Last week, Lisa Schlosser, director of the Office of Information Collection at the Environmental Protection Agency, told me that she thought blogs and wikis would be a good way to increase participation in the regulatory process, meeting President Obama's call for the use of technology to boost openness in government.
David Mihelcic, DISA's chief technology officer, told me after the AFCEA lunch on Jan. 30 that he thinks the agency also can use blogs and wikis to spiff up its acquisition process along with collaboration tools, such as webinars.
Security will be paramount in the use of these Web tools, Mihelcic said, as vendor "A" certainly does not want vendor "B" eyeballing a proposal.
If those issues can be resolved, it seems to me that an interactive dialogue on a blog sure would be a faster way to run procurement than the one-way questions and answers between DISA and vendors the agency now uses.
It would also save a lot of wasted digits.
Bob Brewin
Bob Brewin joined Government Executive in April 2007, bringing with him more than 20 years of experience as a journalist focusing on defense issues and technology. Bob covers the world of defense and information technology for Nextgov, and is the author of the “What’s Brewin” blog.
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