It's too early to judge accomplishment of the young Obama administration, but look at the daily dialogue and the high priority given to IT issues to find cause for both opportunity and challenge. Everyone is talking about cloud computing, visualization, mashups, social networking and virtualization of everything from servers to training programs and running government operations in the virtual world of Second Life.
The government could publish internal evaluations of contractor performance, but in many cases, they are not reliable guides.
Our cover story on virtual training applications like Second Life may cause some readers to scratch their heads and say, “Wha…?”
Undergraduate and graduate business schools could help the federal government fill its need for contracting professionals.
It makes sense to convert some work to fixed-price contracts, but agencies will need more acquisition staff.
Citizen-to-citizen networks allow people to use Web 2.0 capabilities to accomplish goals, self-organize and self-police.
The nine most terrifying words in the English language, Ronald Reagan always liked to say, are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” I think we can now get that down to seven: “[Agency acronym here] would like to be your friend.”
The buzz suggests that enterprise 2.0 is poised to change how we work and govern. But that is not happening yet. Instead, most experiments with enterprise 2.0 have been limited to the creation of additional communication channels. There is much more the tools could do.
Agencies are starting to learn smart ways to use emerging technologies for communicating with citizens and each other.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center CIO Linda Cureton provides some straightforward advice to those who are timid about embracing Facebook.
The early adopters among us can be a pain in the neck sometimes, if only because what is so obvious to them remains so alien to us.
To be effective agents of change, political appointees have to establish risk boundaries and gain confidence fast.