Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel today announced a new set of initiatives to spur broader adoption of mobile technology for the federal government, calling 2012 “the year of mobile government.”
Speaking at a government conference held at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, VanRoekel described a new 2012 “Roadmap for Federal Mobility” that would put an emphasis on governance, sharing technologies wherever possible, and collaborating with the private sector to accelerate adoption.
VanRoekel said his office will be issuing details on a new effort to expedite mobile adoption, that called for agencies to develop strategies over the next 60 days and which would lead to a coordinated acquisition vehicle in the next 180 days.
The strategy reflects “a bigger opportunity to deliver service to Americans, delivering mobile platforms on which people can innovate…and connect federal workers with citizens,” said VanRoekel in a press briefing that followed his speech.
He also announced the launch of a new national dialogue website on federal mobility strategy which is aimed primarily at attracting enterprise level input.
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VanRoekel shared his ideas in a White House blog the following day. He is expected to elaborate on his mobile government initiatives during a speech to be broadcast live over the Internet Jan. 13, beginning at noon EST, by the trade group AFFIRM and also by Breaking Gov. For more news and insights on innovations at work in government, please sign up for the AOL Gov newsletter. For the quickest updates, follow us on Twitter @AOLgov.
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“We’ve assembled a task force, that represents about 50 different agencies, and their mobile experts,” along with representatives from industry, VanRoekel said following the conference.
It’s intended “to help us start to define a mobile strategy and set the ground work for this strategy,” he said. “We are at a point where we need to engage the industry,” he said, explaining the new site is just one mechanism for doing that.
The site, which is being hosted by the General Services Administration and sponsored by the Executive Office of the President is seeking ideas on how to:
- Improve delivery of government information, products, and services through technologies, including those that are mobile
- Engage citizens more fully and meaningfully in their government
- Reduce the costs of government operations through technology-enabled efficiencies
- Increase Federal workforce productivity by liberating them from ineffective 20th century work practices.
The site will be open from Jan. 11 through Jan.20.
GSA launched a similar mobile government website during the summer of 2011 to discover and collect best practices on making mobile technology work more effectively for the government agencies.
The earlier effort was aimed primarily to support government services to the public. “This new effort encompasses that plus enterprise practices,” observed Tom Suder, president of Washington, DC-based Mobilegov.
VanRoekel touched on a number of other areas he’s concentrating on in 2012, which he has presented in recent briefings with the government IT community. He summarized them during the press briefing as:
1. Focusing on return on investment in federal IT spend-and the “mechanisms around which we build accountability.”
2. Productivity in government and fostering 21st century government using practices that are working in the private sector
3. Citizen and business interaction., helping for instances, export-minded small business to begin getting export assistance through a single point of contact in government instead of navigating through multiple agencies.
4. Around all of these are cybersecurity, he said.
The following excerpts of Van Roekel’s comments were captured on Twitter, primarily by federal IT blogger Christopher Dorobek (@cdorobek) as well as other bloggers, including GSA Assistant Commissioner, Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS) and Suder:
VanRoekel stressed:
- We have to address productivity gap – we haven’t embraced practical best practices
- Don’t want to use cybersecurity as a reason to not innovate
- Through TechStat process, able to fix – or shut down – troubled projects
- Just evolved the Fed IT dashboard http://t.co/0ee3K4js
- We can’t lose sight that it is all about the mission; CIOs are the translator of tech, apply it to mission
- We face fragmented efforts with no cross-gov #mobilegov strategy
- Many benefits of a coordinated #mobileGov strategy: cut costs while increasing productivity
- Cost savings beyond the device; tapping into #mobilegov to drive other consolidation like real estate
- Digital interaction can all be driven beyond the device
- Smart-devices are growing FAST; that has implications on how gov interacts with citizens
- We need to engage citizens; unteather fed employees from their desks, connect to citizens
- We need to rethink the way we deliver apps and solutions across gov; need support to move beyond silos
- There are good things happening in #mobilegov; DOD to release mobile strategy; NIST working on guidelines
- Mobilegov strategy to incorporate the power, possibilities of mobile into fed efforts
- Foster public/private collaboration to accelerate #mobilegov
- Trying to get secure PIV cards into feds hands; love to accelerate that
- share first” in #mobilegov: build mobile tech, services for reuse – share common services
- We need to take a stand where we look at interior WiFi in federal buildings. WiFi in anchor institutional across US for citizen use #CESGovt
- We need to take a stand where we look at interior WiFi in federal buildings. WiFi in anchor institutional across US for citizen use #CESGovt