Quick Hits
*** When Department of Defense CIO Dana Deasy spoke at ACT-IAC's ELC conference in Philadelphia on Oct. 15, he argued attendees to make a concerted effort to show those outside the federal space how fulfilling public service can be. And he revealed that it was former federal CIO Tony Scott who planted that seed with him.
Soon after he became federal CIO, Scott asked Deasy -- then at J.P. Morgan -- to host "14 or 15 government CIOs" for a day of discussions. Those talks, Deasy said, "gave me a chance to truly see the commitment and passion of these leaders serving in government [and] gave me a chance to learn about the complexity and scale of the problems they were trying to solve. ... I remember going home and telling my wife, 'I wish there was something I could do to help them.'"
In early 2018, Deasy, newly retired, got that chance when Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan approached him about the DOD CIO job, It didn’t take much for Shanahan and Defense Secretary James Mattis to convince, him, Deasy said: "I suck at retirement, obviously."
*** Tony Scott will be on hand at the ELC conference at 9:45 a.m. today to discuss the findings of a survey by ACT-IAC and Meritalk called Reimagining Government IT. While almost all feds report feeling the momentum shift toward modernization, numbers slide when it comes to believing that money will follow public commitment. Only about 20 percent of feds in finance, IT and procurement believe their agencies will see upticks in spending of 10 percent or more over the coming year. Just 28 percent of feds are confident that employees are being trained for the future state of IT. And feds typically think the 80/20 legacy/modernization split in funding isn't going to change anytime soon. Still, per the survey, more than half of feds think the shift in momentum toward modernization is "significant," and the recent cybersecurity executive order, federal cloud first policy (recently superseded by new doctrine) and the Managing Government Technology Act and FITARA have been key drivers of modernization.
*** Department of Homeland Security Chief Procurement Officer Soraya Correa won ACT-IAC's 2018 Education Award for Government for her work with both industry and government acquisition professionals, and particularly for her advocacy of DHS' Procurement Innovation Lab. Macro Solutions’ Todd Hager won the group’s Education Award for Industry for his work with ACT-IAC’s Emerging Technology Community of Interest.
*** In non-ELC news, the Defense Information Systems Agency is prepping a solicitation for secret and top-secret mobile devices, device management, services and support. In an Oct. 15 draft, DISA outlined its requirements and expectations for classified mobile devices. Per the draft, participation will be limited to about 50 trusted integrators in the Commercial Solutions for Classified program run by the National Security Agency.