Ideas
Navigating the Do-Not-Pay List(s)
White House officials on Friday announced they will begin rolling out governmentwide a mashup device currently used to detect stimulus-spending fraud, but they also noted a technological weakness preventing agencies from quickly spotting potential improper payments.
Ideas
Ready For Telework?
Federal employees may want to telework, but only a small number have access to the resources and support necessary to do so, according to a new survey.
Ideas
Twitter Down
Twitter, the ever-growing popular microblogging social network, has experienced some trouble in the past few days. Users increasingly have seen periods during which the site is over capacity and it slows down as a result. Company execs have acknowledged the site isn't quite ready to handle the high traffic demands, but as these delays become more regular, it begs the question: What should Twitter really be used for, and does the federal government fit that model?
Ideas
No Passing Grade For e-Passport
The technology behind e-Passports, the relatively recent identity document upgrade to include biometrics and other personal information, may not be safe from terrorists, counterfeiters and other malicious attacks. In fact, data security has been a key concern about e-Passports for several years.
Ideas
Advantage of Executive (Cyber) Privilege
What's the biggest advantage of taking the job of cybersecurity coordinator at the White House? Being able to turn your nose up at Congress, apparently.
Ideas
Labor Changes Career Video Contest
The Obama administration's strategy of hosting contests to find answers to the nation's problems seems to be an exercise in trial and error, <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100430_9749.php">as predicted</a>.
Ideas
Classroom Tech Questioned Again
<em>The Washington Post</em> ran an <a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061005522.html>article</a> on Friday that questions just how much -- if at all -- the high-tech gizmos like whiteboards (which replaced chalk boards) that schools have been spending millions of dollars improve learning and test scores. From the article:
Ideas
Twitter Seeks "Government Liaison"
Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/job.html?jvi=oBbkVfwL,Job">announced</a> this week that it would be hiring its first DC-based "government liaison" to boost government presence on the social networking site. This sparked off an intense debate over the kind of person it would take to get the government to embrace social media.
Ideas
Orszag Wants Innovation
Tom Shoop, the editor in chief and author of the FedBlog at Nextgov's sister site Government Executive, started a bit of a debate on Wednesday over the supposedly sorry state of the government's computing power -- or is that the government's sorry state of <em>leveraging</em> computing power to create interactive apps that the public can use?
Ideas
OMB to Tackle Financial Systems
Developing financial management systems that work has been a <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081002_7594.php">big, persistent pain</a> for agencies for years and years. But now the Office of Management and Budget wnats to see if they can provide a solution. The office is getting ready to issue new rules to try to rein in the runaway systems, according to an <a href="http://federalnewsradio.com/?nid=35&sid=1976572">article</a> by Jason Miller at Federal News Radio.
Ideas
Drones: Playstation Mentality?
As the CIA increasingly is making drone strikes the centerpiece in the war on terror, it is shaking the boundaries of international law and risking "developing a 'Playstation' mentality to killing," warned a senior United Nations official last week.
Ideas
Your Archives, Through Social Media
The National Archives and Records Administration is going all-in with social media in hopes of assisting and expanding its audience. And the agency isn't approaching it haphazardly--look across Facebook, Flickr and Twitter and you'll find consistent names and information, as well as a centralized "one-stop shop" for social media on the <a href=http://archives.gov>Archives.gov</a> website.
Ideas
Wired: Army Arrests Docs Leaker
Wired's Threat Level blog reported late Sunday that Army officials have arrested a U.S. intelligence analyst who allegedly leaked military and State Department documents to <a href=http://wikileaks.org/>Wikileaks</a>, a whistleblower Web site. The site posted in April a video of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed innocent civilians.
Ideas
U.S. Transfers Control Of Iraqi E-Library
The United States on Monday is expected to announce the transfer of control of an online research library to the Iraqi people, according to a federally-funded nonprofit organization that had managed the project. The move represents the culmination of a four-year U.S.-Iraq partnership to reinvigorate scientific study in the Middle Eastern country after decades of myopic focus on weapons systems.
Ideas
The Cyber Exec: A New Concept?
On Thursday, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Don Proctor, Cisco's senior vice president and leader of the company's cybersecurity task force in the Office of the CEO.
Ideas
A Vote for Agency Contests
Nextgov posted an <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100603_8509.php?oref=topnews>article</a> on Thursday reporting that two Republicans have criticized the Obama administration for wasting taxpayer money on its initiative to create contests in which the public, businesses or even public agencies submit ideas to solve a long-standing national problem. The winner takes home either a cash prize or just the recognition that his or her idea won.
Ideas
Social Media's Increasing Drivel
Social networking, Twitter in particular because of its tight limits on characters, has given rise to a new set of clichés, trite musings and empty phrases. Danny Brown, a writer at Lawrence Ragan Communications Inc., a public relations firm in Chicago, <a href=http://www.ragan.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=5AA50C55146B4C8C98F903986BC02C56&tier=4&id=192A51224B77420EA2D12867A99BF25E&AudID=3FF14703FD8C4AE98B9B4365B978201A>wrote</a> on Thursday that many of these worn out quips need to be extracted for good from social media.
Ideas
Layering the Oil Spill Fall Out
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has generated lots of computer models, applications and Web sites. Here's another one: <a href=http://www.geoplatform.gov/erma.html#x=-90.42000&y=28.03000&z=6&layers=>Geoplatform.gov</a>, developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric and Administration.
Ideas