Zach Markovits, Principal and Co-Founder of Fifteenth and Field, was one of eight people we filmed at GFOA’s annual conference in Chicago between June 28 and July 1. This is the sixth in the series that appears on Thursdays in this space.

Markovits, who works with state and local governments, philanthropy, and government partners, helps produce value by using evidence to deliver outcomes. He spoke both about data and performance management in this fascinating video.

His major point: “I see some real optimism and exciting opportunity in the way in which the current data landscape. . . is providing some life and fresh opportunity in. . .traditional performance management and data.”

“I think it's clear that new technology, including but not limited to the large language models and AI is democratizing the way in which data turns into analysis, which turns into decisions,” he says. He adds that the technology “doesn’t rely on a data analyst or a budget analyst or some particular individual. It allows everybody to do it (and) it also enables those people – the information analyst, the data analyst, the IT department, the innovation teams – to do more and deeper kinds of work.”

He goes on to say that “I'm particularly interested and excited by other new ways that cities and counties, states and school districts are using these tools to inform the process improvements that they're trying to do already.”

He has a great deal more to say about some very important things so don’t miss the chance to see the whole video here.