New to me local blogs

The Federal Communicators Network has a blog.

 PPC

The Federal Buzz, blog of Riva Solutions

Federal IT miscellany

Netspectives on my favorite subject: How Adoption of Open Standards Can Benefit Federal Agencies

Grant Gross reports that the FCC should deny AT&T spectrum buy, groups say

James Staten: AWS and OpenStack: An Interesting Contrast Worth Considering During Cloud Selection

Enterprise 2.0: E2 Santa Clara 2011 Call for Papers Now Open!

Via Fedspere

Today in Federal IT

Mark Amtower has some thoughts on defending your marketing budget in hard times.

Tom Temin finds out how his broadband service measures up courtesy of the FCC.

John Zyskowski gives us a wrap up of the recent RSA conference.

William Matthews: CIA blames 'technical difficulties' for website crash

NASA Now: Solar Storms.

Via Fedsphere created by Netspective.

The power of social media and the Internet

Clearly social media is extremely powerful, otherwise the Egyptian government would not have cut access to the internet, neither would the US government put out solicitations to subvert it.

Honestly, astroturf is for amateurs.

Today in Fedsphere

Temin likes Droid, but he needs a phone that works with a Mac.

Information Week gives us the to 20 government cloud service providers.

Mark Amtower informs us that Deltek bought Input.

ComputerWorld gives us a round up of IT compliance news.

All from Fedsphere, courtesy of Netspective.

Today in federal IT

Federal Times reports on an Executive Order establishing "controlled unclassified information."

Computer World reports that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has fastracked 115MHz of spectrum for commercial use.

Microsoft's Bright Side of Government blog announces the winners of the Azure Application Development Contest.

Federal Computer Week's Circuit blog reports that Gary Bass is leaving OMB Watch and that Soraya Correa is moving up at the Department of Homeland Security.

Enterprise 2.0 blog is reporting that Infomation Week Analytics are conducting a survey on Enterprise 2.0 applications.

Via Netspective's Fedsphere.

Nominate your customer

The 2010 Federal 100 nomination form

Federal Computer Week is now accepting nominations for the 2009 Federal 100 awards program, which recognizes individuals in government and industry who have played pivotal roles in the federal information technology community.

Deadline: Dec. 11.

If your customer looks good, you look good.

Legitimizing social media

WFED's Jason Miller has a story about the GSA's guidelines for social media. I predict it will have an effect far beyond the civil service. Federal guidelines on almost anything have a way of becoming de facto guidelines for the whole society.

For all our anti-government rhetoric, the federal government is still regarded as the objective and authoritative source for standards.

VP Biden to announce 1.2 billion in grants for EHR

Biden to announce Thursday nearly $1.2 billion to promote electronic medical records system

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden plans to announce Thursday nearly $1.2 billion in grants to help hospitals transition to electronic medical records.

HHS expected to announce state health IT funding

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided the Office of the National Coordinator $2 billion to promote the meaningful use of health IT. Up to $300 million was intended to help establish state HIEs; another share would fund regional training centers to help physicians and hospitals incorporate health IT into their practices.

There will be a conference next month on how to get the benefit of the stimulus to pay for your EHR program.

Just one more way that selling to the gov't is different

Government wants contractors to register soon at stimulus-tracking site

Contractors, state agencies and other recipients of $25,000 or more in federal funds under the economic stimulus law are being urged to register on the new FederalReporting.gov Web site beginning Aug. 17.

The government created FederalReporting.gov to collect and channel information about disbursement of the $787 billion in economic stimulus law funding. It links to Recovery.gov, which posts data and maps about the stimulus spending for the public. Recovery.gov recently added new interactive mapping features.

From the point of view of voters and taxpayer this is a great idea; but for contractors it is just one more thing.

How to think of a wiki

In his interview on Federal News Radio, my client, Shahid Shah, described the wiki more succinctly than I have ever heard before:

...word processing document that multiple people can simultaneously edit without having to pass it from one person to another.

That is so simple, and so obvious, but I had never heard it put that way before and I will remember that for future use.

Shah went on to point out that the document stays in the same place, revision managed. In the case of the Budget Formulation Wiki there is an elaborate permission hierarchy that makes visible only those parts of the document the user is allowed to see.

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More from Behind the Curtain at TCG
Federal Financial Management News Web Log comments.

Apps for America challenge

Sunlight Foundation

What it Is

Apps for America is a special contest we're putting on this year to celebrate the release of Data.gov! We're doing it alongside Google, O'Reilly Media, and TechWeb and the winners will be announced at the Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase in Washington, DC at the end of the Summer.

Why we're doing it

Just as the federal government begins to provide data in Web developer-friendly formats, we're organizing Apps for America 2: The Data.gov Challenge to demonstrate that when government makes data available, it makes itself more accountable and creates more trust and opportunity in its actions. The contest submissions will also show the creativity of developers in designing compelling applications that provide easy access and understanding for the public, while also showing how open data can save the government tens of millions of dollars by engaging the development community in application development at far cheaper rates than traditional government contractors.

First prize is $10,000 and serious bragging rights.

Government and social media; I heard it from a little bird

Jill Kurtz reports that Transportation Security Administration, the SEC, and Fairfax County are all blogging, on Facebook, Twitter, or all three. Adoption has reached mainstream.

New to me local tech blogs

The Federal Architect, news and advisory site for architects that work for the Federal Government in roles such Enterprise Architecture, Systems Architecture, and Solutions Architect. If you're a Federal Architect, join us and blog here.

Capitol Scoundrel, Government, Technology, Healthcare, Karaoke

Darktouch.net

Budget Formulation wiki at the OMB

It seems that the OMB has a Budget Formulation wiki. You have to be a civil servant or one of their contractors to participate, but the rest of us can follow up with what is happening. The wiki and content management system was architected by Netspective.

From FCW:
"Shahid’s combination of technical leadership, ability to understand the business need and provide solutions with low marginal costs is incredible — a rare find," said Sandi McCabe, director of the Program Management Office for the Line of Business, which is based in the Education Department.

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Agencies save with OMB’s online tool

New to me Gov't and Defense IT blog

The Packet Rat, Picking through the wreckage of the headlong collision of Government and technology.

CIA is on Youtube

Via gotgeoint.

New to me criminal justice IT blog

The Total CIO, Promotes a vision of IT leadership that is customer-centric, best practice-driven, and above all focused on mission excellence!

Andy Blumenthal is the Chief Technology Officer at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Previously, Blumenthal served as the Chief, Office of Enterprise Architecture and IT Governance at the US Coast Guard and prior to that as Chief Enterprise Architect at the US Secret Service. Blumenthal is a visionary IT and business thought leader. For over 20 years, Blumenthal has developed leading-edge technology solutions for premier organizations in both the private and public sectors, including the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Treasury, the Dreyfus Corporation, and IBM. The recipient of numerous honors and awards for his work, Blumenthal is a regular public speaker, has published extensively, and has been featured in Federal Computer Week and interviewed on the radio. He is a lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University and National Defense University, and serves as associate editor of the Journal of Enterprise Architecture. Blumenthal is a member of the Society for Information Management, the Government Technology Research Alliance, and the Government Advisory Panel of the American Council for Technology/Industry Advisory Council.

Privacy is a security issue

Security experts ask Obama for help

A band of security and privacy experts is calling on President Obama to create a federal clearinghouse of information about data breaches -- and make that intelligence accessible to companies, consumers and law enforcement to help stem identity theft.

The proposal comes in a report titled, The Perfect Storm: Why the New Administration Cannot Ignore Identity Theft(PDF), compiled by Adam Levin, Chairman and Co-Founder of Identity Theft 911; Jay Foley, co-founder of the Identity Theft Resource Center; Pam Dixon founder of World Privacy Forum; and Chris Hoofnagle, senior staff attorney at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.

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Shareholder Activists Take On Web Privacy

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It seems that today is privacy day.

New to me: GSA blog

Via Chris Dorobek: Around the Corner: Innovation in the Business of Government: A One GSA, One Voice Blog