The FreeStuff website is clearly a good idea.
So good it’s in the Savings section of the Cuts, Consolidations, and Savings (CCS) volume of the US FY2013 Budget proposal; so good it ranked 96th out of 3843 entries in the 2011 President’s SAVE Award contest. Keep reading →
A recent interesting study by the Sunlight Foundation states that Twitter “has become an important tool for social revolutions and civilian mobilization” worldwide. It also says that Twitter has been “embraced” by the U.S. Government, notably the U.S. State Department through its embassies.
The Sunlight study suggests that embassy use of Twitter is “largely an organic process, and one that has outpaced headquarters.” I would say that throughout the U.S. Government, use of new media is an organic process, just as the move to the web was such a process in the last decade. Keep reading →
Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) have filed a bipartisan amendment to the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 to conserve energy, save taxpayer dollars and reduce government waste by requiring federal agencies to shut down needlessly duplicative federal data centers.
Agencies have been instructed to develop consolidation plans under the administration’s Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI), which would save over $2 billion according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). However, a number of agencies have been slow to begin to implement the plans – or, in some cases, to even take stock of the total number of centers they currently manage. The proposed amendment to the cybersecurity bill seeks to remedy that. Keep reading →
The legal profession may be known for many things, but innovative practices isn’t always one that comes to mine – especially within government circles.
So it may come as a surprise that among a newly-published list of 50 leading contributors to the legal community, which included executives from Yale Law School as well as Apple and Google, it also included Mary Alice Baish, the superintendent of documents for U. S. Government Printing Office. Keep reading →
We mostly think of diversity and inclusion issues as it relates to people and organizations. The benefit of thinking in this dimension comes from bringing in groups of people with a broad range of experiences, styles, and approaches to solve organizational problems in creative ways. Keep reading →
The federal digital strategy released today is the next step in President Barack Obama’s effort to streamline and improve government services through mobile and web-based technologies and solidifies many efforts already under way.
Analysts mostly applauded the strategy, saying it provides specific, measurable goals, demonstrates a commitment to transforming the use of technology to better serve citizens, requires the use of analytics to enable more responsive government and builds security into to the federal digital architecture. Keep reading →
Our nation faces a large — and growing — long-term fiscal imbalance driven by an aging population, which will dramatically increase health care and retirement costs. And while it is just one of many challenges, it is central to a question of whether the nation’s government will adapt new approaches to the management of government itself.
“The government is on an unstable path,” says the recently released Federal Government’s Financial Health. This report, prepared by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Office of Management and Budget (with the assistance of the Government Accountability Office), puts the challenge in stark terms: Keep reading →
One of the nation’s top government chief information officers predicted within the next five years, federal agencies will be able to begin procuring enterprise level back office information systems as a service rather than having to develop or maintain their own systems.
Richard Spires, CIO for the Department of Homeland Security, and vice chairman of the Federal CIO Council, said federal agencies–including DHS–are actively trying to reduce and standardize the number of commonly used information systems. Keep reading →
The Obama Administration is launching a new aggregated database and online tool intended to help federal agencies identify and prevent duplicate or improper payments.
Called Do Not Pay, the new tool will attempt to make it easier for agencies to avoid sending funds out to dead people or entering into contracts with companies who have attempted to defraud the government. Keep reading →
This year’s 100 most influential executives in the government IT community were honored at a a gala tonight at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C.
The Federal 100 Awards recognize government and industry leaders who have played pivotal roles in the federal government IT community and who “have made a difference in the way technology has transformed their agency or accelerated their agency’s mission.” Keep reading →