Each week, our goal is to where each week, our goal is to find an issue — a person — an idea — then helped define the past 7-days… and we work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

This week, we’ve talked about the challenges of dealing with big data. We’re going to tell you about a company that is going just that — for the intelligence agencies… for the Recovery Board… it’s a story of the Silicon Valley coming to Washington successfully, and it may also be an indication of the direction of government contracting. We’ll talk about the company Palantir.

And as we head into the weekend, we’ll have your weekend reading list… weekends are a time to rejuvenate — but also some time to take a step back and ponder. And we’ll have some reading that may guide you as you work be innovative… to think outside of the box. We’ll have information about the DorobekINSIDER Book Club — it’s coming up on Tuesday Wednesday at the Adobe Government Assembly… and we’ll have details.

But… after the break… we start off as we do every week with a look at the week that was for government… for the first week of February 2012…

And we start with your pay… which will be frozen again… through 2013, at least if the House of Representatives has anything to say about it. House lawmakers voted this week to freeze their pay and the salaries of congressional staffers and civilian federal employees.

The bill still needs to to be approved by the Senate before it would become law.

The Obama administration has called for an end to the federal pay freeze and has included a 0.5 percent pay raise for feds as part of its 2013 budget proposal. The White House will release its full budget proposal in next week — get ready for that.

Meanwhile, remember the budget supercommittee that failed to reach an agreement last year. As a result of that, the budget law requires $1.2 trillion in cuts starting in January — about half of which would come from the Defense Department. There was a move by Republican senators this week to tinker with those automatic cuts. The plan would given DOD a one-year reprieve of those cuts and instead cut the federal workforce by  5 percent and extend the pay freeze through 2013. That would have saved $127 billion, Republican leaders say. That move failed, but we’ll keep watching it.

How Would a Pay Freeze Affect You and Your Family? – GovLoop – Social Network for Government - http://me.lt/80NSl
All of this comes amid new numbers on how fed pay compares to the private sector. An assessment by the Congressional Budget Office says that that comparison is difficult, but that the biggest variable is… education. It said that federal employees on average make more than their private sector counterparts, but CBO said that it is different when you analyze the numbers by education levels. So civilian works with a high school education earned about 21 percent more then their private sector counterparts, but federal workers with professional degrees — lawyers, for example — of PhDs… they earned about 23 percent less then the private sector.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of comment. Colleen Kelley, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, in an op-ed in the Washington Post, questioned CBO’s research — and argued that the salary and benefits for federal employees… she argues that not only is the federal government a laggard, but that pay levels are nowhere near the relative importance of the jobs that are being done.

And government contractors aren’t dodging any bullet on this one. The Obama administration this week renewed its effort to cap the pay of government contractors.

And what about state and local government workers? A few months ago the Center for State and Local Government Excellence found that state and local government worker salaries lag behind the private sector. [PDF]

As you can imagine, all of this has spurred a lot of discussion… and it’s GovLoop, so we want to hear from you. We are looking for your insights about what a pay freeze means to you — how does it impact you and your family … your thoughts on the Congressional Budget Office research… and whether there should be restrictions on contractor pay.

Other headlines from the week…

* Defense Secreary Leon Panetta confirmed to reporters traveling with him that U.S. troops would end their combat mission next year and switch to an advisory role through the end of 2014;

* President Obama will ramp up his efforts to help unemployed veterans find jobs by calling for $6 billion in spending aimed at service members returning home from the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan;

* NASA has released it’s first multi-player Facebook Game;

* The Labor Department and outgoing federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra launched a open innovation initiative to eliminate the gender gap in pay.

* And speaking of Chorpa… as he gets ready to leave government next week, Government Technology asks whether his departure signals problems for the open government initiative? And at GovLoop, we’re asking who will be the next CTO? Frankly, with all the changes going on at OMB right now, I expect they’ll name a OMB director before they get to the CTO or the head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

* Oh, and don’t miss Federal Computer Week’s 2012 Fed 100 Award winners. They were announced this week. If you want to be heartened by the good work going on in the government community, it’s good to recognize these people.

Finally, a few stories about information sharing. The head of the intelligence community told lawmakers that it will take five years to complete major impovements in the system that allows U.S. agencies to share secret information following the WikiLeaks leaks. James Clapper, the head of the intel chief, said that the changes would focus on monitoring and auditing downloads of data from intelligence agency computer systems, the Washington Times reports.

One way to protect that information — typewriters. New York City is looking to buy… a whole bunch of… typewriters. The city’s Department of Administrative Services is prepared to request a new typewriter contract — the last of which cost the city $320,000 five years ago — for the 18 government agencies, including the NYPD, that still use the ancient machines.

Meanwhile, the FBI is looking to develop an app capable of sniffing through online media sites and social networks… yes, like Facebook and Twitter.

Issue of the Week: Finding needles in haystacks — using technology

Shane Harris

Coming up, we’ll talk about the DorobekINSIDER Book Club… and the role of CFOs evolving beyond just crunching numbers…

But the stories we’ve been discussing the past few minutes — about sharing information and making sense of big data — it brings us to our issue of the week, which is about big data and intelligence — or rather, making sense of all the information you have.

This week, Washingtonian magazine published a story about what they bill as the killer app — and it is about a Silicon Valley company called Palantir that has technology that helps make sense of all those hay stacks.

Shane Harris is a senior writer at Washingtonian magazine… he is the author of the book, The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State.

My sense is most people have never heard of Palantir — even after a BusinessWeek cover story. I asked him what Palantir does…

Shane Harris is a senior writer at Washingtonian magazine… he is the author of the book, The Watchers. Find a link to his article about Palantir online… DorobekINSIDER.com

Weekend reading

And that brings us to your weekend reads… That brings us to your weekend reads — we know weekend time is precious, so we try to pull some stories throughout the week that are worth your time… and may just plant a seed for new ideas…

And I’m actually starting with a book — it’s the book that will be the focus on the DorobekINSIDER Book Club. The book is by Peter Sims — it’s titled Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries – and it’s about how small things that you do can lead to big results. And if you haven’t participated in the DorobekINSIDER Book Club before… it’s a bit like the Oprah Book Club, but we’re more wonky. We are holding the Book Club meeting at the 2012 Adobe Government Assembly. It is being held in DC at the National Press Club on February 8 — we are first thing in the morning. And joining us to discuss the book will be the author, Peter Sims… and Dave McClure of GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies. I hope you’ll join us. If you can’t, we’ll have a GovLoop page where you can offer your thoughts on the book — tell us what you think worked for you, and what didn’t. Go read quick… we’ll talk on Tuesday Wednesday morning, OK?

Other weekend reads… The Wall Street Journal reports that CFOs are having to do more than just crunch numbers. Chief financial officers should be paying closer attention to nonfinancial drivers of their business, according to a new survey of chief executives. CEOs polled by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants  and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants said that their companies should place more emphasis on customer relationships or human capital to drive long-term growth, the Wall Street Journal’s CFO Journal reports.

And finally, this week I got to trek to New York… I sit on the board of the Kenyon Review, which is one of the more prestigious literary journals out there. And like many publications, they are seeing the world change. Coming soon, you’ll be able to get a subscription to the Kenyon Review on your Amazon Kindle — yes, I hear the groans from book lovers out there. And BusinessWeek has a story about Amazon — and the looming war about books. It isn’t directly government related, but it is about the changing world and how different organizations are dealing with those changes. I think you’ll find it fascinating.

And… that does it for us this week. If you have ideas about stories that are worth a mention… or anything else, it’s GovLoop — we’d love to hear from you. And we’re on Twitter, Facebook, GovLoop, Google+… even iTunes … and DorobekINSIDER. Let us know your thoughts.

I hope to see you for the DorobekINSIDER on Tuesday Wednesday.

Thanks to Shane Harris for joining me. Until next week, thanks for being here. Go out and do work. We’ll see you online… DorobekINSIDER.com

Each week, our goal is to where each week, our goal is to find an issue — a person — an idea — then helped define the past 7-days… and we work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

This week, we’re going to talk about governing — and the relationship between governing and what you do. We’re going to talk to one of the editors of a new book — just out this week — titled Transforming American Governance: Rebooting the Public Square. We’ll also have some weekend reads — he weekends are a good time to rejuvenate — but also some time to take a step back and ponder. And we’ll have some reading that may guide you as you work to think outside of the box. We’ll take a look at the impact drones have on the military… and on how you can actually do more with less. All of that just ahead…

But after the break… we will start off as we do every week with a look at the week that was for the third week of January 2012…

And we start out where we do so often talking about your money… and doing more with less. The White House will urge congress to revisit the failed attempt by the so-called Congressional supercommittee to cut the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion, the Associated Press reports. The proposal is somewhat counter-intuitive, coming in an election where where conventional wisdom says you don’t get much done. But it also comes as lawmakers are wrangling with across-the-board spending cuts that are required as a result of the supercommittee’s budget deadlock.

Meanwhile Politico notes that the the FAA is headed for another shutdown in 12 days unless Congress steps in. House members and sources indicate House Republicans will back off some of their demands, but that they are likely to ask the Senate for something in return. Congress faces a Jan. 31 deadline.

And the ‘age of austerity’ impacts vendors too. The Washington Post reports that Booz Allen Hamiltion is trimming its senior and middle management workforce, bowing to the pressure of reduced government spending. The company would not identify how many employees are being shed, it said in a statement that it is “taking bold action to be out in front.”

Have you heard of the Blue Button?

It is an innovative program created by the Department of Veterans Affairs to give veterans control of their medical records. And it was developed very quickly. Well, the Blue Button is now expanding outside of the VA. The Office of Personnel Management has asked all health insurance carriers in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program to add the Blue Button to their websites.

The Blue Button will allow patients to view and download their personal health data. The program has already been wildly successful in the Department of Veterans Affairs as more than 500,000 veterans have adopted the program in 14 months.

In open government news…

Openness and transparency coming to how the U.S. spends its money overseas. The U.S. Agency for International Development is working to make its already-public database of spending data easier to understand. USAID Administrator Raj Shah speaking at the Brookings Institution, says the new Geo-Center project’s online map will help the public evaluate the agency’s programs and provide information that could be used by researchers or other agencies. It’s part of an open-government initiative. Brookings also released findings on transparency among aid organizations. Publish What You Fund ranked the USAID and the State Department in the bottom half of 58 groups.

More than eight months after proposing a new website that aimed to make House of Representatives legislation and documents more readily available, the House Administration Committee launched a new website and iPad app to help do just that.
The Web site will provide legislative documents in the machine-readable XML format, while the new iPad app, The Congressional Record, will provide improved access to the official Congressional Record. Read more from the Library of Congress blog.

And the White House has joined Google+.

A number of personnel changes…

Jeffrey Zients, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget — the chief performance officer — has been named to lead Office of Management and Budget, at least in an acting capacity.

The former United States CIO, Vivek Kundra, announced he is joining Salesforce.com as Executive Vice President.

And Lt. Gen. Michael Basla will become the Air Force’s chief information officer when Lt. Gen. Bill Lord retires this summer. FedScoop reports that Basla is currently vice commander of the Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, where he assists the commander in organizing, equipping, training and maintaining mission-ready space and cyberspace forces and capabilities for North American Aerospace Defense Command, U.S. Strategic Command.
Basla to Replace Lord as Air Force CIO | FedScoop -

And, of course, this was the week of the great online SOPA protests — a very online protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act. You probably noticed that many sites went dark.

And finally, some carry over news from last week when we told you about the Obama administration’s plan to reorganize agencies specifically around trade. A survey of government executives by Government Executive found that they are wary of the leadership challenges that could accompany the consolidation plan. But Slate.com says the plan is a good idea. They say it would save some money, eliminate some redundancies, and along missions in a more logical way. It won’t balance the budget, but it would save money, Slate argues.

The New York Times says that the Obama administration’s campaign to shrink the federal government is a proposal notable less for its goal than for its challenge to a hostile Congress — a very unpopular Congress. One group that isn’t a fan of the changes: Government weather forecasters. Richard Hirn, general counsel and legislative director of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, said the reorg plans go against the original intent of the weather service, which Franklin D. Roosevelt moved from the Agriculture Department to the Commerce Department in recognition of the burgeoning aviation industry and the need to provide accurate, timely weather forecasts.

Issue of the week: Transforming governance

Alan Balutis

But our issue of the week is about governance… and its role in how the government operates. The National Academy of Public Administration has just published a new book titled Transforming American Governance: Rebooting the Public Square. And it looks at one of my favorite subjects — how do you do your job better. One of the editors of that book: Alan Balutis… he is currently a Senior Director and Distinguished Fellow for Cisco System’s Business Solutions Group. And he retired after a full career in government, most recently at the Commerce Department… so we’ll ask him about his thoughts about the reorganization. But I wanted to start with the book… and I asked him why he wanted to work on this book about governance…

Alan Balutis… he is a Senior Director and Distinguished Fellow for Cisco System’s Business Solutions Group…. the book is Transforming American Governance: Rebooting the Public Square… You can buy it yourself on Amazon… Google Books has excerpts… and Alan has a blog post about the book… and wrote a piece in the Washington Business Journal headlined, A new wave of federal workers is poised to emerge.

Weekend reads

And that brings us to your weekend reads… That brings us to your weekend reads — we know weekend time is precious, so we try to pull some stories throughout the week that are worth your time… and may just plant a seed for new ideas…

And let’s start out with research from one of my favorite people… Bill Eggers and Deloitte’s GovLab… they’ve just put out a study looking at how disruptive innovation can help the government do more for less… and it means actually doing things differently. The key is using disruptive innovation, which can help break the trade-off between price and performance by getting better — and often cheaper — over time. And they say that fostering disruptive innovation requires focus, choosing where to spur innovation. And the report says that the government has an array of tools that can foster the growth of disruptive technologies. Read his Governing column… or find more about the research itself.

With all that disruption, how much change can we actually handle at once? The MIT Sloan Management Review says there people can sustain information overload.

Automation trumps hiring. Companies are spending to upgrade factories at a much faster pace than they are hiring. The Wall Street Journal notes that it is an anomaly of this recovery. The story notes one company that is replacing forklifts and their drivers with automated vehicles.

Journalist Shane Harris, author of the book The Watchers about the rise of America’s surveillance state, has an essay just out from the Hoover Institution about the future of drone warfare. [PDF]

He says that as aircraft and weapons have become more precise, human beings have become less essential to the conduct of war. The rise of unmanned aerial vehicles, more commonly known as drones, promises to push human beings further out of the loop.

Drones are becoming autonomous, capable of taking off, flying to a target, and returning to base without much human direction. Although military officials insist that the United States will never deploy drones that can select targets and fire weapons on their own, history and the military’s own current research suggest otherwise.

What is the role of government CIOs? It’s growing, at least that the findings from a survey by Federal News Radio. It’s growing around mission and budget. Meanwhile, on GovLoop, there are posts about the federal CIOs 2012 plans… an round-up of his speech to AFFIRM… and the video of that discussion… of course, hear the speech about the mobile government plan.

And finally… are the people operating the country’s most successful hedge fund getting a government salary? The New York Times says country’s most successful hudge fund is the Federal Reserve. Last year, the central bank turned over $76.9 billion in profit to the federal government, slightly down from $79.3 billion it provided in 2010.

The Fed made this money in interest on a nearly $3 trillion portfolio of securities. This enormous holding was built up largely in the wake of the financial crisis as the Fed bought these securities through two rounds of quantitative easing.

The Times says the Fed is operating like a hedge fund, leveraging its balance sheet to earn huge profits. The main difference between a hedge fund and the Fed is that the Fed effectively creates its own money, so it doesn’t have any borrowing costs, meaning yet more profits. Remarkably, the Fed’s profits are also an afterthought.

One event to mention… Wednesday is the annual Operation Jump Start. If you’ve never been, it is a way to help returning warfighters literally jump start their private sector careers. You can donate suits and all sorts or other things.

That that does it for us this week. If you have ideas about stories that are worth a mention… or anything else, it’s GovLoop — we’d love to hear from you. GovLoop has been redesigned. Let us know what you think about that too. And we’re on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and GovLoop… DorobekINSIDER. Let us know your thoughts.

Thanks to Alan Balutis for joining me. Until next week, thanks for being here. Go out and do work. We’ll see you online… DorobekINSIDER.com

Frank DiGiammarino

Amazon’s Web Service’s government arm has scored a coup — hiring Frank DiGiammarino, who left the White House late last year.

The DorobekINSIDER has confirmed that DiGiammarino has been named Amazon Web Service‘s director of innovation and global expansion for Amazon Web Services, which is mostly known for books but has been making a big play in the cloud — and in government. And that includes some smart hires. Last year, Amazon hired Teresa Carlson, who had led Microsoft Federal.

DiGiammarino left the White House earlier this year where he served as an advisor to the Vice President for recovery implementation and director of the Recovery Implementation Office. In that job, he was responsible to ensuring the $787 billion in stimulus got out into the economy as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Here he is at 2010′s Gov 2.0 Summit talking about the stimulus spendings impact on innovation:

DiGiammarino is widely respected, previously serving as the vice president of strategic initiatives for the National Academy of Public Administration, where he helped created the innovative Collaboration Project. The Collaboration Project was developed along with Lena Trudeau, who is now at the General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service’s Associate Commissioner, Office of Strategic Innovations. It was designed to be a place where government could collaborate around collaboration.

This is only the latest in some high profile people jumping into the cloud. Carlson joined Amazon Web Services last year, and Viveck Kundra, the former federal chief information officer, announced that he is joining Salesforce.com.

After the break… read DiGammarino’s full bio…

Frank P. DiGiammarino
Office of the Vice President
Frank DiGiammarino serves as an Advisor to the Vice President of the United States for Recovery Implementation.  Previously Frank served as the Director of the Recovery Implementation Office where he was responsible for coordinating a complex and diverse network of government departments in disbursing $787 billion to speed economic recovery.  In the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, the implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been credited with reversing the dramatic decline in national employment by creating or saving over 3 million jobs, increasing the gross domestic product by over two and a half points and laying the foundation for the economy of the 21st century.  At the two-year anniversary of the act, the implementation of the Recovery Act met all of its legislated goals on or ahead of schedule.

Responsibilities include briefings to the Vice President of the United States, management of progress and challenges through interactions with Federal departments and agencies, and supporting efforts to internally and externally communicate progress.  While leading the Recovery Implementation Office, Frank:

* Implemented, in coordination with key partners, a first of its kind, transparent, recipient reporting system that has achieved over 99 percent compliance;
* Drove new models of collaboration in the areas of health and energy that have demonstrated the potential for public-private partnerships to address some of our nation’s greatest challenges; and
Worked with state, local and non-governmental partners to address barriers and achieve programmatic goals.
A recognized change agent, Frank came to the Executive Office of the President from the National Academy of Public Administration where he was the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives.  Prior to the National Academy, Frank spent many years as a senior consultant and strategist.  Former positions include Director and DoD Practice Area lead at Touchstone Consulting Group, General Manager and Director of Program Management at Sapient Corporation, and Principal Consultant with the state and local government practice at American Management Systems.

Career highlights include launching the Collaboration Project, an independent forum of leaders committed to leveraging the benefits of collaboration to solve government’s complex problems; leading a program to re-engineer a $6 billion Army department with 15,000 personnel; driving reorganization of an 1,100 person consultancy in 6 months with 85 percent adoption; and leading a 700-plus person office that delivered $120 million in annual revenue.

Frank holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts and a Master of Public Administration from The George Washington University.  A frequent speaker on career development, Frank serves as an advisor to the leadership team of the Young Government Leaders organization.  He lives in Bethesda, MD with his wife and three children.

Each week, our goal is to where each week, our goal is to find an issue — a person — an idea — then helped define the past 7-days… and we work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

This week, we’re going to get geeky… we’re going to embrace our inner nerd. This week was the annual gadget-a-thon known as CES — the Consumer Electronics Show out in Las Vegas. I got to attend for the first time this year — both to CES and CES Government. One of the key speakers was Steve VanRoekel, the federal chief information officer. And later on, we’ll have highlights of his speech, and talk about what it means for you.

Also later on, we’ll have our weekend reading list — the weekends are a good time to rejuvenate — but also some time to take a step back and ponder. And we’ll have some reading that may guide you as you work to think outside of the box.

But after the break, we’ll have our look at the week that was for the second week of January 2012… plus the full Week in Review…

I don’t say this very often, but… it was a somewhat quiet week outside of the craziness of the Consumer Electronics Show.

We start off with your money, as we so often do. And the federal budget crunch started to get real this week. The Agriculture Department announced it will shut 259 offices around the country — and yes, that could impact jobs. Government Executive reports that the Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is working to avoid furlows. And GSA has also requested buyout authority. Washington Post Federal Eye columnist Ed O’Keefe noted that it felt as if it was furloughs — or buyouts — just about everywhere.

Meanwhile, President Obama this week visited the Environmental Protection Agency — and the Washington Post notes that the President will probably be making more of those pop-ins.

Meanwhile the White House announced Friday that it will seek to merge six agencies that focus on trade and commerce into one new department. The plans would impact the Commerce Department’s business and trade functions, the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Trade and Development Agency.  The move would require the approval of Congress — and administration officials say it would impact as many as 2,000 jobs that would be eliminated through attrition.

As part of that announcement, the President announced that he was elevating the Small Business Administration to a cabinet level agency.

And a bit of deja vu all over again… The White House notified Congress on Thursday that the government was near its $15.194 trillion borrowing limit, ushering in the debut of procedural theater in which the debt limit will ultimately be raised even if Congress votes against it.

And this week, a big shake-up among White House staff. The White House announced that Chief of Staff Bill Daley had resigned… and that Jack Lew, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, would take over that post. That set of rounds of speculation about who would take Lews’ OMB post — but, the New Yorker said it also is a disappointing sign about the atmosphere in Washington. The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos notes that Daley is the son of tough Chicago mayor Richard Daily — and when Daley concludes that the political atmosphere is so poisoned, that’s saying something.

Speaking of politics… In the march toward November’s elections, another significant step in the march in setting the stage for the fall battle for the White House… former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney did better than expected to win the New Hampshire primary. Next up: South Carolina. And yes, the election is only 46 weeks away.

Let’s get geeky…
As I mentioned, I spent most of this week in Sin City — Las Vegas… at CES — the Consumer Electronics Show and its baby cousin, CES Government, which runs concurrently with the gianormous CES International. And yes, the Consumer Electronics Show would seem to focus on… well, consumers rather then on the enterprise. But as we have seen more and more each year, it is the consumer market that is defining enterprise technology. That is a significant change — with big implications for government. Government is used to being a market definer. The nearly $80 billion that the federal government spends on information technology each year could shape markets. But officials speaking at CES Government acknowledged that power is waning. One senior IT leader said that talks with Apple were bogged down by the government’s requirements — and the fact that the government just isn’t going to buy enough iPhones and iPads to make it a market decider. The deciders will be you and me in our role as consumers. It’s a huge change — with significant implications for government… implications that many officials are still working to get their arms around.

That’s a long way of saying that CES probably does matter to government.

Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel

The focus of this year’s CES Government show was mobility — and the Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel released the Obama administration’s plan for mobility. More on that just ahead.
Throughout the three days of CES Government, there was a lot of talk about cloud computing and issues like telework, of course… and mobility generally — even what mobility means.

A few of my take aways from four days of conferencing:

Cloud computing: To say cloud computing is a hot topic is beyond an understatement. Cloud computing is essentially as-you-need it computing power — and it is a very different model for large organization… and particularly for the federal government. Last month, I brought you highlights of a speech by an official from the Department of Veterans Affairs about cloud computing. The growing consensus is that cloud computing will come to government, but — and I know this will come as a shock to all of us — change is hard. Kevin Plexico, the market guru from DelTek’s GovWin, noted that there are a number of migrations to cloud computing, but most of them are — and will continue to be — the low hanging fruit items… initiatives like cloud e-mail. And there is a lot of discussion — and hope — around FedRAMP. FedRAMP is an initiative to create a standard assessment of cloud computing solutions with a heavy emphasis on security. But there are a lot of questions around contracting cloud computing services. It is a very different model — and there are significant questions about how the government contracts for those services.

And the federal CIO Steve VanRoekel noted that technology is a fundamental part of the government of the future — and commercial technology enables people to do more…

As I mentioned, at CES and CES Government, there was much discussion about mobility. In fact, VanRoekel used CES Government to unveil the Obama administration’s mobile plan. He said the government hasn’t focused enough on using mobility effectively.

And it’s going to move quickly. OMB posted the draft mobile government strategy this week — and they are seeking ideas. They are using the IdeaScale platform to solicit thoughts  from government… from industry… from you… You can submit your ideas: http://mobility-strategy.ideascale.com.
And, again, VanRoekel said that the plan is to move very quickly…

One of my favorite parts of VanRoekel’s speech was about his experience at the Federal Communications Commission building a mobile app — and it is another one of these stories that really demonstrates how government, the government marketplace, and enterprise organizations are changing — doing more with less. He talked about the FCC app to assess broadband speeds…

VanRoekel took some questions.

Here the full speech:

And his OMB blog post on the subject: The Mobile Opportunity

Weekend reads

That brings us to your weekend reads — we know weekend time is precious, so we try to pull some stories throughout the week that are worth your time… and may just plant a seed for new ideas…

One is from the latest issue of the Harvard Business Review — they have the HBR list of what they call audacious ideas that were collected from a list of experts.

And one of them is that we should stop trying to pay for performance — because the evidence is that it simply doesn’t work. They also talk about crowd sourcing management reviews — an interesting idea.

But under the category of science challenges, they suggest giving NASA a real mission. Gregg Easterbrook says that after the space shuttle program, we need to give NASA an inspirational new mission — maybe sending people to Mars.

The entire list is fascinating. And it sure made me think about what would be the government’s list of audacious ideas…

Over at FastCompany, they have a story about the future of energy in the United States. Experts at MIT say that we should spend less time, energy, effort and money on a big bang approach, but instead we should focus on what they call the country’s energy innovation system. They say that energy solutions will come from marginal, local developments, not a big bang.

And finally, I wanted to share the cover story from Wired magazine this month. It is about the government revolts around the world — Tunisia, Egypt… Wired says that those changes were brought about, in part, by people’s access to technology — technology that enables self-organization. And Wired says it is coming here too.

And finally, want to create more jobs? How about having people work — less. That’s the idea from a few economists — yes, a 21-hour work week. The proponents acknowledge that it would require a wholesale reordering of the economy, but they also make the case that it may just happen, whether we like it or not.

And if you have ideas about stories that are worth a mention… or anything else, it’s GovLoop — we’d love to hear from you. And we’re on Twitter, Facebook, GovLoop… DorobekINSIDER. Let us know your thoughts.

NOTE: Updated to clean up formatting

Hey there — I’m Christopher Dorobek — the DorobekINSIDER — welcome to GovLoop Insights Issue of the Week with Chris Dorobek… where each week, our goal is to find an issue — a person — an idea — then helped define the past 7-days… and we work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

And for the month of December, we have been taking taking a break from the issue of the week — and we are taking a look at the issues that defined government for the year. And next week, we’ll talk about the issue of the year — I don’t think anybody will be surprised, but… we’ll talk about it next week.

Over the past few weeks, we spoke about cyber-security — and dealing with big data… How do you deal with all the information that you now have access to?

And then last week, we spoke about how transparency and open government can really help you get your job done — talking to Earl Devaney, who is retiring from government after more than 40 years… for the past two years, he has been the chairman of the Recovery, Accountability and Transparency Board.

This week, we are going to talk to one of the concepts that is really changing… well, it’s changing so much in technology, but it is also having a huge impact on government… and I’m going to bring you some highlights of one of the best speeches that you probably didn’t hear.

But we’re going to start off this week, as we have so many week’s this year, talking about… yes, the budget. And it was a roller coaster week — one of many this year. After it seemed likely that there could be a government shutdown, House and Senate negotiators this week signed off on a more than $1 trillion, year-end spending bill and it made its way through the House on Friday.

The bill is more than 1,200 pages and Politico reports that it covers a remarkable breath of topics — domestic spending… the Pentagon and foreign aid — plus tens of billions more related to the war in Afghanistan.

The funding bill sets government spending for the year at $1.043 trillion, a level agreed to in an August deal that raised the nation’s legal borrowing limit. The figure represents a 1.5 percent drop in spending from the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

That doesn’t count $115 billion for overseas military operations, a $43 billion dip since this past year as the war in Iraq winds down. It also doesn’t include $8.1 billion in emergency disaster-relief spending.

The measure covers spending for three-fourths of the government. A number of agencies were covered in the November deal including the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, State, and Transportation, as well as NASA and some smaller agencies. This deal covers the all other agencies.

And as a result of this deal, most domestic programs will see cuts as part of the effort to reduce the deficit.

The measure omits funding for the Internal Revenue Service to prepare for the 2014 implementation of the federal health-care law. But it increases funding for border agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It includes $8.4 billion for the EPA — a $233 million drop from last year. And provides $550 million for Obama’s signature Race to the Top education program, a cut of more than 20 percent.

And it includes an increase for the e-government fund.

The other big event, which seemed to get less attention, is the end of the war in Iraq after nine years. The flag of American forces in Iraq has been lowered in Baghdad, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told troops the mission had been worth the cost in blood and dollars. I’ll leave that debate to others.

About 4,000 US soldiers now remain in Iraq, but they are due to leave in the next two weeks. At the peak of the operation, US forces there numbered 170,000.

With that, we turn to one of 2011’s big issues — even if you don’t work in technology, you’ve heard of cloud. Last week, we spoke with Earl Devaney of the Recovery Board about how cloud computing allowed the Recovery Board to be much more agile then it could otherwise.

In November, I got to moderate a program focusing on cloud computing. [By way of transparency: I was paid to emcee the event.]  It was one of the most interesting presentations I had heard all year.

VA's John Rucker

I go to a lot of events and hear a lot of speakers. Many of them are very good — and many of them seek to peer into the future. But one of the best futurists I heard all year was John Rucker. He isn’t a professional speaker. In fact, he even jokes that he looks like a fed. And he is a fed. Rucker is the acting lead for the Department of Veterans Affairs data center consolidation initiative. And he gave a revealing look at the future of technology — and of cloud computing in the government.

After the break… I have his full speech — and his slides as well. But I wanted to bring you two highlights of his speech.

I noted that VA has long been seen as one of the most hapless agencies for government IT. VA CIO Roger Baker and VA CTO Peter Levin have made enormous strides to change that — and Rucker called him the best CIO he has seen in his more than 30 years of government service.

But he noted the cloud is going to have a big impact on the future of government technology…

John Rucker of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

He also said the cloud isn’t for everything…

John Rucker… he is the acting lead for the Department of Veterans Affairs data center consolidation initiative.

As I say, the speech doesn’t have flash — but I think it is one of the most far sighted assessments of government technology that I’ve heard.

It’s GovLoop — I’d love to hear what you think. Do you agree with his assessment? Or is cloud just a lot of hype?

Again, after the break, hear the speech in full… and the DorobekINSIDER must read list…

Speech by John Rucker, Data Center Operations, Federal Data Center Consolidation representative
Department of Veterans Affairs:

Speech made on November 1, 2011: Lightning rod for transformation: Effective cloud management hosted by Federal Computer Week events.

Slides:

I should note that Forbes.com recently published a list of 10 Ways Cloud Computing Will Disrupt our Businesses in 2012. One of them, specifically, uses the federal government as an example of what to do — yes, really:

2) Many businesses will follow the federal government’s example of a “cloud-first” policy. Last year, as part of its effort to streamline its $80-billion-a-year-plus IT budget, the government decreed that all agencies consider “cloud-first” options where feasible. Recognizing the wisdom of such an effort, and seeing it succeed on such a massive scale, companies will adopt their own cloud-first approaches when considering new systems purchases.

DorobekINSIDER must reads

We always like to give you a few things to read over the weekend…

One is from Brookings, which has a new report out that they call Constitution 3.0. And they talk about the challenges of freedom amid the rapid technological evolution. For example, how does the Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted search apply in a world where there is so much video being posted on YouTube each and every minute? Some big questions. NextGov wrote about it… and you can buy the research: Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change.

Good magazine — yes, that’s really the name of it — has posted what they call the Good 100 — these are 100 things that were good in 2011. And one of them is about a site called SeeClickFix. If you haven’t heard of it, this will be a good introduction — because this application is using Facebook to make good government a social experience. They also write about one of 2011s hot start-ups that Good calls a better way to crowdsource expertise.

GOOD: A Better Way to Crowdsource Expertise
GOOD: SeeClickFix Is Using Facebook to Make Fixing Cities Social

From Canada, a site called iPolitics has a piece on why open government matters. The piece argues that the core principles of open government are that data is a public good, and that citizens should be able to be involved in government in a more holistic way. But they also acknowledge that if these ideas were implemented, it would result in a fundamental shift in how government works and thinks. It would also amount to a dramatic rethink of democracy.

And a piece by Ben Balter from the Fall issue of The Public Contract Law Journal — I know, you read it all the time. But he argues that if the government is going to be more agile, it has to rework the way it buys technology. He argues that government needs to better embrace innovation and respond to changing organizational needs. To do that, the Government must embrace a two-pronged approach involving both regulatory reform and top-down support for best-practices education to empower IT-procuring agencies to pursue more agile software development methods.

Finally, a video from NOAA where you can see how all that debris that got washed to see in the tsunami in Japan… well, it make its way across the Pacific Ocean. (HT DC’s WJLA)

Early next year, we’ll have the issue of 2011 — and it is one that also impacts 2012.

Last night, I was invited to the annual holiday party hosted by ASI Government, formerly Acquisition Solutions. Not surprising, the buzz of the night was about… the change of leadership at ASI Government — former Agriculture Department CIO Anne Reed stepping into the role of chairwoman after seven years, and Kimberly “Kymm” McCabe has taken over the role as ASI Government’s President and Chief Executive Officer…

McCabe specifically mentioned the end of the war in Iraq…

But most of the focus was on… the then potential of a government shutdown. Last night, as the festivities were going on, there seemed to be progress toward a resolution, but it was only late last night that the sides announced they had found common ground. But there was still interesting discussion around the topic. One person — now in industry after a distinguished government career — said that the shutdown threat had almost become SOP. It has become standard operating procedure. Yet several govies showed up late specifically because they were working on shutdown contingency plans.

But 1105 President Anne Armstrong asked about the costs of all this.

The short answer is… there is no easy answer.

The Congressional Research Service actually looked at the shutdown issue back in September 1995.

The estimated costs of shutting down the federal government during a lapse in appropriations are incomplete and sketchy at best. That is especially true in the brief shutdown periods that occurred prior to 1995. In those federal shutdown experiences, the General Accounting Office (GAO) attempted to evaluate such government-wide costs, but incomplete and lack of response by various agencies hampered this undertaking. Certain limited costs have been identified over the years, however. GAO found costs of about $1 million resulting from having to issue split or late paychecks in October 1979 and approximately $1.1 million from having to prepare agency shutdown plans in 1980.

In 1991, GAO found that the estimated partial costs for the federal government shutdown over the Columbus Day Holiday week-end in 1990 was $1.7 million.

There have been two other CRS reports — one on September 27, 2010: Shutdown of the Federal Government: Causes, Processes, and Effects. The other is more of a round-up of information about shutdowns from April 8, 2011: Past Government Shutdowns: Key Resources.

Regardless, there was almost uniform agreement among government insiders that the shutdown threats, ongoing continuing resolutions and general budget upheaval have an enormous impact on the government’s ability to accomplish agency missions. (Going out on a limb there, aren’t we?)

To be honest, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has seemed to put forward 12 fairly reasonable principles for the discussion — regardless of political viewpoint.

The 12 principles are:

• Make Deficit Reduction a Top Priority.
• Propose Specific Fiscal Targets.
• Recommend Specific Policies to Achieve the Targets.
• Do No Harm.
• Use Honest Numbers and Avoid Budget Gimmicks.
• Do Not Perpetuate Budget Myths.
• Do Not Attack Someone Else’s Plan Without Putting Forward an Alternative.
• Refrain From Pledges That Take Policies Off the Table.
• Propose Specific Solutions for Social Security, Health Care, and the Tax Code.
• Offer Solutions for Temporary and Expiring Policies.
• Encourage Congress to Come Up With a Budget Reform Plan as Quickly as Possible.
• Remain Open to Bipartisan Compromise.

Find the September 1997 CRS report after the break…

Once again, there is a deadline Friday — and as of Thursday morning, there is a greater threatof a government shutdown — and the Obama administration has recommended agencies make shutdown plans. Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee, early this morning, released details of more than $1 trillion spending package.

So what is the likelihood of a government shutdown?

We hear she is joining the all-news radio station being launched by CBS Radio, insiders say.

The departure leaves big shoes to fill on WFED’s morning show. Morris anchored the morning show with Tom Temin, the former editor of Government Computer News. Morris also served as WFED’s executive editor.

A personal note: Amy and I were paired on Federal News Radio’s afternoon drive program when I first started at the station. She taught me everything I know about radio. For that, she will always have a special place in my heart. Beyond that, she is a consummate professional — and she is passionate about journalism.

And that voice: I always said — only half joking — that I could listen to her read the phone book… and I would continue to listen.

Read Morris’ bio… after the break…

Amy Morris
Executive Editor/Anchor, Federal Drive
On Twitter: @amorrisWFED

Amy Morris is an award-winning journalist, specializing in federal news. She is the co-host of The Federal Drive on Federal News Radio, which airs weekdays from 6-10 a.m.

She arrived in Washington in 1999 and hit the ground running with WTOP covering the Elian Gonzales conflict. She’s also covered the saga of missing intern Chandra Levy, the September 11th attacks, and the sniper shootings in October 2002, for which she won a National Murrow Award.

Before coming to Washington, Amy lived in Illinois where she worked for several radio and television stations. Her claim to fame in the Midwest was an investigative report that helped uncover a scandal in the Illinois Secretary of State’s office and subsequent gubernatorial race. Former Illinois Governor George Ryan was convicted of taking cash, gifts and trips in exchange for state contracts.

In 2006 Amy was named executive editor and anchor at Federal News Radio. She is also a frequent guest analyst on NewsChannel 8 and a regular contributor on WTOP.

Today, Amy’s job is to keep a close eye on the federal government. She focuses on progress being made on the smart grid, how the government is going green, whether transparency is working, implementation of open government initiatives, and other major innovations that impact federal managers and their agencies.

Amy ran – and finished – the Marine Corps Marathon in 2009. It was her second successful marathon…and probably her last. These days she spends her free time practicing Yoga, running, and strength training. She especially enjoys live music.

A small-town girl at heart, Amy grew up in a tiny rural town in South Carolina where much of her extended family still lives. She is a proud University of South Carolina graduate and a passionate Gamecock supporter.

Never, ever, ever disturb her when “her boys” are playing football. Seriously.

Follow her on Twitter: @amorris_wfed.

“…and whether or not it is clear to you, the Universe is unfolding as it should.”

Known as FedRAMP – Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program– it is a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. This approach uses a “do once, use many times” framework that will save cost, time, and staff required to conduct redundant agency security assessments.

The memo, titled Security Authorization of Information Systems in Cloud Computing Environments, has been widely anticipated and lays out the administration’s steps toward securing cloud computing.

Earlier this year, at a speech in California, VanRoekel suggested that FedRAMP could become mandatory.

Cloud computing is at the heart of the Obama administration’s key technology initiatives and is a prominent part of the White House 25 point IT reform plan [PDF].

For the month of December, we are taking a break from the issue of the week — and we are taking a look at the issues that defined government for the year. And we’ll unveil the issue that defined 2011 later this month. But that gives us a few weeks to look at a few of the big issues of the year. And this week, we’re going to talk about cyber-security and making sense of big data.

But first, a look at some of the big stories for the end of November and the beginning of December, 2011 — yes, the final month of the year.

Listen here…

Or read more… after the break…

Once again we start off our weekly review talking money — specifically, the budget. December is typically a more quiet time here in Washington. But not this year. For those playing the home version of the federal budget, lawmakers  passed yet another temporary spending bill in mid-November. That averted a government shutdown. That temporary measure expires December 16. House Speaker John Boehner has said he wants to be out of town by then.

Much of the wrangling this week came after the budget supercommittee’s not-so-super pass of the buck. Last week, the budget supercommittee confirmed what many has been predicting: Divisions were too deep to find compromise. As a result of that, the budget bill requires $1.2 trillion in mandatory spending cuts, called the trigger.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor this week floated a deal to scale back the mandatory cuts to the Defense spending.

For his part, President Obama has said that he would veto any attempts to do away with those spending cuts. But this week, Rep. Duncan Hunter wrote the President urging him to exempt military pay from the budget cut trigger. Politico says that the Budget Control Act allows the President to do that.

The spending cuts — triggered or otherwise — are driving changes across government — and industry. The Pentagon has given the President a draft of its strategic budget review, one of the final steps before the Defense Department releases the results, Bloomberg reports. The Pentagon is seeking to trim about $450 billion in spending over 10 years to meet deficit reduction targets as a result of the Budget Control Act. Meanwhile, InformationWeek Government this week reported on the Pentagon’s new IT stragegy, which seeks to find a new path in the age of austerity.

And there are big impacts for contractors too, as you might imagine. Clay Johnes, the CEO of Rockwell Collins, tells the Wall Street Journal that the company is looking for new avenues of growth. Rockwell has relied heavily on sales of cockpit electronics for U.S. military aircraft.

Meanwhile, the Defense Authorization Bill has also been caught in the political crossfire. Congress and the White House have been gearing up for a showdown over a massive, $662 billion defense bill that would require the military to hold suspected terrorists linked to al-Qaida or its affiliates, even those captured on U.S. soil, and detain some indefinitely without trial, the Associated Press reports. The Senate passed that bill late Thursday. It is unclear if the President will veto that bill.

And we talk about money at the federal level — states have been living and breathing budget cuts for years now.  The fall 2011 Fiscal Survey of States [PDF] by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers, find that the overall fiscal condition of states has improved from the depths of the recession. But it also showed that shows that states are facing a ‘big squeeze’ from both local and federal governments. Read a summary [PDF] or the full report.

Governments around the world are struggling with similar issues. In Britain this week, there was a massive strike by public workers protesting cuts proposed by that government.

And we don’t want to leave money news without talking about the Thrift Savings Plan results for November. Frankly, it wasn’t a great month for TSP funds. Most of the TSP funds were down in November — although just slightly in most cases. See a chart of how TSP funds performed in November — and for the year… not bad numbers for the last 12 months, by the way.

TSP results - click to see full size

A few other stories to keep on your radar.

Regular listeners know I’m fascinated by open government and gov 2.0. And we were talking about Britian. A big story out of the UK this week. The government announced it is going to open up most government data — some are saying this will be the biggest trove of open government data ever. It will be interesting to watch.
#UK @guardian: UK gov to open one of the largest troves of gov data http://bit.ly/um8FaU

One is snow — and the potential of snowmagedon. December marks the start of winter — and here in Washington, we all remember the challenges that can come with winter weather. The Office of Personnel Management this week announced they will have more options for this winter season. Gone is merely closed or open. There are now three new possible responses to severe conditions: staggered early departure with a final departure time, immediate departure and shelter in place.

And we should mention that HUD Deputy CIO Chris Niedermeyer has announced that he is retiring after 33 years of public service. Patsy Garnett will assume his responsibilities.

And I’ll give you a few stories worth reading this weekend, but first… our first issue of the year for 2011…

Bob Gourley

During the month of December, we are going to look at the big issues of the year — the issues, people, and ideas that defined 2011… and that will define the years ahead.

And we thought we’d start with cyber-security. Cyber-security has changed a lot over the years, but this year, the pace of change was even more rapid. The U-S discussed the idea of using a cyber-attack on Lybia — and there were reports that a cyber attack that penetrated a US public water system in Illinois. Both proved to be premature, but they are certainly signs of changing times.

Bob Gourley is the former chief technology officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He is currently an regular blogger at CTOvision.com and he is the CTO for Crucial Point, an IT consulting company. He says one of the big stories of 2011 is big data — dealing with all the information coming at us these days….

Bob Gourley is the former chief technology officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He is currently an regular blogger at CTOvision dot com and he is the CTO for Crucial Point, an IT consulting company.

Before we close out, a few things worth reading this weekend.

One deals with cyber-security… and intelligence. It is a story in the most recent issue of BusinessWeek headlined The War on Terror’s Secret Weapon — and it is about the company Palantir, which they call ‘indispensable’ to US intelligence. It is a fascinating company — and a fascinating story.

We also have delicious stories for you about reverse mentoring — what and how you can learn from those young ones… NASA’s Apps store… and I also put a link to a recent interview Charlie Rose had with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg. It’s a fascinating conversations.

Two other items… One is a page Google has pulled together highlighting government transformers. As Google says, these are people using Google’s technology — but it is always good to see people doing interesting work in government. It’s definitely worth a look.

And finally, I mentioned a few weeks ago that GovLoop now is 50,000 members strong. GovLoop is saying thank you. If you are here in Washington, GovLoop is giving away lunch. Collaboration can make you hungry, so… BBQ sandwiches, mac and cheese… I have details… dorobekinsider.com.

And we are still seeking your insights about what is the big story of the year – via a poll or on GovLoop.

Have a good weekend. Go out and do good work.