US CIO Steve VanRoekel is doing things differently these days, and he knows it takes more than fresh technology to be really fresh. It takes a change of clothes.
VanRoekel and US CTO Todd Park spoke May 23 to the new-age IT crowd at the TechCrunch Disrupt NYC Conference about President Barack Obama’s new digital strategy. In the strategy, the administration aims to make the government innovative and mobile to meet the demands of today’s citizenry.
Coming straight from Washington, VanRoekel has a persona to overcome. The crowd VanRoekel addressed in New York is very different from that in Washington. These people typically choose to wear a pair of jeans to work instead of stuffy dark suits. So for his presentation, VanRoekel dumped his tie, wore his shirt with the top buttons undone and put on white socks with pink stripes that contrasted against his dark slacks and shoes.
His reason for his fresh clothes:
“To change culture, you’ve got to switch things up, and this is about changing culture, in large part.”
He testifies on the digital strategy before the Senate committee May 24. Will he change culture on Capitol Hill with those white, striped socks?
Posted by Matthew Weigelt on May 23, 2012 at 2:14 PM0 comments
Attendees at the GSA Expo, held last week in San Antonio, said the event was much toned down compared to previous years, with fewer government attendees and fewer parties.
That's a natural reaction to the recent scandal the General Services Administration has weathered regarding egregious overspending at a conference in 2010, detailed in a recent Inspector General report. But perhaps one very telling sign of the new frugality was in the box lunches.
They had no pickles. Apparently, the cost of the pickle pushed the price of the box lunch over the limit.
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 7:45 AM0 comments
Privacy expert Paul Ohm is reported to be joining the Federal Trade Commission this summer as a senior policy advisor on the Web and mobile, according to a May 21 news article in the Wall Street Journal.
Ohm is a law professor and privacy expert at the University of Colorado who has written extensively on information privacy. His job at the FTC is expected to begin in August.
Posted by FCW Staff on May 21, 2012 at 10:18 AM0 comments