Amy Kluber, editor in chief at GovCIO Media & Research, oversees a broad array of her company’s activities, ranging from traditional editorial content to multiple podcasts as well as events like workshops and webinars. All of these endeavors are unified through a common purpose of encouraging collaboration within the government technology community.
On this episode of Gov & Beyond, Amy tells hosts Luca Pagni and Joyson Cherian about how she juggles all of those responsibilities, the path she took to her current position, the best way to pitch stories to her, her new AI podcast and…how there are literally no foods she dislikes!
“I Dreamed About Working at Vogue”
For someone whose work demonstrates such a sharp focus on technology and government, Amy’s initial hopes for a journalism career were focused elsewhere. As she said in the conversation, her early ambitions were targeted at writing about fashion – which she now describes as “…one of those childhood dreams, but turns out I’m not really, like, fashionable or anything. So that quickly changed.” Instead, she ultimately ended up moving to D.C. and working for a couple of aviation-related publications before making the move to GovCIO about six years ago.
Unlike many of the other publications that cover government technology, GovCIO Media & Research operates as an independent arm of an IT services provider (also called GovCIO). Amy describes her organization as “a platform for the federal technology industry to learn and share the perspectives and solutions to the tech challenges government commonly faces, whether it’s the IRS or VA or DHS. At the end of the day, IT is similar regardless of the agency.”
Amy said GovCIO Media & Research takes more of a “multi-platform” and entrepreneurial approach to its mission than other media companies in this space, providing a venue for workshops, industry events, newsletters, podcasts, webinars and more. She told Luca and Joyson that she was most attracted by the organization’s openness to continually looking for new ways to encourage government/industry collaboration and learning.
Covering the New Administration
One area where Amy’s work does not differ from other government tech media operations is in its focus on reporting the changes brought by the new Trump administration. That means she spends a lot of time tracking developments like the appointment of new cabinet members, the administration’s efficiency initiative and its implications for IT, and ongoing technology developments in areas like cloud computing, IT modernization and cybersecurity. She also mentioned she is curious to see what happens with the recent White House push into crypto and noted that her team has just launched a new podcast focused on AI.
“We think that show will be just very valuable for everyone trying to figure out AI in the federal government and get to hear from the leaders who are driving a lot of that change,” she said.
Regular listeners will note that Luca and Joyson like to ask interviewees about things they particularly dislike, a ploy which didn’t work too well with Amy. When asked to name one food she doesn’t like, there isn’t one. However, under persistent questioning, our hosts were able to get Amy to reveal one song that really bugs her. (Hint: It’s by Imagine Dragons.)
For the full interview with Amy and to learn more details on her approach to covering the government IT community, listen to the full podcast below or read the transcript.
Timestamps:
0:36 – Amy’s background
1:45 – Amy’s path from dreams of fashion journalism to a career covering government IT
4:12 – Covering the new administration and other topics that have Amy’s attention
6:05 – How GovCIO differs from other media in the government tech space
8:03 – What Amy looks for in a media pitch
9:12 – Amy’s menu of podcasts
11:37 – Amy loves any Disney movie and any food
13:33 – Imagine Dragons, not so much
14:32 – Best ways to connect with Amy
Transcript:
Luca Pagni (LP): 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.
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 Amy Kluber, Editor-in-Chief of GovCIO Media & Research. Welcome, Amy.
Amy Kluber (AK): Hi. Thank you for having me.
LP: Of course. Just to kick off things, are you able to give us a quick overview of your background and your role at GovCIO Media & Research?
AK: Sure. I’ve been here six years now. My boss, Michael Hoffman, he brought me in at the time to what was called Government CIO Magazine. We’ve obviously since rebranded, but at that time it was very much in startup mode. I think I was its seventh or eighth staff member, so it was a very exciting time for us. I came on as managing editor and I continued to grow and evolve the publication. I established its identity and hired a whole new editorial team and associated newsroom staff. And I’m involved in pretty much every aspect of operations here. I regularly get to dive into things like events, newsletter strategy, audience growth, video and podcast editing, new programs, you name it. So that’s pretty much it in a nutshell.
Joyson Cherian (JC): Sounds like you wear a lot of hats.
AK: I do.
JC: What inspired you to get into federal IT journalism?
AK: I would say the key thing that brought me to this industry was being a self starter and more of the entrepreneurial I’m-going-to-figure-this-mystery-out mindset. So my background, it’s magazine journalism. I went to Mizzou because I wanted to be a fashion editor. I dreamed about working at Vogue. And, you know, that was kind of like one of those childhood dreams, but turns out I’m not really, like, fashionable or anything. So that quickly changed. What I did know is I didn’t want to work in traditional news media. I think that’s what drew me to magazines, because it’s more about the creativity process and not so much about chasing breaking news every day.
So at that time, I graduated. I continued on to get my master’s degree, which kind of fell into my lap. And so I took that opportunity. And then I thought maybe I’d stay in the academic space. So figuring out practical issues in journalism. But I took on a new role at what was called Newsy at the time. It became Scripps News later. So I got some exposure to the video news space and new skills. And then from there, I moved out here to DC. And that’s kind of how the whole industry reporting happened. I was offered my next job as a managing editor for a B2B helicopter magazine, soon after an aviation magazine in addition. So I was kind of dual-hatted doing both, and I learned a lot there reporting for a trade and for a business-minded audience. That’s really the start of where I learned to apply in a professional setting that mindset of, I don’t understand this at all, so let me figure it out. And I think just like any other trade journalist who happens upon a niche industry, I then sought out new opportunities that really exercised that mindset. And I wanted more of a challenge and growth in my career. And naturally being in the DC metro region, I guess that is where I found federal IT. So here I am. (laughs)
JC: You mentioned exercising that new mindset. Obviously the federal industry is something where there’s changes going on all the time and emerging trends and issues. Are there topics or trends that are currently piquing your interest and are there any issues that you’re hoping to cover more throughout the year?
AK: Yeah, like anyone reporting in government right now, I think more short term that topic of mind for everyone is just the new administration. So right now we’re doing a lot of tracking new cabinet members, the efficiency initiative and what it all means for IT. The technical topics for, you know, trade media, it’s generally all the same. So we’re still trying to look into cloud, IT, modernization, cybersecurity. Lately, we’ve been drilling more into quantum just because of the impact it will have on everything. So hoping to see more of that come out this year. We haven’t really quite seen anything just yet. And then another thing I’m hoping to look more into as the new administration kind of gets their foot running, there’s been a lot of change, even just recently in the first few weeks, so I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of change coming.
But crypto, the president pushed a lot of that lately, and it obviously will have a lot of impacts to the tech industry and federal tech industry. So one thing about that, I feel like a few years ago, a lot of people were talking about blockchain, and it kind of just seem to die down and no one’s really talking about it anymore. But then it’s, you know, back now in this new executive order around crypto. So I think I’m just going to start to keep my eyes peeled for what goes on there.
LP: Definitely. That’ll be interesting to see how that evolves and, you know, the quantum piece of it and just overall how everything’s going to unfold in these next few months. Yep, for sure. And so we’ve noticed that GovCIO Media & Research’s editorial model operates a bit differently from other outlets covering the space. How do you see GovCIO Media & Research as being different from others?
AK: Yeah, we are a little different. We’re more of a sister company to GovCIO proper. GovCIO is an IT services provider for the government, but we very much operate independently as a platform for the federal technology industry to learn and share the perspectives and solutions for tech challenges government commonly faces, whether it’s, you know, the IRS or VA or DHS. At the end of the day, IT is similar regardless of the agency.
I mentioned there were about a handful of staff members when I started, and now we’re about, I would say, 25 across editorial, sales, marketing events. So we really are a space where government comes to learn through a multi-platform approach with workshops, events, newsletters, our own podcasts, webinars, so the whole gamut of media. And something that makes us different is we really do instill in our entire team the idea of being entrepreneurial and trying new things toward the ultimate goal of just getting the industry collaborating and learning from each other. So very much what inspired me to join federal IT reporting, that’s kind of what I want to share with the team as we continue to grow.
LP: That’s awesome. And so to that end, I’m sure that you and your team get a ton of pitches on a daily basis. Could you tell us a little bit more about the types of resources that you and your team look for and kind of best practices for pitching?
AK: Yeah, it’s interesting because I think every journalist just get swamped with emails all the time. And so it really is almost like we’re trying to break through our own noise that we are involved in. Some of the pitches that have been successful for us lately have involved getting connected with a government leader, whether it’s helping us get connected with them directly or just helping us understand a topic or challenge a little bit more that helps us tie it back to a federal government agency. Those have been very successful. We get tons of pitches all the time, but the ones that stick out to me have always done those for us. So it’s almost like doing our homework for us. You know, those are the most successful for sure.
LP: That makes sense
JC: You mentioned a moment ago the multi-platform approach that you take and the the several podcasts that you have including Cybercast, Govcast, and Healthcast. Could you tell us a little bit about each of these podcasts and what type of guests and topics that you hope to explore in each of them?
AK: Yeah, our shows have been one of our backbone products in addition to our events since I started. I think in my first week I was tasked with creating a whole podcast studio when we were in person. So it’s been there from the very start. You can find our shows wherever you get podcasts, but each episode profiles a government leader. So whether it’s Cybercast connecting with a federal cybersecurity individual or GovCast, which more broadly connects with feds and gets a peek into who that person is behind the role and gets more into how they got into government, what they learned through that time. Healthcast gets more into the clinical side of Health IT. We often interview health researchers or clinicians who are using technology to work on some of government’s most pressing health issues like cancer, tech-focused areas like EHRs.
We actually just launched a new show called AI Govcast. So for that one, we’re trying to connect more with the AI leaders driving a lot of the innovation in this space. And I know that’s even just in the past year and just in the past few weeks. It’s such an evolving space. So we think that show will be just very valuable for everyone trying to figure out AI in the federal government and get to hear from the leaders who are, you know, driving a lot of that change. So you can find all our shows in a singular channel that we call GovCIO Media & Research Podcasts. It comes with a lot of bonus episodes, so do give us a follow.
JC: Congratulations on the launch of the new AI podcast. It seems that that’s exactly the type of subject matter that needs its own podcast with so much interest in AI in the government space in the last few months.
AK: Absolutely.
JC: Well, beyond getting to know about your background and opportunities at the outlet, we also want to get to know you a little bit. So we always like to close these conversations with a few get-to-know-you questions. First things first, what is one of your most frequently watched movies if you come across it, you will stop what you’re doing and start watching?
AK: Easy question. Any Disney movie, so pick any day, any mood, I can find a Disney movie to watch. So if I’m scrolling through cable and, you know, it’s on, I will just turn it on. So it’s hard to pick just one Disney movie though.
JC: Fair enough. There’s a lot to choose from.
LP: And, you know, Joyson and I, having done this for a bit, we’ve noticed that people get really, really passionate about the things that they dislike. So to that end, we’ll be kind of curious to hear what is one dish or even food ingredient that you just absolutely hate that if someone presents it to you, you just have to look the other way?
AK: This is also an interesting question because I don’t hate any food, believe it or not. I really don’t. I love food. If I had like an alter ego, I’d probably go to culinary school just for the heck of it. I love it. I love it all. I grew up in Korea. So I grew up eating Korean food a lot. You know, since I was six years old, I was eating kimchi and all that. So yeah, I really just, I love all food. Put food in front of me, I will eat it.
JC: Well, going down the path of potential dislikes, if there is a song that you never had to hear again, what would it be?
AK: Oh man. So I think anything that gets replayed non-stop at some point starts to get really annoying, even like the overused songs in commercials. So I’m sure there’s been many different, you know, flavors of the week that would fit here. But lately, what comes top of mind, probably Imagine Dragons’ “Thunder.” I’m kind of getting tired of hearing that everywhere. Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot of others.
LP: I’m going to apologize to any of our fans that are Imagine Dragons fans, but I’m in that boat. Literally any song you could name, that is always gonna be on my list.
AK: Yeah, I’m sorry, no, seriously, nothing personal. I’m just just like, turn it off, please.
LP: Well, Amy, we really appreciate you taking the time for chatting with us today. If any of our listeners wanted to learn more about you and the work that you’re doing at GovCIO Media & Research, what would be the best way to reach you?
AL: LinkedIn is very good. I’m active throughout LinkedIn. I feel like our audience is on LinkedIn constantly. So if you shoot me a message there, I’ll read it. And if you would like to follow us just to keep up with what’s going on with federal IT, just head to govciomedia.com. You can follow us there. But yeah, I’m looking forward to connecting with everybody.
LP: Well, awesome. Thank you to everyone who tuned into this episode. And thank you, Amy, for helping us go Gov & Beyond.
Thank you for joining us on today’s episode of Gov & Beyond. To learn more about our podcast and hear all of our episodes, please visit us at w2comm.com/govandbeyond. And make sure to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @govandbeyond. You can also subscribe anywhere podcasts are found.