I attended the cloud conference keynote by Ryan Berg, a Senior Architect for Security Research at IBM. The presentation, titled “Cloud Security – A Business Transformation Nirvana or Security Nightmare?” examined the move towards the cloud and the associated implications and opportunities for security. Berg began his presentation by looking at the environment in whichRead… Read more »
Government Executive reports that Senator Akaka (D-HI) has introduced the 2012 Senior Executive Service (SES) Reform Act into the Senate. Rep. Moran (D-VA) is expected to introduce similar legislation to the House of Representatives. Among other reforms, the legislation would: Reduce the percentage of non-career SES appointees from 25% to 15% Increase the number ofRead… Read more »
Last one! The closing keynote speaker was David Weinberger, author of Too Big to Know. Great speaker on a complex topic. I hope I do him justice here… if anyone else heard and wants to jump in, please do! Weinberger argues that in the olden days, facts used to be separable bits of knowledge (think:Read… Read more »
The afternoon’s plenary panel looked ahead 5-10 years to imagine what social media will look like and discuss what we can do now to prepare for the huge volume of data it’s bound to entail. The panel was moderated by Rob Zitz (SAIC) and consistet of Lou Martinage (Microstrategy), Rand Waltzman (DARPA), and Patrick MeierRead… Read more »
I attended the breakout session: Drinking from the Fire House, which looked at the impact of and strategies and techniques for dealing with the explosion of data. John Kelly (Morningside Analytics) moderated a panel that consisted of Jason Hines (Recorded Future), Eddie Smith (Topsy), Jonathan Gosier (Metalayer), and Adam Sharp (Twitter). The presentations were aRead… Read more »
Clay Johnson, author of “Information Diet.” The U.S. started with a constituent to representative ratio of 60,000:1 and is now somewhere over 700,000:1. There will be a crisis if government can’t take the huge and growing amount of information from people and interpret it and use it in an effective way. With more and moreRead… Read more »
The first panel of the day was on how various organizations use social media and internet-enabled data to create real-time awareness. The panel was moderated by Dr. Linton Wells (National Defense University) and included panelists Robert Bectel (Department of Energy), Robert Kirkpatrick (UN Global Pulse), Ahmed Al Omran (NPR), and Clark Freifeld (HealthMap.org). Each discussedRead… Read more »
I’ll be live-blogging tech@state’s Real-Time Awareness throughout the day. To keep tabs on what’s going on, you can check out #techatstate on Twitter, or watch the livestream here: http://www.livestream.com/techstate. The opening keynote address was given by Craig Fugate, Administrator of FEMA. Fugate discussed the role of social media in disaster response and challenged the conventionalRead… Read more »
The State Department is hosting the next tech@state tomorrow. This installment’s topic is real-time awareness and, with such a great line-up of speakers and panelists, tickets have sold-out. However, there’s no need to fear! There are still several ways you can follow the action: I’ll be live-blogging (or, if my multitasking skills/technology fail me, justRead… Read more »
Nextgov is reporting that the forthcoming 2013 budget for the Department of Defense will include increased investment in cyber capabilities. This comes amid plans to reduce the overall DOD budget by $487 billion over the next ten years. The top-line “Defense Budget Priorities and Choices” paper released by the Pentagon “highlights the increasing importance ofRead… Read more »