Chief Information Officers Council

THE BLOG

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

A Few Parting Thoughts

Robert Carey, CIO, US Navy

I have received quite a few comments and emails on my most recent blog as if it was my final one. This blog is actually the final in my current role as DON CIO. Soon I will be working on the operation
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Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Information Technology Trenz

Linda Cureton, CIO, NASA

If I had a nickel for every time I heard the comment that there is no requirement for iPADs or similar tablet devices in the workplace, I’d ...well ... I’d have my own iPAD. Well, people knew better
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Saturday, August 28, 2010

Getting Over Your Jitters @ Twitter

Linda Cureton, CIO, NASA

It’s going to be difficult if not impossible to develop a credible and effective organizational strategy that uses Twitter until we can, as individual leaders get over our jitters about Twitter. I'm
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Friday, August 20, 2010

Leading Through the Tears

Linda Cureton, CIO, NASA

I was mortified this week when I cried in front of a big crowd. But, in the end, I learned a valuable leadership lesson.
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Thursday, August 19, 2010

Ongoing Virtualization Activities at NRC

Darren Ash, CIO, NRC

I recently participated in a panel discussion about Virtualization. The discussion started with a solid explanation of what it is, why it is important, and how it is being used both in the public and private sector.
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Sunday, August 15, 2010

The Summit

Linda Cureton, CIO, NASA

We all need our summits...places we must climb, heights we must reach. Furthermore, the purpose of leadership is to help others reach their summit...
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Saturday, August 7, 2010

Resilience!

Linda Cureton, CIO, NASA

My trip to Stennis meant more than getting my fix from high-fat, low glycemic index carbohydrates from the Rocketeria. It meant being reminded by The Mighty that getting their way isn’t as important as knowing which way to go; that clouds have silver linings; and that potential set backs are prospective opportunities. Indeed, I got my leadership fix of Resilience!
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Saturday, July 31, 2010

Life in IT Flatland

Linda Cureton, CIO, NASA

Those of us in IT Flatland have two-dimensional thinking where we don't look "up" to customer needs or "down" to end-to-end well-integrated solutions. We need to open our IT "third eye" to get ourselves out of IT Flatland.
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Friday, July 30, 2010

Clean Green Energy

Casey Coleman, CIO, GSA

Earlier this month I flew into the Midland International Airport for a family visit. I was struck by the changes on the horizon; where five years ago there was nothing but shrubs and cattle...
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Saturday, July 17, 2010

Five Things a CIO Hates About Information Technology

Linda Cureton, CIO, NASA

I just returned from a great visit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. I also got my first chance to see pieces of history from our nation’s space program. Two pieces of history are pictured here – a slide rule and pneumatic tube cylinder. Gee, at first, I thought it was so amazing that we could get to the moon without all this fancy technology.
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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Closing the Tech Gap

Vivek Kundra, U.S. Chief Information Officer

What if senior management in an Agency – or anyone in the public – could identify and monitor the performance of IT projects just as easily as they could monitor the stock market or baseball scores? That’s what the IT dashboard does -- and it’s changing the way government does business.
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Friday, July 2, 2010

Social Media Presence at NRC

Darren Ash, CIO, NRC

I was recently asked about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) use of social media tools. The two questions I got had to do with why NRC doesn't yet have an "official" presence.
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Monday, June 28, 2010

Cutting Waste by Reforming IT

Peter Orszag, Director, OMB

As I’ve written before, one source of ineffective and inefficient government is the technology gap between the public and private sectors.
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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Closing the IT Gap

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

The Federal Government lacks many of the technological capabilities that are commonplace in the private sector and our everyday lives. This IT gap significantly impacts our ability to improve the efficiency of government and deliver better services to the American people.
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Sunday, June 13, 2010

Creating a CIO Team That Rocks!

Linda Cureton, CIO, NASA

Had a meeting with NASA CIOs which by my own self-imposed performance measures was good – that means I didn’t cry (though I got close) and I didn’t have a headache (though I had a sore throat from a 1
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Saturday, June 5, 2010

Our Insecurities or: How to Stop Worrying and Love Compromised Cyber Environments

Linda Cureton, CIO, NASA

My Deputy CIO for IT Security, Jerry Davis recently asked if I thought he was paranoid. I assured him that he wasn’t really paranoid if we really are operating in a compromised environment.
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Friday, June 4, 2010

Growing Sophistication of Technology in Cars

Casey Coleman, CIO, GSA

While I was stuck in traffic the other day, I recalled a Wall Street Journal article about driverless robocars. I enjoyed the article and even Tweeted it. The article referred to predictions that futurist Norman Bel Geddes made back in the 1930s.
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Thursday, June 3, 2010

Lessons We Can Learn From Industry

Robert Carey, CIO, US Navy

Wow, it's been a while. I was on the DON CIO website and saw that I had not posted a blog for quite some time. There is obviously too much going on. Not to mention, I just returned from performing my
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Tuesday, June 1, 2010

No Stupid Ideas

Linda Cureton, CIO, NASA

I had a wonderful opportunity to be shadowed by Anthony who was in a leadership development program from another agency. He and I talked a lot about innovation and the whole notion of how to get good ideas.
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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

NRC Identification Cards

Darren Ash, CIO, NRC

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), like all other Federal agencies, has been deploying new credentials or identification cards to its employees and contractors. These credentials are being issued under the auspices of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (or HSPD-12). These cards are secure and are used to verify your identity, and are commonly used for physical access (such as at a turnstile) or logical access (such as logging onto a computer, network, or application)
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Friday, May 21, 2010

Data.gov: Pretty Advanced for a One-Year-Old

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

One year ago, data.gov was born with 47 datasets of government information that was previously unavailable to the public. The thinking behind this was that this data belonged to the American people, and you should not only know this information, but also have the ability to use it. By tapping the collective knowledge of the American people, we could leverage this government asset to deliver more for millions of people.
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Thursday, May 13, 2010

Moving To The Cloud

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

Today, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board announced that it is moving Recovery.gov to the cloud. As the world’s largest consumer of information technology and as stewards of taxpayer dollars, the Federal Government has a duty to be a leader in pioneering the use of new technologies that are more efficient and economical.
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Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Accelerating Technologies

Casey Coleman, CIO, GSA

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend a conference in which Ray Kurzweil made a presentation called "The Democratization of Innovation in an Era of Accelerating Technologies." Ray, an inventor, futurist, entrepreneur, and author, took us through the exponential growth of technology over the last 100+ years.
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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

An Initial Assessment of Open Government Plans

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO and Aneesh Chopra, U.S. CTO

As part of the ongoing implementation of the Open Government Plans, we have asked the Cabinet departments and other major agencies to work with us to evaluate version 1.0 of their Plans (or recent revisions) against the requirements of the Open Government Directive. The assessments show that we are off to a good start--but have much more work to do as we transition our overall efforts towards effective agency implementation.
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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Faster, Smarter Cybersecurity

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

Cyber-crime on the rise with 100 attacks a second worldwide. With headlines like these, just in the past couple of days, it is little wonder why the Obama Administration is taking the threat of cyber attack so seriously. Without question, the threat is real, and our response must match it in intensity, security, and creativity.
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Thursday, March 11, 2010

Getting Outside the Four Walls of Washington

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

I just returned from a productive trip to the West Coast, where I met with technology innovators from the private sector and state and local governments to hear their ideas about how the Federal Government can leverage the power of technology to deliver better results for the American people.
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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Open 311

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

I’m on the road today, joining San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco CIO Chris Vein for an event to highlight San Francisco’s Open 311 API (Application Programming Interface) initiative. This is a great approach that ties together efforts in San Francisco, Boston, the District of Columbia, Portland, and Los Angeles to open more services to citizens, and to use data to drive progress in people’s lives.
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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

TechStat: Improving Government Performance

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

In June 2009, we launched the IT Dashboard, which allows the American people to monitor IT investments across the Federal government. The IT Dashboard, which has received over 86 million hits, shines light into the operations of the Federal government. However, it is not enough to simply shine a light on IT programs and hope that results will follow.
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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

How “Open Gov” Datasets Affect Parents and Consumers

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

On December 8, 2009, the Administration issued the Open Government Directive to hardwire the values of transparency, participation and collaboration into the DNA of the Federal government. Around here, we call the general effort "Open Gov." You can learn more about it here: WhiteHouse.gov/open.
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Friday, February 5, 2010

Two New Groups Dedicated to Open Government

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

In accordance with the Open Government Directive, two working groups have been established to help develop specific actions to implement the principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration set forth in the President’s Memorandum of January 21, 2009.
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Thursday, January 21, 2010

They Gave Us The Beatles, We Gave Them Data.gov

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

Taking a page from our efforts here in the Obama Administration, the United Kingdom today launched data.gov.uk - a site to aggregate datasets from the UK government. It is exciting to see the seeds of openness, accountability, and transparency taking root around the world.
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Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Changing the Way Washington Works

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

In order to democratize data and advance the President’s agenda of an open, transparent and participatory government, the Data.gov platform was launched on May 21, 2009, with 47 datasets. Today, we have over 118,000 datasets and have received more than 47 million hits. Since the launch, many state, local and international governments have followed the path to democratize data through their own platforms. From San Francisco to the United Kingdom, there is a global movement to share public sector data to unleash the creativity of citizens, drive transparency and ensure accountability.
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Monday, September 28, 2009

Moving Beyond Compliance: The Status Quo Is No Longer Acceptable

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO, Robert Carey, Navy CIO & Vance Hitch, DOJ CIO

The threats to our nations information security continue to evolve and therefore our approach to cybersecurity must confront these new realities. In order to meet the evolving challenges we now face, Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) metrics need to be rationalized to focus on outcomes over compliance. Doing so will enable new and actionable insight into agencies' information and network security postures, possible vulnerabilities and the ability to better protect our federal systems.
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Friday, September 18, 2009

Apps.gov a New Frontier

Chris Smith, CIO, USDA

On September 16, Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer, launched Apps.gov (http://www.apps.gov). Leveraging The General Services Adminstration Advantage
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Streaming at 1:00: In the Cloud

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

Today, I am excited to announce that we have launched Apps.gov to help continue the President’s initiative to lower the cost of government operations while driving innovation within government. I'll be discussing this in a speech at the NASA Ames Research Center at 1:00 EDT - watch the speech live here [UPDATE: This event has now concluded].
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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

On Cookies

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO & Michael Fitzpatrick

Over the past two weeks, during the public comment period on OMB’s cookie policy, we have received significant feedback and suggested revisions to the current policy. These comments reflect individual opinions on all sides of the issue.
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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

CIO Evaluations Are In

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

We just reached an important milestone with respect to the Agency CIOs completing their reviews of the federal government’s major IT investments. On June 30, when we launched the IT Dashboard, just 20 percent of investments were evaluated. Today, 100 percent of the government’s IT investments have been evaluated.
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Friday, July 24, 2009

Federal Websites: Cookie Policy

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO & and Michael Fitzpatrick

During the Open Government Initiative outreach, Federal employees and the public have asked us questions about the federal government’s policy on cookies. As part of our effort to create a more open and innovative government, we’re working on a new cookie policy that we’ll want your input on. But before we get into that, let’s provide some context.
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Friday, July 17, 2009

Evidence-based decisions

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), under the leadership of Secretary Shinseki and VA CIO Roger Baker, announced that it will temporarily halt 45 IT projects which are either behind schedule or over budget and work to determine whether these programs should be continued. We’re not talking about a trivial sum here—the Fiscal Year 2009 combined budget for the 45 projects is approximately $200 million. The worst offender of the bunch was 110% over budget and 17 months behind schedule.
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Monday, July 13, 2009

Welcome to IT Dashboard - The Blog!

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

It has been an exciting time since we launched the IT Dashboard. There have been more than 20 million hits so far, and we’ve received an encouraging response from members of Congress and the public in support of our efforts to increase transparency.
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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Enhancing Online Citizen Participation Through Policy

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

Last week, Vivek Kundra and Katie Stanton talked about the efforts underway to introduce more Web 2.0 technologies to the federal government sites and to open more back-and-forth communication between the American people and the government. Some of this naturally requires the adoption of new approaches and innovative technologies. But another big part of this is updating existing practices and how these tools can be used to break down barriers to communication and information.
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Friday, June 12, 2009

New Technologies and Participation

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO & Katie Stanton

Innovation in social technology has created unprecedented opportunity to connect you to your government in order to obtain information and services and to participate in policymaking. If you are on Facebook or MySpace, government should be accessible there, too. This is the core of what we call "context-driven government." Government is only open if it is accessible. So we must bring the important services and issues of public interest into the online communities in which we already work, live, and play and create new communities for mutual engagement.
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Monday, June 8, 2009

Data Transparency via Data.gov

Vivek Kundra, U.S. CIO

Government data permeates our lives. The atomic clock at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standardizes our time, dictating when we arrive at meetings and take our children to soccer practice. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides our doctors and media outlets with information about how to keep our families healthy when there is a new public health concern, such as the H1N1 (swine flu) virus.
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