Yearly Archives: 2012

Your Taxpayer Dollar$ at Work: Final Iraq Audit Report Edition

The “final” report on Iraq reconstruction was released recently, and I have seen little media attention to the astonishing level of waste, incompetence, and outright theft that the report highlights. How much money is unaccounted for? According to the report, nobody knows. After years of trying to account for the billions we poured into theRead… Read more »

Are Australia’s web developers failing to deliver accessible websites?

In a recent story in ITNews, Accessibility checker surfaces errors, John Hibbert claimed that a new Mental Health website, www.mindhealthconnect.org.au, operated by the National Health Call Centre Network and funded by the Department of Health and Ageing, didn’t meet the Australian Government’s minimum web standards. Based on a review using the ACheck tool for theRead… Read more »

Pathways Program

Effective 7/12/2012 – I understand the Pathways Program has started. What I am tying to understand is in working with veterans with 10 points preference will they still be able to get into the program using their preference. I am ready to direct many of our Recent Graduate Veterans to this program and want toRead… Read more »

Faster, Cheaper, Better Government – Part 1

Sometimes, the scariest moments create an environment for lasting, positive change. And, when the imperative to change is linked to exploding technological options, it can be truly revolutionary. Take the position government finds itself in right now. The public sector lost more than 700,000 jobs since its peak in 2009. The latest economic forecasts suggestRead… Read more »

TSP Talk – 07/14/12

Volatile activity Last week we saw quite a shake-up in the stock market with large sell-offs mid-week, and a big rally on Friday to end the week. After all was said and done, the S&P 500 saw a minor gain for the week while we saw some losses in some of the other indices. HereRead… Read more »

Solar Storm: A Real-World Case for Plain Language

Think that plain language in government doesn’t matter? That you don’t need good writers to communicate the work of your taxpayer-funded agency? Consider this Washington Post article on the approaching solar storm: Solar storm incoming: Federal agencies provide inconsistent, confusing information NOAA and NASA provide two different forecasts on the incoming solar storm, “a waveRead… Read more »

Social Crowdfunding – Monetizing the Margins

Crowdfunding has become a very popular topic here in Canada, and for good reason, it’s really the key to unlocking their future, in a pretty seismic way. By this I mean the nation has a notorious ‘Innovation Gap’ and lament a lack of Venture Capital as the reason, but really what is missing is aRead… Read more »

CTOvision Mobile Application for iPhone and iPad

The CTOvision Mobile Application is now available in the Apple iTunes application store. The application focuses on content we create for technologists, but it also contains a curated list of coming events we believe are of high interest plus curated lists of the videos we want to bring to your attention on topics like BigRead… Read more »

Strategy and Leadership for Innovation: Making it Real, Urgent, and Attainable

Creating a reliable capability for innovation requires that a number of factors be addressed and aligned. This article addresses strategy and leadership, but equally important are culture, process, roles, skills, etc. Our prior article lays out an eight-element framework outlining each of these key factors. To assess your organization’s innovation capability across these dimensions, andRead… Read more »

The March and April 2000 Hack on Maroochy Shire: Cyber History Made

In October 2001 an Australian man was sent to prison for two years for what was probably the first hacker generated cyber attack against civilian infrastructure in history. This event at Maroochy Shire, Queensland, is worth study for several reasons, including the fact that it proved this sort of attack was possible. It was, atRead… Read more »