Archive for February 2nd, 2009
Happy birthday to Frank DiGiammarino
A very happy birthday to Frank DiGiammarino of the National Academy of Public Administration. (Coincidentally, it was DiGiammarino’s wife’s birthday just last week.)
DiGiammarino is NAPA’s vice president for strategic initiatives and one of the people behind NAPA’s Collaboration Project, which seeks to help agencies work though many of these collaborative technologies. We recently had him on Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris talking about some of the collaborative guidance that they are pulling together. (Hear that conversation here.)
On this date in history… in 1653, New Amsterdam, now New York City, was incorporated… in 2004, ricin was discovered in offices used by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist… in 1971, Idi Amin assumed power in Uganda following a coup… and in 1887, the first Groundhog Day. (More on that after the break.)… It is also the birthday of singerShakira (32), actress Farrah Fawcett (62), TV-film executive Barry Diller (67), Crosby, Stills and Nash’s Graham Nash (67), Star Trek TNG actor Bret Spiner (60), and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) (60).
Read more about Groundhog Day and more about what happened on this date after the break.
The CRS report on the Obama CTO: The challenges
The good folks over at the Federation of American Scientists got their hands on a Jan. 21, 2009 report from the Congressional Research Service headlined, The Federal Chief Technology Officer in the Obama Administration: Options and Issues for Consideration. [Federal News Radio's Jason Miller pointed me to the CRS report. His story is posted here. I have posted the CRS report itself below... you can find the PDF here.]
The long and short of it is… there are issues.
Neither the campaign nor transition documents provide details such as where a CTO would be located organizationally; whether a CTO would be a single position or supported by a staff, office, or agency; and how the duties and authorities of a CTO would be aligned and integrated with existing offices and agencies charged with similar responsibilities, such as the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Federal Communications Commission, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Read the full report below.
While we’re on the subject, it still remains completely baffling to me why Congress doesn’t make Congressional Research Service reports public. Instead, organizations such as the Federation of American Scientists have to go about trying to get them and make them public.
Hat tip: Federal News Radio’s Jason Miller
The most read DorobekInsider posts for the last week of January
The DorobekInsider hit another record number of readers last week — thank you very much.
The most read items for the last week of January 2009:
- What’s up with the CTO? Also the DOD CIO and Roger Baker
- Government media aren’t dodging the recession — 1105 decides not to publish GCN this week
- CQ for sale… if the price is right
- GCN Editor Wyatt Kash adds Defense Systems to his duties
- More buzz around the new acting GSA admistrator
- NAPA’s Collaboration Project helps with government 2.0 policy and legal issues — highlighting the problems, and starting the work on solutions
- No CTO, but Team Obama a ‘director of citizen participation’
- Some must-reads from Killefer, Obama’s performance person, in her own words
- GSA gets a new acting acting administrator — Paul Purdy
- Prouty’s first message to GSA employee: ‘Exciting times’
- Why blog? And welcome to another government CIO blogger: GSA CIO Casey Coleman
- Godspeed John Gioia Nov. 11, 1932-Dec. 26, 2008
- Snow delay for Operation Jump Start… New date: Feb. 11
- Welcome to 44 — President Barack Obama… and a new White House blog
- Another coup for Cisco: Paul Brubaker? Update: We had Brubaker on Federal News Radio’s Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris. You can hear that conversation here.
- VA CIO Bob Howard reportedly has a new gig UPDATE: We had Howard on Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris. You can hear that conversation here.
- Obama CTO this week? Maybe… or maybe not, and a Kundra WP profile
- HUD CIO Lisa Schlosser to join to EPA
- Happy birthday to… Anne Armstrong and Paul Brubaker
- Obama talks government spending transparency in this weekend’s ‘radio’ address
- VA CIO Howard lands at FCI
- FCW’s Fed 100 Awards: Recognizing the good work done by people… nominations open for FCW’s annual Fed 100 awards
- Government 2.0 challenges — and some solutions
- Technology and the Obama administration — insights from the transition team
- FCW gets a new editor: David Rapp… and the 1105 GovInfo marketing person is official
- Fed 100 nomination: Navy CIO Robert Carey
- Narrowing the Obama CTO list — one big name comes off the list
- Hear the Navy CIO talk about the Navy’s Web 2.0 policy
- Navy out with one of the first Web 2.0 policy memo
- Microsoft federal names a CTO — a chief transition officer
