Elaine S. Povich

Posts by Elaine S. Povich


When unusual activity shows up on a credit card, the company calls the holder – generally the same day. That kind of time frame will soon apply to routine Internal Revenue Service audits – which now happen years after you file your taxes.

IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman imagines a day in the not-too-distant future when, on the same day a tax return is filed electronically, IRS software can detect missing income or stock dividends. Keep reading →


The workforce of the future will look more like an average teenager’s interaction with the video game “Modern Warfare” than the current office cubicles of today, according to a lively keynote speech at the FOSE conference Tuesday.

Thomas Koulopoulos, an expert on cloud computing and author of “The Innovation Zone” and “Living in the Cloud,” took his rapt audience through a series of exercises designed to lead them to the future workplace. That place, he said, will rely on collaboration rather than individual effort. Keep reading →


Mobile technology allows government workers to get out from behind their desks and outside of buildings to bring services directly to the people, even if those people are homeless and living under a bridge, according to government CIOs who spoke at Tuesday’s FOSE conference.

For example, Veterans Affairs Deputy CIO Stephen Warren said mobile technology is revolutionizing health delivery, benefits delivery and memorial services. Keep reading →


FAA officials advised federal agencies Tuesday to balance creativity against security and give users wide latitude to experiment with innovative ways to get the most out of their mobile devices.

Managers for FAA, an agency in the forefront of piloting advanced mobility technology, spoke in a session at the annual FOSE conference in Washington, D.C., which covers range of federal IT topics from mobile government to defense innovations. Keep reading →


Cities across the country are implementing innovative parking strategies using new technologies in an effort to improve parking experiences for citizens as well as make parking fee systems more cost effective.

From California to Washington, D.C., mobile apps and other technologies are revolutionizing the parking industry. And government leaders are partnering with private industry in metropolitan areas to tailor new parking innovation to their unique needs. Keep reading →


During President Barack Obama’s January’s State of the Union address, citizens could follow along in real time with an online slide presentation which showed – in pictures and graphics – the major points the president was making just as he was making them.

The technique brought the viewers into the presentation in a way that simply watching or listening to the event could not. Visually, each of the president’s points was portrayed in a striking way that cemented the ideas in viewers’ minds better than a simple verbal presentation could do – even with the bright lights and grand chamber of the House of Representatives as a venue. Keep reading →

Proposed increases in federal technology spending aren’t just for back office operations; they’re also expected to help the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency track down illegal immigrants, weed out illegal job applicants and intercept would be terrorists.

Those are just some of the places where hikes in information technology spending in President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget would be directed, if approved by Congress. Keep reading →

Federal spending on information technology is scheduled to decrease by 1.2%, or about $586 million, in the next fiscal year, according to the president’s fiscal year 2013 budget, with most of the reduction coming from cuts in the Department of Defense. Keep reading →

Every time Education Secretary Arne Duncan and his department make a decision that affects local schools, he remembers that he once “lived on the other side of the law.”

That is, he served as superintendent and CEO of the Chicago Public Schools for eight years before coming to Washington to run the Department of Education, and he worked in education for more than a decade before that. He knows what life is like for educators who have to carry out policies developed in Washington. Keep reading →