Ideas
The Empty Vessel of Transparency
Nextgov <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081212_4966.php">reported</a> on Friday that the Office of Management and Budget updated its <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/vue-it/index.html#path5/path5.json|path2/path2.json">Visualization for Understanding Expenditures in Information Technology</a>, which monitors federal information technology investments. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said he was disappointed that "OMB still won't provide the American taxpayers with all the information necessary to determine whether their money is being spent wisely." He added that he's "starting to think OMB isn't properly collecting this information."
Ideas
Alliant Small Biz Awards Coming
GSA just sent out a release saying they will announce the selection of vendors for the Alliant Small Business contract on Thursday. The release also included some basic questions and answers about Alliant Small Business, such as when task orders will be placed
Ideas
Needed: The Innovation Agency
The Industry Advisory Council, a group of federal IT contractors, recently met with the Obama Transition Team to talk about technology policy and management. The group gave Team Obama four reports. One of the more interesting <a href="http://www.actgov.org/actiac/documents/pdfs/Returning_Innovation_to_Gov_with_IT_final_draft.pdf">reports is on innovation</a>, which praises the incoming Obama administration for saying it will appoint a chief technology officer. But IAC says Obama:
Ideas
Before Pocket Calculators
Before there were pocket calculators there were nuclear-age slide rules. These circular cardboard calculators, shown on the <a href="http://www.orau.org/">Oak Ridge Associated Universities Web site</a>, measure all kinds of things related to nuclear blasts -- and, presumably, government officials needed dozens of special slide rules to measure them.
Ideas
How Useful, Really, is Google Flu Trends?
Two doctors, <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2206516/pagenum/all/#p2">writing for Slate</a>, ask the question: Is <a href="http://www.google.org/flutrends/">Google's Flu Trends</a>, which is meant to show as early as two weeks in advance, useful enough to stave off the spread of influenza?
Ideas