Ideas
Chopra and Silicon Valley: The Video
Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra was in Silicon Valley this week, where he spoke to the Churchill Club, the valley's premier business and technology forum. They liked what he had to say, according to some news reports.
Ideas
GSA Issues RFQ for Cloud Services
A <a href="https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=84317cbecb74c1f08471a130fc61933e&tab=core&_cview=0&cck=1&au=&ck=">special notice</a> posted by the General Services Administration on FedBizOps contains the first set of requirements for vendors interested in offering cloud computing services through GSA's <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090715_3532.php?oref=search">online cloud storefront</a>.
Ideas
More Find EHRs a Hot Investment
The market for electronic health records is heating up, according to the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> blog Digits. Salesforce.com has bought a stake in a small EHR company. The company joins Google, Microsoft and even Wal Mart -- which this year "said it had partnered with Dell and . . . eClinicalWorks to sell an EMR from its Sam's Club stores," Digits <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/08/05/salesforcecom-dips-its-toe-into-electronic-medical-records/">reported</a> -- in the market, which has been fueled by President Obama's stimulus package.
Ideas
IT Dashboard Updates Reviews
The government's IT shop on Wednesday announced it has updated a recently-launched White House Web site with reviews of all major federal IT investments.
Ideas
This is Your Budget on Stimulus
To learn just how the nearly $800 billion in stimulus spending is affecting agencies, consider this graph below. This is one slide from a presentation that Christine Shafik, director of the Office of Internal Review at the Energy Department, gave back in June at a conference for top federal executives. It shows just how much the budgets for certain offices within the Energy Department grew this year due to the stimulus bill -- money that federal employees must give out in grants and contracts.
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Hathaway Resigns from White House
The <em>Wall Street Journal</em> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124932480886002237.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">reported</a> this afternoon that acting cybersecurity czar Melissa Hathaway has resigned from her post for personal reasons.
Ideas
What's the Deal with Medicaid Systems?
One of the most complicated networks to assemble has to be a Medicaid claims processing system. Numerous states -- <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/20133/Maine_s_Medicaid_Mistakes">Maine</a>, <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/558169.html">North Carolina</a>, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/07/13/ap6647246.html">Indiana</a> and many others -- have reported during the past several years that the development of modern Medicaid claims processing systems are over budget, behind schedule and simply don't work.
Ideas
Updated: Recovery.gov Contract
The government is behind in posting the potential $18 million contract for the redesign of Recovery.gov because of the work involved to ensure the disabled can access it, said officials at the General Services Administration and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board.
Ideas
Godwin's White House Tenure Ends
Bev Godwin, who helped bridge the digital divide between federal Luddites and Obama administration tech whizzes, is leaving her post at the White House's new media office.
Ideas
A Lesson from Al Gore to Obama?
Regardless of your party affiliation, it's hard to deny that President Obama has raised the profile of information technology and cybersecurity issues significantly since taking office. Along with appointing the nation's first chief information and chief technology officers, Obama has personally delivered a <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090529_1893.php">major speech</a> on cybersecurity and promised to deliver unprecedented transparency via the publishing of government data online.
Ideas
The Health Show Must Go On
After liberal and conservative House Democrats on Wednesday compromised on a health care bill, the <a href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/">Web site of the committee with jurisdiction</a> apparently went down due to "an unusually high number of visitors."
Ideas
Former DHS CIO Cooper to FAA?
The federal information technology industry is talking about the rumored appointment of Steve Cooper as the chief information officer at the <a href="http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/">Air Traffic Organization</a> <strike>Federal Aviation Administration</strike>.
Ideas
Library Official Picked For Archivist
President Obama reportedly plans to appoint David S. Ferriero to the position of U.S. Archivist, a job that entails deploying a massive technologically-agnostic system to preserve and publish the historical record of the United States, according to the nonprofit National Coalition for History.
Ideas
NIH Gets Schooled on Wikipedia
Wikipedia is the Web's most prominent source of information, but because of its crowd-sourcing model, it's not always the most credible. That's pretty much the opposite of federal Web sites, which are generally considered among the most <a href="http://www.cdc.gov">trusted</a> <a href="http://www.nih.gov">sources</a> of information on the Web, if not the best known.
Ideas
White House Confronts Cookies
The White House may lift its policy barring federal Web sites from tracking users' online behavior. A <a href="http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-17756.htm">Federal Register notice</a> published on Monday seeks public comment on revisions to an existing ban on persistent cookies -- common software programs that commercial sites deposit on a visitor's computer to collect usage information.
Ideas
Asking About Cookies
Bev Godwin, director of online resources and interagency development for the White House new media team, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Cookies-Anyone-the-http-kind/">asked</a> the public on Friday to weigh in on the decade-old federal policy that does not allow agencies to use persistent cookies on their Web sites.
Ideas
Howell Addresses Interior Lawsuit
Today at <a href="http://www.affirm.org/">AFFIRM's</a> annual leadership awards luncheon, OMB deputy administrator for E-Government and information technology Mike Howell, formerly CIO at the Interior Department, was awarded with organization's top prize for executive leadership in federal information resources management. Following the award Howell made some brief remarks about leadership and then addressed a controversial topic.
Ideas
Archives Strategizes for Gov 2.0
The National Archives and Records Administration is out with a <a href="http://www.archives.gov/about/plans-reports/strategic-plan/2009/nara-strategic-plan-2006-2016-update.pdf">draft 2009 strategic plan</a> that lays down a marker for some ambitious changes, including expanded responsibility for e-records management -- and departmentwide telework. The strategy states:
Ideas
Why We Need E-Medical Records
We recently came across this <a href="http://cbs11tv.com/local/medical.mistake.military.2.1091010.html">story</a> from a CBS affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth about 20-year-old Colton Read, who serves in the Ninth Intelligence Squadron at Beale Air Force Base, Calif. He entered the David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento to have his gall bladder removed and ended up with his legs amputated.
Ideas