much. GovExec is such a sophisticated organization, but last July I had the chance to rejoin some of my wonderful government matters colleagues in this relatively new business called Fed Gov Today. Francis Rose, friend, another mentor of mine, John Meyer, our chief executive officer, Patty Cochran, who leads our sales enterprise, and I’ve been here since last July and haven’t looked back.
Joyson Cherian (JC): As we have three former Terps on this call, I think I’m legally required to say “Fear the Turtle” before I kick off my questions. George, that overview is so great because it gives me so many threads that I want to pull on in terms of follow up questions. But I do want to start with something you said there. You know, there’s so many complex issues and topics and programs in government. It’s hard for many a layman to understand everything that’s going on, let alone what it’s like living in a city where there’s so many acronyms for everything, and it feels like coded when it comes to the jargon and conversation at times. But what is it about the space? What inspired you to cover government tech and policy issues?
GJ: In a word, Joyson, the people. At heart, I’m still just a kid from West Toledo, Ohio, and Metro D.C. to me initially was a very intimidating place, and the public sector community and the people in it made that much smaller for me. It made me feel like I was part of the fabric of the most important city in the world. And the missions that those people execute on on a daily basis–I don’t see them sort of reaching the light of day in the way that politics and national security and the other elements that we covered on Capitol Insider did, and in the broadcast medium, that’s important for them to kind of break into that market. I think at every stage of my career, I’ve tried to shed light and accessibility to people through TV that maybe hadn’t normally had access to that before. I mean, they’re very familiar historically with print, certainly online journalism, maybe a little bit of radio and podcast broadcasts. But from the beginning of my tenure working in the public sector marketplace, 95+% of our interviewees that we’ve hosted, it’s been their very first interview on broadcast. So in a way, I think we’re sort of seeding people who are more media savvy. I think we’re shedding light on critical work that needs to happen in the broadcast landscape because it’s eminently shareable in the modern age. There’s a lot more reasons, but those are a couple of primary ones for you.
JC: Yeah, it’s interesting. I think one of the biggest values of what you do and with the the interviews that you conduct is the ability to put a human face on these topics and issues, and it makes the content compared to, you know, reading about a story, so much more dynamic to get the enthusiasm and knowledge and tone from the person who’s behind the scenes who’s operating these programs accordingly, which allows me to dig into my next question a little bit. You know, for our listeners who aren’t familiar, could you tell us a little bit more about Fed Gov Today and State Gov Today, as well as what you look for in a compelling guest?
GJ: Sure, I’ll start with Fed Gov Today. That’s our flagship brand. Our flagship show is on Sunday mornings, ABC 7, 10 a.m. We probably reach about 15-20,000 people each week, but that’s beamed all over Metro D.C. We have a relationship with the Pentagon’s American Forces Network, which takes us worldwide. We go out to 148 countries around the world, Navy ships at sea. It’s roughly 350,000 people who work for the Pentagon, either in an enlisted or a civilian capacity. And between those two audiences, here in Metro D.C., you know, government is roughly 40% of the economy, you’ve got the Pentagon. What we put out there is very targeted and zero waste to the federal government. In addition to that flagship show, we probably do an additional 50 or 60 episodes a year that are highly targeted. So we’ll take on a topic and do a deep dive on it for somewhere between 30 or 60 minutes. This week I’m doing two on quantum computing. A recent one we did was on the nexus between artificial intelligence and research for government agencies. There are many, many more, but they allow those topics to breathe a little bit more, lend that expertise across the marketplace, so that if I’m in a different agency from the one being featured, maybe I can learn some techniques to employ that make the work that I do at my agency better in the long run by learning from other professionals in the field. As far as guests go, we are, you know, both for on-air contributors and the audience, largely targeting folks in the C-suite. So think chief acquisition officers, chief human capital officers, chief financial officers, chief information officers, deputy secretaries, and then their counterparts on the industry side of the equation. We want to reach decision makers. We want to reach people who have some level of control over budgets and personnel and policy and governance, because it can help to move the needle long term.
From a content perspective, I’d put what we cover into four primary buckets. The first one is probably the biggest, and I think it’s grown into something that spans all four, but information technology is at the top of the list. Acquisition is our second coverage area. Personnel or workforce-oriented issues is a third, and financial is a fourth. We’re completely like a lot of the people that you speak to, nonpartisan, nonpolitical. We’ve worked through administrations of various stripes, and we approach things from a really neutral perspective. State Gov Today is modeled largely after Fed Gov Today, so the audience, those C-suite folks, those four primary coverage areas are largely consistent. The delivery method is pretty different, where Fed Gov Today relies on traditional over-the-air television. State Gov Today leans into more digital methods to reach that relevant audience. I mean, state and local government, as you both know, is highly dispersed. You’ve got 50 states, District of Columbia, various territories. Reaching them in their homes on a Sunday morning in 50 state capitals and elsewhere would be so expensive. Unless I was a Sinclair Broadcast Group or a Nexstar, I don’t think I’d be able to execute on something like that, so those digital means include a lot of techniques. One of the primary ones is called OTT – That stands for “over the top.” So if you’re watching an unskippable Progressive ad that is trying to convince you not to become your parents on Roku or Apple TV or Amazon, we create those types of advertisements that can be sliced and diced to state and local government leaders, people who have an IT pedigree, people who work in the human capital industries. We can target state capitals all across the country. We want those programs to, and the advertisements we serve to promote them, reach people that care about that content. We have a YouTube page. We obviously have, you know, a website, but those digital means are much more of a State Gov Today push than a Fed Gov Today push.
LP: You know, kind of sticking with the State Gov Today focus, we know that in the next few months, it’ll be celebrating its one year anniversary.
GJ: Woohoo!
LP: Can you tell us a bit more about what led to the development of the separate spinoff, and what does the next year ahead look like?
GJ: I’ve always wanted to do this, and my colleague John Meyer, I think, is just as, if not more creative and adventurous than I am. So, it’s been a dream realized in a way. I think covering state and local government, because of some of the reasons that I outlined, that dispersed nature and others, is really hard. It’s especially hard to do in a broadcast medium. I mean, there are great contributors to this market from a journalism standpoint, from a nonprofit standpoint, from an events standpoint. I look at what eRepublic does on events. I look at what StateScoop does or GovLoop. I look at magazines like Governing and online publications like Route 50. Like, there is a cadre of people that contribute to that market from a reporting and information and networking and interaction standpoint, they do that really really well. But once again, I haven’t seen anything that rises to the level of broadcast quality, episodic television, and it’s another area where I think we can take our knowledge of the public sector marketplace, introduce an audience to the critical work that they’re doing on a daily basis, and help those people being interviewed start to get comfortable with sharing those stories, so that the knowledge that they have in their heads, in their background, can start being democratized across the public sector marketplace, so that’s a big one. I think the TV component has been really fun in this initial run of episodes. I’m used to doing speaker outreach and acquisition on the federal side, and generally those runways are somewhere between four to eight weeks, depending on the agency or organization. There’s a certain amount of, like, public affairs ethics hurdles that you have to leap over and work with those agencies in order to bring someone on TV or, in past parts of my career, bring them into an event. For the state and local side, I’m often talking to those folks directly, and once they understand that nonpolitical, nonpartisan, largely thought leadership or best practice focused nature of what we produce, I think they’re excited. It’s been a real breath of fresh air over the past, you know, seven or eight months here. I mean, I had a goal, Luca, at the outset of this year to do eight State Gov Today episodes in 2026. We’re going to land pretty close to double that this year, and I have pretty ambitious goals for 2027. So I’m pumped. It’s the favorite, like, product or program that I’ve produced since joining the Fed Gov Today team, and I’m bullish about its future.
LP: Love to hear it.
JC: George, I have a follow-up question. You know, it seems like for State Gov Today, it’s also a timely moment to have such a program. I think it’s not a secret that the current administration, over the last two years, have wanted to push a lot more responsibility down to the state governments, and so those governments are dealing with, you know, issues and challenges and responsibilities that they may have not had to focus on in the past. So, do you feel like there’s also an audience there that’s hungry for this knowledge because they’re now, you know, dealing with opportunities and challenges and issues that may not have been on their plate, you know, two years ago?
GJ: I do, and I’d layer on a couple other things to that, Joyson. I think from a technological standpoint, you know, there’s a huge focus in state and local government right now around turning things like CX, customer or citizen experience, digital experience, artificial intelligence into sites, programs, ways of doing business with populations in those state and local areas and the employees that work for those organizations into something that mirrors what’s happening in industry in the private sector. I think they’ve also benefited to a degree, and I’ve listened to your interviews with Terry Gerton or Natalie Alms, where they’ve talked about, you know, the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to very successfully, you know, reduce the size of the federal workforce over the past several months. I think state and local governments, from a recruitment standpoint and a quality of employees standpoint, have benefited in a lot of cases as a result. I mean, I’m thinking of Dave Cole, who we have an interview rolling out this week for State Gov Today. His background includes the White House, the U.S. Digital Service, a number of other administration-oriented elements. I’m thinking Michael Boyce in the state of Maryland, who launched DHS’s AI Corps. I mean, the list goes on and on. But there are really talented, qualified people at the state and local government level, and I think some of the constriction that’s being happening on the federal side is resulting in more talent shifting to state and local in certain cases. So they’re focused on these things that are going to move the needle for information technology for the populations they serve, and I think they have people in place that are more than capable of doing so,
LP: George, the, I’d say underlying theme with a lot of what you said is that there’s been a ton of compelling topics and narratives, and just different areas of focus, both at the state level but at the federal level. What are the topics or trends that are really, you know, capturing your attention not just now, but what are you going to be keeping an eye out on for the rest of the year as well?
GJ: Boy, so many. I’ll try not to get too long winded here, Luca, but if I do, just reach through, give me a karate chop, okay? I mean, on the federal side, I think what’s happening with acquisition, with procurement is pretty revolutionary right now. I mean, I’ve heard your interview as well with Frank Konkel about GSA’s growing role and importance to the federal government. Folks like Larry Allen and Laura Stanton and what they’re doing inside GSA to, you know, revamp the FAR, the Federal Acquisition Regulation, to look at the way government buys things. We’ve talked internally at Fed Gov Today that some of those elements could be the most lasting impacts from Trump 2.0. If they can sort of study, procure, and field technologies faster and save money in the process, benefits for the public sector could be felt for generations. So I think that’s a huge one. Those constrictions in the federal workforce that we talked about already. I’m curious what that looks like long term. I mean, I know Terry Gerton referenced the legal ramifications there in one of your past podcasts. I’m more curious whether Trump 2.0 and the administrations that follow feel that based on those successful efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce, is government right-sized as a result? Or do we need to scale back up long term? And what jobs are required to scale up long term? I think the connection between finance and data on the federal side is really, really important. This way that government for years has been working to break down silos of data and information, I think, makes the role of the chief financial officer and how savvy they are with technology-that much more important. Because, for visibility for these massive organizations, following the money, the data associated with that will help not only Trump 2.0 and their administration, you know, root out fraud, waste, and abuse, which is one of the sort of key initiatives that they’ve been working on in this administration, but do any number of things. It comes back to what they’re spending, who they’re spending it on, etc.
And technologically, one topic that I’m really keen on, I’ve mentioned it earlier, is quantum computing. Artificial intelligence, in a big way, has taken all the air out of the room. I’m not saying that topic is not worthy of that, it’s groundbreaking, revolutionary, generational–use whatever word you want there–but looming over the horizon is the next phase of this, and that’s quantum information science. I think agencies, as a result of that AI attention vacuum, haven’t yet recruited the right people into their organizations that can move the needle on quantum information science, and the implications are massive. On the State Gov Today side, I mean we’ve talked about my sense of some of the topics that are going to move the market, but a few others that I might introduce to you are budgets. I think there’s a lot of uncertainty right now amongst state and local leaders about how much support they will continue to receive from the federal government, which helps them plan and helps them fund a lot of initiatives. They depend on it at least right now in a big way. I think they’re budgeting conservatively as a result. What does that look like in the future? I don’t know if anyone right now is 100% sure there. And lastly, I’d introduce maybe the talent life cycle as something that I’m really keen on learning more about with State Gov Today. You know, people are having shorter careers in government than they have in recent history, and these traditionally have been jobs that have a lot of benefits for people like me in middle age. You know, you can raise a family, you can have a good work-life balance, you can be super mission-oriented, but people are only staying two, two and a half years and shifting out, and that’s a big paradigm shift, not only for state and local government but also for the federal government.
JC: I want to get back to something you talked about a little bit earlier. We talked a little bit, you discussed a little bit the evolution of video formatting and how that’s changed, and how State Gov Today takes a digital forward strategy and the opportunities with over the top media as well. You know, as we look forward, where do you see the future of video content going, and how do you see it evolving accordingly?
GJ: I mean, streaming is the elephant in the room. During my tenure at Government Matters, I was already starting to see this shift. You know, people cutting the cord. Over-the-air television didn’t have the power and prominence that it once did. You know, on a lot of calls internally and externally for Fed Gov Today, we talk about the only things people really tune into anymore on traditional TV are live sports and Sunday morning TV. So we’re in a good position there, but Fed Gov Today is different from Government Matters in that we have a much bigger digital push. I mentioned OTT. We’re really leaning into social media. The variety of video products that we put out isn’t as heavily reliant on episodic television as it once was. You know, short, snackable content is really important. These AI tools allow people to pump that out incredibly fast. So that wasn’t there historically. I just think it’s much more democratized than it ever was. But broadcast quality TV-that’s where I see our differentiator with Fed Gov. Like we produce beautiful video. My chief creative officer spent more than 10 years at NBC4 Washington. The news leader, he builds beautiful stuff, knows post-production, graphics, music, animations, and he layers in a lot of artificial intelligence into his work to make that even better, so it’s much more sophisticated than it ever used to be. I think it’s good for the public sector marketplace because there are communities through video that have been created and crystallized over time, where you can find what you want on YouTube, no matter what it is. I was having a conversation with someone the other day who enjoys watching videos with no sound, driving certain parts of the country just to look at the landscape. If you’re interested in public sector, you can find Fed Gov Today and State Gov Today, and I think there’s a long tale to that. Last thing I’d say, and then I’ll get off this soapbox, is authenticity in my, like, personal impression is much more important than it’s ever been. You know, the days are gone, at least in our space, where, you know, you can be super scripted, where you need a booming voice. Like, you guys and our audience have already figured this out. Like, I have this nasal Northwest Ohio accent. Would I ever make it in a top 10 market with non-regional dialect? For years, I tried to root that out of my own voice. In the public sector marketplace, I don’t think I need to. Like, I am who I am, and that authenticity I hope reads through to our viewers, to our listeners today.
JC: It’s funny. As you were talking, I was thinking about the evolution of the way we look at video content as well. And so it used to be you create video to create a program, and then it became, a few years ago, create video to have it as content. And now it’s, you know, video, just as you said, as a snack and a nugget. But I would say as a moment. And so yeah, and it’s funny if I’m scrolling social media, I feel like half the clips might be clips from podcasts of a funny thing or a statement or a viral moment that happened versus the entire show itself, and so you’re seeing so many moments that influence and reach people in in various platforms that way.
GJ: Yeah, and the more the merrier. You know, I’m for it. I love finding it. I think it helps hone us as an organization.
JC: We talked a little bit earlier about, you know, getting to know the people, and the people are driving the conversations. You know, as we close the podcast, we always like to know the people behind the bylines and the the productions as well. So we have a few get-to-know-you questions to get to know George Jackson a little bit better.
GJ: Oh gosh, I’m ready.
JC: First one: What is one of your most frequently watched movies? If you come across it, you’re going to stop what you’re doing and start watching.
GJ: My favorite movie of all time, Joyson, is “Catch Me If You Can.” Steven Spielberg directed, John Williams did the score. The cast is amazing. You know, you got Leonardo DiCaprio, Christopher Walken, Amy Adams, Martin Sheen, Tom Hanks. I mean, the list goes on and on. I’m a sucker for a story about a nuanced relationship between a father and son. And then you throw in the golden age of air travel. I mean, what’s not to like? “Catch Me If You Can” If you haven’t seen it, it’s on Paramount+, or you can purchase it on Amazon. I don’t get royalties there, Luca. I promise.
JC: I think there’s only one thing I can say to that. I concur.
GJ: Haha, I concur. Do you concur? I concur.
LP: I haven’t watched in a bit, and I’m gonna have to go back and watch it tonight now. George, kind of flipping the script, if you will. You know, when we ask our guests the things that they like, they usually give you a good answer, good reasoning behind it. But when you start asking them what they dislike, you get another level of passion and that just comes out. To that end, what is one dish or food ingredient that you just do not like, you hate, you don’t see the appeal? Whatever you will.
GJ: Luke. I’m so glad that this came toward the close of our conversation because when I, I think the audience hears this, they are gonna move on to the next thing. They will have given up on me. Nutella is my answer, and maybe hazelnut more broadly. I just don’t like it. I’m a straight peanut butter guy, you know.
LP: I can respect it. I can’t speak for our audience, but I got you.
JC: And now we have our viral moment. Closing question, George: If you never had to hear this song again, you would be extremely happy. What song is that?
GJ: I have 10-year-old twin daughters, Joyson, and I think this is like, a very modern problem for parents in the same boat as me. They like to ride in the back seat of my truck and play DJ, and you know, for people like me who’ve honed their Spotify algorithm for years, you know, I’m at a point where everything that it pumps out and introduces me to, I’m like, I love it! And then all of a sudden, weird stuff keeps popping up in there, and they’ve ruined it. All that as a prelude to Smash Mouth ‘All Star,’ I mean, rest in peace, Steve Harwell. But I am just not a fan.
JC: Unexpected answer. I was expecting you to mention some sort of like children’s song, but great answer, regardless.
LP: I was fully expecting to hear something from the “Frozen” album on this.
GJ: You know the children’s songs are a thing, though, guys. Like there is this whole counterculture of Spotify where you can take children’s names and they’re put into a song about poop, or my name and a song about poop, and it’s just your name and the word poop, poop, poop over and over and over again. So those do exist. They haven’t yet come across my feed, though. I think it’s still Smash Mouth.
LP: It sounds like you definitely would take Smash Mouth over that, but now I feel like knowing my luck, I’ll end up with some sort of targeted ad with that later, so. Well, George, thank you so much for your time today. If any of our listeners wanted to learn more about you and the work you’re doing, how can they get in touch?
GJ: I’m on LinkedIn. That’s my only social media for our next podcast. We can talk about why I’m somewhat reticent there. They can reach me directly, george@fedgovtoday.com. That’s also our website, fedgovtoday.com. I am a zero inboxer, Luca. So, audience, if you send me an email, I will read it and I will probably respond.
LP: Awesome. Well, thank you to everyone who tuned into this episode, and George, thank you again for helping us go Gov & Beyond.
GJ: Guys, it was a blast. Thanks so much, Joyson, Luca, for having me. Look forward to the next one. Real strong listener here, so let’s see who you host next.
JC: Thanks, George.
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