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State Mobilizes for Texting Pakistan
The federal government's efforts to use social media to improve communication have officially gone global. At a press conference today to announce $110 million in humanitarian aid for displaced residents of Pakistan's Swat Valley, State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton discussed a plan to use cell phone text messages to inform local communities about the assistance efforts:
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Black Swans in IT
IT has always been a risk-filled enterprise. That's because software development is a first-of-a-kind undertaking. Programmers write programs to make software and hardware systems function in new ways. Often, the novelty of the development effort is small, requiring minor adjustments to existing programs. In this case, development risk is generally low. To the extent that the programming entails exploring truly new territory, then development risk goes up.
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More on E-Health as No Cost Saver
<em>New York Times</em> columnist David Brooks <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/opinion/15brooks.html">jumped into</a> the long-running argument over the likelihood of President Obama's health care reforms actually reducing health care costs.
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Lawmaker Calls for Bailout Formatting
A Republican House member proposed a measure on Thursday that would demand banks receiving bailout funds hand over business results in a special format that is easily accessible, after many open government advocates had <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090501_1033.php?oref=search">urged the administration</a> to require such formatting.
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"Swine Flu," The Brand
One lesson learned from the swine flu outbreak is that cross-marketing the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention on other federal Web sites helped drive more citizens to sign up for emergency e-mail alerts, according to GovDelivery, a company that manages public communications for government agencies.
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Health IT -- The Musical
An editor at Government Executive came across this video today, which is apparently part of a campaign to raise public awareness about the benefits of increasing adoption of health information technology.
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IT Spending Up 7% (and Counting)
Most information technology executives were counting on President Obama to goose federal tech spending when he took office. The reasoning goes this way: Technology helped fuel his run for president during the campaign and he's basically a <a href=http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2009/01/obama_reunuted_with_blackberry.php?oref=search>technophile</a>.
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IG Throws Flag on Census
The Census Bureau's ongoing address canvassing exercises have been a topic of public interest lately, because it will be the only opportunity for the bureau to make use of the handheld computers it <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080925_8186.php?oref=search">spent $800 million developing</a>.
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What About Spending.gov Subs?
While the fiscal 2010 budget plan for federal IT investments cites efforts to build Recovery.gov, a federal site for tracking stimulus spending, it is silent on the extent to which subcontractor funding and performance will be disclosed. Lawmakers and interest groups are seeking more specifics on such transactions.
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Chopra Confirmation Hearing Scheduled
A Senate panel plans to examine on May 19 the nomination of Aneesh Chopra as the first-ever federal Chief Technology Officer, a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy official said on Tuesday.
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Swine Flu Social Media Stats
Bev Godwin, director of online resources at the White House, discussed last week how the Obama administration is using social networking to open government and provide information on a number of issues at a <em>Government Executive</em> Leadership Breakfast Series panel. She presented data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Web site that shows how the public accessed information on the swine flu as of May 3.
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Tar Heels Visit White House
Permit me a shout out to my alma mater (and Nextgov senior reporter Jill Aitoro's as well), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The NCAA men's national basketball champs visited the White House on Monday to meet President Obama, who <a href="http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2009/03/obama_likes_unc_as_hoops_champ.php?oref=search">picked</a> the Tar Heels in his bracket to win the championship.
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Stimulating Federal IT Jobs
USAjobs.gov recently posted federal jobs created by Presient Bush's stimulus package -- the 2009 American Recovery Reinvestment Act (ARRA). A search using "ARRA" as a keyword brought up 192 jobs. Not too mnay of those jobs are federal information tech posts, however. A search consisting of "ARRA and information technology" produced just six hits, with two jobs in the Agriculture Department, two in the Housing and Urban Development Department, and one each in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and General Services Administration:
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When Boosting IT Is A Bad Thing
Getting rid of tax evaders is a good thing. But spending more money on technology to catch them after-the-fact is not, say some federal contracting advocates.
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Time for Jeers?
Lurita Doan, the head of the General Services Administration for two years in the Bush administration and now a commentator on Federal News Radio, has a weekly feature on the station's Federal Drive program during which she offers up her "cheers and jeers" for the federal community.
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Cyber Breaches: Worse Than You Think
It may seem as if a new breach of some computer system or network is reported every couple of months; but actually, one security expert says it's worse than that.
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The Downside of E-Health Records
With all the excitement surrounding <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090115_8220.php?oref=search">electronic health records</a> in the new administration, including the $19 billion in the stimulus bill set aside to further their adoption, it's easy to forget the potential risks of moving our health information online.
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GSA Sends USA.gov to the Cloud
In February I <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090225_6859.php?oref=search">reported</a> that the General Services Administration planned to shift the federal government's official Web portal, <a href="http://www.usa.gov">USA.gov</a> to private servers, a strategy known as cloud computing. The move was expected to cut costs in half and serve as a model to other agencies considering making the leap to software as a service.
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