Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Reviewing for Global PR Blog Week 2.0
I am one of the reviewers for Global PR Blog Week 2.0. The level of quality is very high. I think the industry will be pleased.
Marketing letters
Ernest Nicastro has written an excellent piece on how to open a sales letter. He suggest that you open with a question, be direct and concise, and that you build rapport with your reader. Read the whole thing.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Federal XML Work Group August 17 meeting, ET.gov, XML NDRG & GJXDM NDR
Jim Burch, Deputy Director of DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, said the prescription drug monitoring program was part of the effort to develop standards that would enable information sharing. He said the Office of Justice Programs(OJP) had invested heavily in GJXDM and faced increasing questions from the performance measuring community. Burch has asked OJP partners to keep in mind the importance of performance measurement.
He went on to describe the difficulty of establishing a basis for performance measurement. Is it reasonable to measure the number of information sharing projects? Should the OJP ask for outcome measurement? Burch said IJIS and the University of New Orleans were working to establish a basis for performance measurement.
Burch said the National Sex Offender Registry was an important milestone for XML and Service Oriented Architecture(SOA). The OJP had been given a sixty-day deadline and were able to come in two days early and under budget. The site received twenty-seven million hits the first two days with a peak rate of almost 1,000 hits per second. Burch said it showed the power of XML and SOA and demonstrated that it had been a worthwhile investment. He emphasized the Bureau of Justice Assistance is not the lone ranger and is looking for partners.
Here Owen Ambur said, “We will know that XML is a success, when we don't need to talk about it anymore." With reference to the proposed specification of Strategy Markup Language (StratML), he said strategic plans must be flexible and reactive. Otherwise, they will become shelfware.
He then said he wanted to say a few quick words about the CIO Council's emerging technology life cycle management process, hosted at ET.gov. In addition to StratML, among other emerging technology components identified on the ET.gov site is PDF/A, which is nearing approval as an ISO standard for archival records. PDF/A strips out dynamic features that cause records to lack integrity and be unreliable.
Ambur listed some of the other components recently identified at ET.gov. NCCS at the Urban Software Institute has proposed Uniform Data Elements and Definitions (UDED). Ambur emphasized that citizen-centric government cannot design federal stovepipes; local governments and private organizations must be engaged. Ambur himself submitted Collaboration Markup Language (CollabML) and, at the suggestion of his boss, has also proposed specification of a common enterprise architecture (EA) metamodel for government wide application.
He noted that IPv6 is not yet included in the FEA TRM, but since direction has been given for agencies to begin implementing it, it should be fast-tracked for inclusion in the TRM through the process the CIO Council plans to announce soon for updating and maintaining the FEA models. The ET.gov site is a potential channel for input into the FEA model maintenance process with respect to the TRM and SRM.
Ambur concluded his remarks by saying that ET.gov would only work if it is a place where government employees can go for useful information, and if they choose to use it to identify and discover emerging technologies around which they'd like to build communities of practice. He then introduced Mark Crawford, saying Crawford would discuss the Naming Design Rules & Guidelines (NDRG). Ambur explained they wanted to develop guidelines that would link to existing standards such as GJXDM. They are scheduled for an October delivery. He noted that the role of the xmlCoP is to identify good practices and make recommendations. It is not the role of the xmlCoP to try to issue mandates. Only OMB can issue rules that are binding on agencies.
Crawford began his presentation by saying they wanted to create a NDRG that was rigid enough to be normative but flexible enough for both data and document centric worlds. The purpose of the NDRG is to enable the development of a clearly defined namespace schema that will ensure consistency across federal agencies, a versioning schema that will support consistency in government schema, a federal canonical schema for base data types, Naming and Design Rules(NDRs) by government agencies or communities of practice that will build on the Federal NDRG, and a reference to use for mapping different agency NDRs to each other. The proposed NDRG must also enable the development of consistent, reusable XML components including: schema, schema modules such as reusable code lists and identifier lists, simple and complex types, elements, and attributes. It must provide tools to facilitate ease of development, validation and interoperability. The NDRG document is intended for use by all federal agencies and their contractors. It will be linked at core.gov. Audiences who have yet to review the NDRG include developers of federal enterprise schema, government organizations looking for guidance, agency level developers, and private sector organizations.
The NDRG sources are voluntary consensus standards bodies (Oasis Universal Business Language Technical Committee, UN/CEFACT) and government NDRs (Dept. of the Navy, Environmental Protection Agency, and Global Justice XML Data Model).
Here, Crawford showed a slide that could only have been prepared for a Washington, DC audience:
Then Crawford made a few remarks on the use of must versus should. He indicated the NDRG group thought it was important to lean towards should.
He went on to say that modularity is the key to reuse. The modularity model must be structured, flexible and consistent. There are three approaches to modularity under consideration: monolithic (single namespace, one schema per process, idea or information requirement, no imports), reuse (root schema with all content imported, unique namespace for each schema, common modules for reusables), unique (root schema with all content imported, unique namespace for each schema, unique schema modules for each data element).
Crawford said the consensus was going towards reuse. The Navy, IRS and others are all using this approach. GJXDM is generally considered to be an example of reuse, although some have argued it is monolithic in character. It seems that the unique approach was considered by GJXDM but ultimately rejected.
The modularity model imports data types from existing standards. UBL and other standards are converging with UN/CEFACT data type schema modules. Standards bodies are converging on a single approach to code lists. The NDRG group hopes to persuade code list owners to publish and make lists publicly available for further adoption.
Here, Crawford offered a series of data types: amount (xsd:decimal), binary object (xsd:base64binary), code (xsd:normalizedString), date time (xsd:date Time), identifier (xsd:normalizedString), indicator (xsd:boolean), measure (xsd:decimal), numeric (xsd:decimal), quantity (xsd:decimal), text (xsd:string).
He emphasized the importance of flexibility and using existing standards. Initially, they wanted to mandate hierarchical URN schemas, but the consensus was that the NRDG would propose that, while developers should use URN hierarchy schemas, they may use URL hierarchy schemas. (Note to developers; I would interpret this to mean that, if you use URL hierarchy schemas, you need a good reason. Otherwise, go with URN.)
Here, Owen Ambur interjected that this had been somewhat of a religious discussion, eventually leading to an agreement that, “We can get to heaven either way.”
Crawford resumed his remarks, reviewing the seven levels of namespace domains: NID of US, organization hierarchy (gov), specific government hierarchy (EPA, OMB, DOD, Treasury, etc.), agency level hierarchy (USN, USAF, IRS, FMS, etc.), resource type (schema or other, as identified), resource status, and resource name. Here, a participant asked if IPv6 might come into eight levels of namespaces. Crawford replied, “no”.
Crawford spoke about versioning, saying there was a consensus on:
name - major . non-zero [. revision ].
Minor versioning of namespaces, use of namespaces for schema location, and URN or URL for schema location remain to be determined. (Note - if you have any opinion about this, now is the time to speak up.)
Crawford began to talk about schema content, noting that schema was all about data. He showed a slide showing the transformation of data into XML and illustrating the role of ISO 11179 in this process. He explained that associated classes would be treated as a simple data element with a global element declaration and complex type definition.
Crawford concluded by saying that the NDRG group would continue to work through comments on the first draft and finalize modularity, versioning and namespaces. He then offered to take questions.
Brand Neiman suggested that ISO 11179 lacked sufficient semantics machine processability and that related efforts are evolving toward RDF and OWL. Neiman observed that XML is easier to read and harder to process, whereas RDF is harder to read and easier to process. Neiman suggested scheduling a joint xmlCoP/SICoP meeting to consider the respective use cases for XML and RDF/XML.
Crawford responded that he considered the two standards to be complementary, rather than competitive. Owen Ambur interjected that he agreed that it was not a question of either/or, but rather a need to look at the business case.
Bob Green asked if those “in the URL camp” were aware of the problems that can result, if the URL does not properly resolve. Green said, “whole system can choke”. He encouraged the use of URN.
Following the midmorning break, Paul Embley explained the work of the Global XML Task Force and the Global Justice XML Data Model and Design Rules. He began by saying that GJXDM is for use by anyone who needs it.
The current draft is still being vetted by Global XSTF. Their primary focus is rule accuracy against version 3.1; the final draft is due to release on October 31. Embley said they were two days behind schedule.
The GJXDM Design Rules incorporates GJXDM, Oasis LegalXML IJ TC GJXDM draft MNDR, Federal XML NDR Working Group Draft NDRG, and OASIS UBL NDR. The committee’s work was influenced by the NIEM Steering Committee, Federal Enterprise Architecture, the IJIS Institute, OASIS Integrated Justice TC, National Center for State Courts, and the Federal XML NDR Working Group. Here, Embley said his committee believes in plagiarism.
The specification will be a product of Global XSTF and will specify how GJXDM is actually defined. Its format will be as close as possible to the UBL NDR and use/copy appropriate wording from other NDR documents. It will include definitions, principles, rules, rationales and explanations, and examples for rules.
Embley emphasized the specification will not be a projection of UBL on GJXDM, nor a comparison of UBL and GJXDM, nor a methodology for building Information Exchange Package Documentation.
The scope of the specification of GJXDM 3.1 will focus on the definition of conformant schemas, conformant reference schemas, subsets, documentation, and GJXDM-conformant instances.
Principles are the basis for the rules; all rules spring from principles:
Format: [Principle number ]
Currently there are 22 principles.
General Rule Format.
Embley said versioning was not complete and threw the floor open for questions. He was asked how his work differed from the previous presentation. Embley allowed there were not great differences and that his committee would highlight those differences.
Minutes of the Federal NDR COI, August 11, 2005
XML Working Group, Meeting Notes, August 17, 2005
Presentations
He went on to describe the difficulty of establishing a basis for performance measurement. Is it reasonable to measure the number of information sharing projects? Should the OJP ask for outcome measurement? Burch said IJIS and the University of New Orleans were working to establish a basis for performance measurement.
Burch said the National Sex Offender Registry was an important milestone for XML and Service Oriented Architecture(SOA). The OJP had been given a sixty-day deadline and were able to come in two days early and under budget. The site received twenty-seven million hits the first two days with a peak rate of almost 1,000 hits per second. Burch said it showed the power of XML and SOA and demonstrated that it had been a worthwhile investment. He emphasized the Bureau of Justice Assistance is not the lone ranger and is looking for partners.
Here Owen Ambur said, “We will know that XML is a success, when we don't need to talk about it anymore." With reference to the proposed specification of Strategy Markup Language (StratML), he said strategic plans must be flexible and reactive. Otherwise, they will become shelfware.
He then said he wanted to say a few quick words about the CIO Council's emerging technology life cycle management process, hosted at ET.gov. In addition to StratML, among other emerging technology components identified on the ET.gov site is PDF/A, which is nearing approval as an ISO standard for archival records. PDF/A strips out dynamic features that cause records to lack integrity and be unreliable.
Ambur listed some of the other components recently identified at ET.gov. NCCS at the Urban Software Institute has proposed Uniform Data Elements and Definitions (UDED). Ambur emphasized that citizen-centric government cannot design federal stovepipes; local governments and private organizations must be engaged. Ambur himself submitted Collaboration Markup Language (CollabML) and, at the suggestion of his boss, has also proposed specification of a common enterprise architecture (EA) metamodel for government wide application.
He noted that IPv6 is not yet included in the FEA TRM, but since direction has been given for agencies to begin implementing it, it should be fast-tracked for inclusion in the TRM through the process the CIO Council plans to announce soon for updating and maintaining the FEA models. The ET.gov site is a potential channel for input into the FEA model maintenance process with respect to the TRM and SRM.
Ambur concluded his remarks by saying that ET.gov would only work if it is a place where government employees can go for useful information, and if they choose to use it to identify and discover emerging technologies around which they'd like to build communities of practice. He then introduced Mark Crawford, saying Crawford would discuss the Naming Design Rules & Guidelines (NDRG). Ambur explained they wanted to develop guidelines that would link to existing standards such as GJXDM. They are scheduled for an October delivery. He noted that the role of the xmlCoP is to identify good practices and make recommendations. It is not the role of the xmlCoP to try to issue mandates. Only OMB can issue rules that are binding on agencies.
Crawford began his presentation by saying they wanted to create a NDRG that was rigid enough to be normative but flexible enough for both data and document centric worlds. The purpose of the NDRG is to enable the development of a clearly defined namespace schema that will ensure consistency across federal agencies, a versioning schema that will support consistency in government schema, a federal canonical schema for base data types, Naming and Design Rules(NDRs) by government agencies or communities of practice that will build on the Federal NDRG, and a reference to use for mapping different agency NDRs to each other. The proposed NDRG must also enable the development of consistent, reusable XML components including: schema, schema modules such as reusable code lists and identifier lists, simple and complex types, elements, and attributes. It must provide tools to facilitate ease of development, validation and interoperability. The NDRG document is intended for use by all federal agencies and their contractors. It will be linked at core.gov. Audiences who have yet to review the NDRG include developers of federal enterprise schema, government organizations looking for guidance, agency level developers, and private sector organizations.
The NDRG sources are voluntary consensus standards bodies (Oasis Universal Business Language Technical Committee, UN/CEFACT) and government NDRs (Dept. of the Navy, Environmental Protection Agency, and Global Justice XML Data Model).
Here, Crawford showed a slide that could only have been prepared for a Washington, DC audience:
The key words MUST, MUST NOT, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL are to be interpreted as described in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFC) 2119. Non-capitalized forms of these words are used in the regular English sense.
Then Crawford made a few remarks on the use of must versus should. He indicated the NDRG group thought it was important to lean towards should.
He went on to say that modularity is the key to reuse. The modularity model must be structured, flexible and consistent. There are three approaches to modularity under consideration: monolithic (single namespace, one schema per process, idea or information requirement, no imports), reuse (root schema with all content imported, unique namespace for each schema, common modules for reusables), unique (root schema with all content imported, unique namespace for each schema, unique schema modules for each data element).
Crawford said the consensus was going towards reuse. The Navy, IRS and others are all using this approach. GJXDM is generally considered to be an example of reuse, although some have argued it is monolithic in character. It seems that the unique approach was considered by GJXDM but ultimately rejected.
The modularity model imports data types from existing standards. UBL and other standards are converging with UN/CEFACT data type schema modules. Standards bodies are converging on a single approach to code lists. The NDRG group hopes to persuade code list owners to publish and make lists publicly available for further adoption.
Here, Crawford offered a series of data types: amount (xsd:decimal), binary object (xsd:base64binary), code (xsd:normalizedString), date time (xsd:date Time), identifier (xsd:normalizedString), indicator (xsd:boolean), measure (xsd:decimal), numeric (xsd:decimal), quantity (xsd:decimal), text (xsd:string).
He emphasized the importance of flexibility and using existing standards. Initially, they wanted to mandate hierarchical URN schemas, but the consensus was that the NRDG would propose that, while developers should use URN hierarchy schemas, they may use URL hierarchy schemas. (Note to developers; I would interpret this to mean that, if you use URL hierarchy schemas, you need a good reason. Otherwise, go with URN.)
Here, Owen Ambur interjected that this had been somewhat of a religious discussion, eventually leading to an agreement that, “We can get to heaven either way.”
Crawford resumed his remarks, reviewing the seven levels of namespace domains: NID of US, organization hierarchy (gov), specific government hierarchy (EPA, OMB, DOD, Treasury, etc.), agency level hierarchy (USN, USAF, IRS, FMS, etc.), resource type (schema or other, as identified), resource status, and resource name. Here, a participant asked if IPv6 might come into eight levels of namespaces. Crawford replied, “no”.
Crawford spoke about versioning, saying there was a consensus on:
name - major . non-zero [. revision ].
Minor versioning of namespaces, use of namespaces for schema location, and URN or URL for schema location remain to be determined. (Note - if you have any opinion about this, now is the time to speak up.)
Crawford began to talk about schema content, noting that schema was all about data. He showed a slide showing the transformation of data into XML and illustrating the role of ISO 11179 in this process. He explained that associated classes would be treated as a simple data element with a global element declaration and complex type definition.
Crawford concluded by saying that the NDRG group would continue to work through comments on the first draft and finalize modularity, versioning and namespaces. He then offered to take questions.
Brand Neiman suggested that ISO 11179 lacked sufficient semantics machine processability and that related efforts are evolving toward RDF and OWL. Neiman observed that XML is easier to read and harder to process, whereas RDF is harder to read and easier to process. Neiman suggested scheduling a joint xmlCoP/SICoP meeting to consider the respective use cases for XML and RDF/XML.
Crawford responded that he considered the two standards to be complementary, rather than competitive. Owen Ambur interjected that he agreed that it was not a question of either/or, but rather a need to look at the business case.
Bob Green asked if those “in the URL camp” were aware of the problems that can result, if the URL does not properly resolve. Green said, “whole system can choke”. He encouraged the use of URN.
Following the midmorning break, Paul Embley explained the work of the Global XML Task Force and the Global Justice XML Data Model and Design Rules. He began by saying that GJXDM is for use by anyone who needs it.
The current draft is still being vetted by Global XSTF. Their primary focus is rule accuracy against version 3.1; the final draft is due to release on October 31. Embley said they were two days behind schedule.
The GJXDM Design Rules incorporates GJXDM, Oasis LegalXML IJ TC GJXDM draft MNDR, Federal XML NDR Working Group Draft NDRG, and OASIS UBL NDR. The committee’s work was influenced by the NIEM Steering Committee, Federal Enterprise Architecture, the IJIS Institute, OASIS Integrated Justice TC, National Center for State Courts, and the Federal XML NDR Working Group. Here, Embley said his committee believes in plagiarism.
The specification will be a product of Global XSTF and will specify how GJXDM is actually defined. Its format will be as close as possible to the UBL NDR and use/copy appropriate wording from other NDR documents. It will include definitions, principles, rules, rationales and explanations, and examples for rules.
Embley emphasized the specification will not be a projection of UBL on GJXDM, nor a comparison of UBL and GJXDM, nor a methodology for building Information Exchange Package Documentation.
The scope of the specification of GJXDM 3.1 will focus on the definition of conformant schemas, conformant reference schemas, subsets, documentation, and GJXDM-conformant instances.
Principles are the basis for the rules; all rules spring from principles:
Format: [Principle number ]
Currently there are 22 principles.
General Rule Format.
Embley said versioning was not complete and threw the floor open for questions. He was asked how his work differed from the previous presentation. Embley allowed there were not great differences and that his committee would highlight those differences.
Minutes of the Federal NDR COI, August 11, 2005
XML Working Group, Meeting Notes, August 17, 2005
Presentations
Sunday, September 11, 2005
September 11
On the sad anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and in solidarity with all those on the Gulf Coast who are in grief:
Swing low, sweet chariot
Swing low, sweet chariot
Thursday, September 08, 2005
What is meant by root schema?
A root schema is a single concept like an order, invoice, OMB 300, SF 12, document, book, or some other logical grouping of information.
What?
FEMA locks Mac users from hurricane relief
Edit-
FEMA to adjust IE-only Web site
Mac and Linux-using hurricane survivors are unable to use Federal disaster relief claim form services online.
This is because the much-criticized US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has created a service that only works with Windows and Internet Explorer 6.
This acts to the frustration of survivors lucky enough to be able to access a Mac or Linux computer, and to the reported consternation of disaster relief teams on the ground.
However, some Mac users exploiting the Opera browser (which by default identifies itself as Internet Explorer 6) report being able to access the claims service.
Edit-
FEMA to adjust IE-only Web site
What is Unicode?
Unicode provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language.
Now you know.
The Unicode Standard has been adopted by such industry leaders as Apple, HP, IBM, JustSystem, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun, Sybase, Unisys and many others. Unicode is required by modern standards such as XML, Java, ECMAScript (JavaScript), LDAP, CORBA 3.0, WML, etc., and is the official way to implement ISO/IEC 10646. It is supported in many operating systems, all modern browsers, and many other products. The emergence of the Unicode Standard, and the availability of tools supporting it, are among the most significant recent global software technology trends.
Incorporating Unicode into client-server or multi-tiered applications and websites offers significant cost savings over the use of legacy character sets. Unicode enables a single software product or a single website to be targeted across multiple platforms, languages and countries without re-engineering. It allows data to be transported through many different systems without corruption.
Now you know.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Center for Society, Law & Justice
University of New Orleans (UNO), Center for Society, Law & Justice (CSLJ)
Katrina has left many losses and disruptions in its wake. This is only one.
Activities
* Manage justice technologies training that educates senior justice managers to deal with integration and training that allows office personnel to create power user groups for justice organizations
* Research into project management training resources
* Developing a framework for the debate of ethical issues in privacy regarding the ''philosophy'' of information access
* Develop briefing booklets regarding justice integration issues for general circulation
Products
* Partnership to deliver an intense project management training with university credit through the Integrated Justice Information Systems (IJIS) Industry Working Group (IWG) and Auburn University
* Development of technical assistance support for medium and rural justice agencies to increase their capacities to integrate systems
Constituencies
* Criminal justice executives
* Criminal justice trainers
* Criminal justice consortiums
* Medium to small justice agencies with minimal ICJS capacities
* Criminal justice chief information officers
Katrina has left many losses and disruptions in its wake. This is only one.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
This is the time to be meticulously correct
Post-disaster contracting rush leads to confusion
Given the atmosphere is spectacular ill will between Federal and Gulf Coast authorities it is crucial that contractors refrain for exploiting this situation or fail to give value.
Emergency situations can make a complicated procurement process even more confusing. The Federal Acquisition Regulation, the guiding document for federal purchases, disperses its rules on emergency procurement throughout the verbose document, making it difficult for officials and contractors unfamiliar with emergency procurement law to figure out exactly what they can and cannot do.
Given the atmosphere is spectacular ill will between Federal and Gulf Coast authorities it is crucial that contractors refrain for exploiting this situation or fail to give value.
In praise of DC SPIN and SQA
DC SPIN and SQA require their speakers to bring copies of their presentations for attendees. In addition to making it easier to follow along with the speaker, it facilitates note taking. With the basic presentation in front of you, you can concentrate on the details and nuances of the speaker’s presentation. It makes original reporting and blogging much easier. If you are planning on making a presentation, make copies available beforehand. It’s easy publicity.
What is the difference between unqualified and qualified datatypes?
Unqualified Datatypes are those for which no restrictions have been applied. Qualified Datatypes are those for which some restrictions have been applied.
Courtesy of Mark Crawford of LMI Government Consulting
Monday, September 05, 2005
Homeland security blog
W. David Stephenson blogs on homeland security et al.
With a goal of "making homeland security everyone's business," Stephenson Strategies' W. David Stephenson blogs on homeland security strategies, emphasizing empowering the public, creative use of technology, win-win public/private collaborations yielding security and economic benefits, and protecting civil liberties. CIO.com says: "Google 'homeland security blog' and security consultant W. David Stephenson's site tops the list. If you like blogs.. updated nearly every day, Stephenson's your man, providing links and analysis of current homeland security topics."
Civil service blogosphere
Nick Mudge has created this very useful list of government blogs. Now if only someone would create an RSS reader like the one for PR blogs.
Winslow Homer
I went to see the Winslow Homer exhibit at the National Gallery. Homer is a truly American artist, not just in his subject matter, but in his whole attitude.
Homer painted ordinary people going about their daily tasks in a way that endowed them with dignity. His respect for workers comes through in every painting. Particularly striking was the juxtaposition of Autumn with The Blackboard. It is quite obvious which lady he preferred.
So far as I know, Homer was the only white artist of the nineteenth century capable of painting Afican Americans without indulging in hideous sterotypes. The faces on these children are natural. You can almost imagine the plight of enslaved children running towards the Union Army and offering to do any little task that might earn a few coins.
Homer painted ordinary people going about their daily tasks in a way that endowed them with dignity. His respect for workers comes through in every painting. Particularly striking was the juxtaposition of Autumn with The Blackboard. It is quite obvious which lady he preferred.
So far as I know, Homer was the only white artist of the nineteenth century capable of painting Afican Americans without indulging in hideous sterotypes. The faces on these children are natural. You can almost imagine the plight of enslaved children running towards the Union Army and offering to do any little task that might earn a few coins.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Massachusetts chooses open source
Massachusetts mandates open-format docs, edges toward Linux
This will be a very closely watched implementation.
Edit-
Microsoft Blasts Massachusetts' New XML Policy
Massachusetts to Adopt New Data Standards
Massachusetts Information Technology Division
The state of Massachusetts will revamp its digital output during the next 16 months to create only open-format documents and is increasing its use of Linux and free and open source software (FOSS) among its workers, the state's chief information officer told DesktopLinux.com Thursday in a conference call.
CIO Peter Quinn challenged Microsoft and other companies who sell software that uses proprietary document formats to consider enabling open-format options as soon as possible. Quinn said that "government is creating history at a rapidly increasing rate, and all documents we save must be accessible to everybody, without having to use 'closed' software to open them now and in the future."
This will be a very closely watched implementation.
Edit-
Microsoft Blasts Massachusetts' New XML Policy
Massachusetts to Adopt New Data Standards
Massachusetts Information Technology Division
Friday, September 02, 2005
Last Katrina post
This will be my last Katrina post as this is a blog devoted to PR and technology. But I would like to offer some observations on the PR side of this tragedy. Now is the time to be cooperative and generous. Anyone who exploits this tragedy or is even perceived to be less than cooperative will be judged very harshly, if not in a court of law, then in the court of public opinion. The Gulf Coast is home to some of the greatest musicians who have ever lived. Those who fail to respond appropriately to this tragedy can look forward to inspiring searing blues ballads. Do you want your future grandchild to watch some future teenage idol belt out some ballad that holds you in scorn?
When The Levee Breaks
When The Levee Breaks
If it keeps on rainin', levee's
goin' to break
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
And the water gonna come in, have no place to stay
Well all last night I sat on the levee and moan
Well all last night I sat on the levee and moan
Thinkin' 'bout my baby and my happy home
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
And all these people have no place to stay
Now look here mama what am I to do
Now look here mama what am I to do
I ain't got nobody to tell my troubles to
I works on the levee mama both night and day
I works on the levee mama both night and day
I ain't got nobody, keep the water away
Oh cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do no good
Oh cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do no good
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to lose
I works on the levee, mama both night and day
I works on the levee, mama both night and day
I works so hard, to keep the water away
I had a woman, she wouldn't do for me
I had a woman, she wouldn't do for me
I'm goin' back to my used to be
I's a mean old levee, cause me to weep and moan
I's a mean old levee, cause me to weep and moan
Gonna leave my baby, and my happy home
Hurricane season
As the tragedy continues to unfold on the Gulf Coast, we should keep in mind that hurricane season is not over and additional major storms are expected. Some of my out of town readers must be wondering what if this happened to Washington, DC.
Hurricanes are rare in Washington, and when they do come they have usually weakened to tropical storms. But we are occasionally hit. Unlike New Orleans, the poor people live on the higher elevations and the rich live near the river. The State Department, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are all located in what is known as Foggy Bottom. Speaks for itself. The famous Watergate complex is located, as its name suggest, right next to the Potomac River.
Hurricane Agnes was a tropical storm by the time it rolled across Washington, but the flooding was extensive. The Pentagon, which sits on a rise, was spared, but all the surrounding roads were flooded. The whole area along both sides of the river was flooded. In Georgetown everything below M Street was covered with water. In the unlikely event that Washington is hit, things will play out very differently than the Gulf Coast.
Hurricanes are rare in Washington, and when they do come they have usually weakened to tropical storms. But we are occasionally hit. Unlike New Orleans, the poor people live on the higher elevations and the rich live near the river. The State Department, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are all located in what is known as Foggy Bottom. Speaks for itself. The famous Watergate complex is located, as its name suggest, right next to the Potomac River.
Hurricane Agnes was a tropical storm by the time it rolled across Washington, but the flooding was extensive. The Pentagon, which sits on a rise, was spared, but all the surrounding roads were flooded. The whole area along both sides of the river was flooded. In Georgetown everything below M Street was covered with water. In the unlikely event that Washington is hit, things will play out very differently than the Gulf Coast.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Aftermath ii, the refugee crisis
It is now obvious that thousands of gulf coast residents will have to resettle elsewhere. Their homes are gone and those areas will be uninhabitable for months to come.
From what I can tell the port of New Orleans will be closed for months and all of its shipping business rerouted. That means ports such as Norfolk and Baltimore will see a marked increase in business. They will need dockworkers and related trades. There ought to be a way to put unemployed gulf coast shipping workers in touch with employers at the other ports.
This is just one example of what needs to be done. Shel Holtz has two posts about cummunicators looking to relocate.
We need the online job networks such as Monster.com and others to come forward and develop a special section for gulf coast residents seeking to relocate. We need the Red Cross to assist with relocation grants (not loans). Of course they can’t do that without our generous support.
From what I can tell the port of New Orleans will be closed for months and all of its shipping business rerouted. That means ports such as Norfolk and Baltimore will see a marked increase in business. They will need dockworkers and related trades. There ought to be a way to put unemployed gulf coast shipping workers in touch with employers at the other ports.
This is just one example of what needs to be done. Shel Holtz has two posts about cummunicators looking to relocate.
We need the online job networks such as Monster.com and others to come forward and develop a special section for gulf coast residents seeking to relocate. We need the Red Cross to assist with relocation grants (not loans). Of course they can’t do that without our generous support.
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