Archive for January 4th, 2010
DorobekInsider: Welcome 2010 – what you may have missed while we were away
We’re all back to it today after a few weeks focusing on thing… well, other then work, right? Well, hard core work just hasn’t been the top priority. But we’re all back to it today — well, other then lawmakers on Capitol Hill, but…
While the past few weeks were quiet, there was news, so… here are the stories you may have missed while you had other priorities:
* The underwear bomber…
Yes, on Christmas Eve, we learned a new word that I’m guessing will be part of our lexicon for some time: the underwear bomber. (I was flying over the holidays and didn’t notice any real difference, but… I was flying domestically. There were some nervous people in the security line who half jokingly said, ‘If we had to take our shoes off after the shoe bomber, what happens NOW?’
There has been a whole lot of criticism of the Homeland Security Department and the intelligence community — much of it very unfair. For example, I generally have great respect for CBS News’ Bob Schieffer, but I thought this was unfair:
The Truth on Government Spin
Bob Schieffer Says Press Conferences and Statements Aimed at Deflecting Criticism Do Nothing to Inspire Trust
NYT columnist David Brooks had my favorite column on this subject:
The God That Fails [NYT, 12.31.2009]
… History is not knowable or controllable. People should be grateful for whatever assistance that government can provide and had better do what they can to be responsible for their own fates…
That mature attitude seems to have largely vanished. Now we seem to expect perfection from government and then throw temper tantrums when it is not achieved. We seem to be in the position of young adolescents — who believe mommy and daddy can take care of everything, and then grow angry and cynical when it becomes clear they can’t.
After Sept. 11, we Americans indulged our faith in the god of technocracy. We expanded the country’s information-gathering capacities so that the National Security Agency alone now gathers four times more data each day than is contained in the Library of Congress…
All this money and technology seems to have reduced the risk of future attack. But, of course, the system is bound to fail sometimes. Reality is unpredictable, and no amount of computer technology is going to change that. Bureaucracies are always blind because they convert the rich flow of personalities and events into crude notations that can be filed and collated. Human institutions are always going to miss crucial clues because the information in the universe is infinite and events do not conform to algorithmic regularity.
Resilient societies have a level-headed understanding of the risks inherent in this kind of warfare.
There clearly are issues, but the crazed, almost insane calls for “accountability” turns everything into a witch hunt. The fact is this is complex — and there are no easy answers. And it is a typical problem for government — it is what makes government so different then the private sector. In fact, we could present every bomber from flying — just shut down air flight. That isn’t happening, of course. And we’re not going to let everybody on planes. So it isn’t a choice between black or white. The question is what shade of gray is correct — and that can change minute by minute.
I’m still heartened that, in the end, it was the passengers and crew of the flight that shut him down. Remarkable work.
President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, interviewed on CNN’s State of the Union with John King on Sunday, noted that there were pieces of intelligence, but there was no smoking gun.
For our part on Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s Daily Debrief, we are going to try to find ways to actually help people connect dots — and it is, frankly, why I am so fascinated by these government 2.0 initiatives.
Today on Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris, we talk to David Stephenson, the president of Stephenson Strategies and a consultant who specializes in data. Recently, Stephenson and Eric Bonabeau wrote a paper for Homeland Security Affairs, the peer-reviewed online journal of the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security, titled Expecting the Unexpected: The Need for a Networked Terrorism and Disaster Response Strategy. (Read the full paper in HTML here… or download the PDF here. Hear our conversation with Stephenson here.)
Bob Gourley, the former chief technology officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency and currently the CTO and founder of Crucial Point, also had an interesting post titled Are you thinking through system improvements after the Xmas Terror Attack?
* Long live… Twitter?
So says NYT media columnist David Carr in a story headlined Why Twitter Will Endure:
Like many newbies on Twitter, I vastly overestimated the importance of broadcasting on Twitter and after a while, I realized that I was not Moses and neither Twitter nor its users were wondering what I thought. Nearly a year in, I’ve come to understand that the real value of the service is listening to a wired collective voice.
* GovLoop: The The Myth of the Turnaround Employee
GovLoop posted its top blog posts of the year. One I found fascinating was by Mario headlined The The Myth of the Turnaround Employee
Myth #1: Your top performers don’t need attention – they are already doing a great job.
Myth #2: Direct attention and mentoring is what under-performers need most.
Myth #3: Its my job to train and bring ALL on my team up to speed; even the bad ones.
Bonus Myth: The turnaround employee is really that good.
All untrue, he argues. Read the full post here.
* CIO of the year… Kundra
InformationWeek’s J. Nicholas Hoover writes: “The federal CIO is driving change within the government’s lumbering IT operations. A lengthy to-do list will test his ideas and power of persuasion.”
* My iPhone says I’m drunk
One of my favorite stories — and apps…
When Even Your Phone Tells You You’re Drunk, It’s Time to Call a Taxi [WSJ, 12.31.2009]
New Year’s Eve Will Test Technology’s Capacity to Stop the Young From Drinking and Driving
…State officials are trying new — and, they hope, hip — ways to reach out to the Twitter-iPhone-Facebook generation. Some safe-driving advocates fear the new strategies, often lighthearted in tone, will undermine the stern message that has been the gold-standard for years: Don’t ever drink and drive.
But state officials say they have to meet their target audience on its own turf…
In Colorado, the state Department of Transportation hosts an interactive Web site that shows partygoers where to park their cars safely overnight and points them to bars that hand out vouchers for free taxi rides.
But officials were looking for something more dynamic. When their marketing team, Webb PR, suggested an iPhone buzz-o-meter, they bit, spending $8,000 to develop the program.
In the month since its debut, the free app — which is designed to look like a slot machine — has been downloaded nearly 40,000 times from Apple’s online store, with a noticeable spike in traffic on Christmas Day.
The calculator comes with a disclaimer that it isn’t definitive: Impairment can vary greatly depending on how much drinkers have eaten, whether they are on medication and how much sleep they have had.
Still, based on the user’s input of weight, gender, hours drinking and a tally of beer, wine and liquor consumed, the calculator spits out a blood-alcohol content number that looks very precise — for example, 0.058%. It’s accompanied by a color-coded message: “No hangover expected,” printed in sober gray; “You’re buzzed!” in yellow; or, in cautionary red: “Don’t even think about it!…Designate a sober driver.”
In major Colorado cities, an added feature uses GPS technology to let the user call a cab with a tap of the phone.
DorobekInsider: What you read in December 2009 on the DorobekInsider, Daily Debrief, Causey, and FederalNewsRadio.com
After spending the week looking at what you read across FederalNewsRadio.com’s Web sites in the past year…
Previous ‘most read in 2009:
* The DorobekInsider edition
* Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris
* Mike Causey edition
* FederalNewsRadio.com edition
* The Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Jane Norris
* In Depth with Francis Rose edition
… today, what you read in December 2009 — the last month of the year… and for the monthly review, I’ve added what you read on Mike Causey’s Federal Report…
But first up…
The most read stories from December 2009…
from the DorobekInsider.com…
- DorobekInsider: BREAKING NEWS — Sens. Collins, McCaskill, Bennett introduce acquisition workfo
- DorobekInsider: White House names Leeds as GSA’s new acting administrator
- DorobekInsider: USDA gets approval for employee buy outs from OPM as mega-management reorg continues
- DorobekInsider EXCLUSIVE: USDA undertakes extensive management reorg – downgrading the CIO, CF
- DorobekInsider: More GSA FAS shifts — King to retire, Ghiloni shifts, and FAS SES regional com
- DorobekInsider: The buzz of the Input holiday party 2009
- DorobekInsider: Rumoring around the halls of GSA — playing GSA musical chairs
- DorobekInsider: What you read in 2009: Mike Causey edition
- DorobekInsider on DC’s NewsChannel 8 tonight talking about the war on “social networking
- DorobekInsider: Lieberman, Collins want Networx delay answers
- DorobekInsider: GSA’s Tyree Varnado to retire
- DorobekInsider: What you read 11.28 through 12.05 on the DorobekInsider, Daily Debrief, and FederalN
- DorobekInsider: The liner notes: Why blog — or Web 2.0 — anyway?
- DorobekInsider: The Better Buy Project — the liner notes
- DorobekInsider: USDA gets early out approval from OPM as mega-management reorg continues
- The DorobekInsider reader: Howard Schmidt as cybersecurity coordinator
- DorobekInsider: OMB hires performance guru Shelley Metzenbaum
- DorobekInsider: What’s the deal with GSA administrator nominee Johnson? The Kansas City Star finds out
- DorobekInsider: Stories of the Decade: Looking at the changing government marketplace
- DorobekInsider: USDA gets push back on massive management reorg, GovExec reports; USDA remains silen
- DorobekInsider: NYT covers concern over Scientology’s buy of Governing
- DorobekInsider: USDA officials offer more details on management reorganization
- DorobekInsider: Government 2.0 from down under — the final report of the Government 2.0 Task Force
- DorobekInsider: Changes within the VA IT shop
- DorobekInsider: Godspeed Nick DeCarlo
from the Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris…
- 2009: The best year for federal employees yet?
- How your Thrift Savings Plan has changed over the past decade
- TSP funds see slow but steady gains in 2009
- Wednesday Afternoon Federal Newscast
- TSP’s Trabucco: Thrift Savings Plan posts strong results in November
- Postal Service’s National Reassessment Process
- Monday Afternoon Federal Newscast
- Stories of the Decade: TSP sees many positive changes
- Tuesday Afternoon Federal Newscast
- TSP Snapshot Snippet: Economic recovery, improved TSP?
- Coming up on Your Turn: A personal Open Season?
- Open Season is ending, prepare to get the details on Your Turn
- Nortel Government Solutions is now Avaya Government Solutions
- ‘Citizen 2.0’ influence coming to your agency by 2012
- GSA’s Tyree Varnado reflects on 39 years of government service
- Stories of the Decade: 10 years of missed opportunities for the CIO
- Agencies sued for policy documents on 2.0 information collection
- Friday Afternoon Federal Newscast
- Plan to listen to Your Turn on Wednesday for Open Season advice
- Stories of the Decade: How 9/11 changed the public’s perception of federal employees
- Tom Davis: ‘Mindset has changed markedly’ on procurement
- DoD begins gathering data per Open Government Initiative
- Sen. Reid’s amendment would shield FEHB from public option
- Does having a security clearance mean you have to give up those Web 2.0 tools?
- Labor Department launches Web challenge seeking best practices
- DHS, Michigan launch unique cybersecurity partnership
- DDOT’s Twitter use keeps department ahead of blizzard cleanup
- The new Office of Government Information Services
- Senior Correspondent Mike Causey mulls over 2009
- Public ranks government healthcare Web sites high in new report
- Analysis: Cybersecurity Coordinator faces many challenges, opportunities
- DHS, Michigan launch cybersecurity partnership EINSTEIN-ONE
- Great American Hackathon a success for ‘positive hacking’
- FEMA director says agency tackles more than just hurricanes
- The future of transparency and how to successfully develop trust
- Using Web 2.0 tools the correct way to accomplish your agency mission
- Unisys predicts increased focus on biometrics, data protection in 2010
- Will House healthcare bill affect the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program?
- Stories of the Decade: For Microsoft, FDCC made a big difference
- FireEye partners with In-Q-Tel to secure Intelligence Community
- Stories of the Decade: Karen Evans looks back — and forward
- NTEU president talks about Labor-Management forums; pay raise
- Participants borrow less from their TSP accounts
- GAO: Parts of USPS Intelligent Mail program running behind schedule
- Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator describes goals
- How Web 2.0 and Gov 2.0 have changed the business of government
- How 9/11 changed the public’s perception of federal employees
- Decade of disasters, war changed government contracting
- Stories of the Decade: Mobile technology changing the business of government
from Mike Causey’s Federal Report…
- Bonus Christmas Holiday
- Your 2010 Pay Raise: Go Figure
- 2 Per Cent Raise, but Which 2 Percent?
- Great Year For Feds…So Far
- FEHBP Premiums: Only Half The Story
- Flat Line Pay Raise
- Losing a Lifetime Benefit
- Taxing Your Health Premiums
- Health Plans: The Usual Suspects, except…
- Marriage, Divorce, Birth, Death
- FSA Tax Break in Trouble?
- Half-A-Loaf-Holiday
- The High Price of Doing Nothing
- Bonus Holiday: Part Deux
- Take This Job and Shovel It
and from FederalNewsRadio.com…
- Federal government closed Monday due to snow from the big DC snowstorm from a few weeks ago
- Congress tells agencies to check creditworthiness of employees
- Agencies open under unscheduled leave policy on Tuesday
- Open Season resource: All you need to know before Monday
- House passes omnibus spending bill with pay raise, agency funding
- Almost three quarters of all feds have HSPD-12 cards
- White House cuts federal pay raise
- OPM says safety is paramount in government closure decisions
- TSP Snapshot: Up, up and away in November
- Agencies to justify not using cloud computing to OMB
- Recovery.gov and Ed DeSeve v. Stephen Colbert
- Idea to reuse medication at VA hospitals wins SAVE Award
- Army to test new personnel system at Aberdeen lab
- White House issues order for new way of classifying documents
- President faces New Year’s Eve deadline on classified documents
- Open government initiative puts agencies on the clock
- With Schmidt in place, who’s his deputy?
- OMB, NIST release draft of new FISMA metrics
- EXCLUSIVE: OMB guidance sets technology tone for 2010, beyond
- Agencies struggling in applying 508 standards to Web 2.0 tools
- Admin. Babbitt: Human error, not technology, behind November FAA outage
- At the VA, a new CIO reports progress on IT management
- DHS slows pace to add more oversight
- DHS continues effort to right-size management structure
- Sen. Voinovich puts hold on key DHS nominee
- Salary Council suggests locality pay increase for 2011
- White House puts SAVE Awards cost-cutting ideas to vote
- 2010 Census to get a cold start in late January
- VA to implement SAVE award winner’s idea over the next year.
- Sens. Akaka, Voinovich call for new security clearance oversight council
- NASA issues first RFP under I3P program
- Who is in charge at the new Walter Reed?
- For telework and COOP, GSA leads the way
- USDA’s major reorg driven by focus on performance, results
- New policies on the way to better secure House lawmakers’ computers
- GSA inks deal with four vendors for geospatial services
- NRC inks new contract, includes improved worker benefits
- GSA, DHS issue RFI for next set of cyber tools
- New DoD CIO still unknown, but role will not change
- National Archives closed on Saturday
- Executive Order creates labor-management forums
- Smithsonian’s new Zoo director highlights a tough week
- Snow Day for Federal Agencies
- Thumbs up on cybersecurity coordinator, OGIS, open government efforts
- Federal labor unions push back against senator’s TSA ‘hold’
- NSPS another step closer to ending; FERS ‘flu’ cure a “done deal”
- GSA CFO celebrates another ‘clean audit opinion’
- VA issues draft RFP for new IT hardware, software contract
- Architect notes small, big steps to a greener U.S. Capitol