Can We Focus on What Works?

Can we shift the conversation in Washington from “waste, fraud, and abuse” to “what works and let’s fund it, instead?” Recently, I attended a Senate hearing on wasteful spending in the federal government.  Some of the witnesses pointed to examples such as the legislative requirement that the Defense Department ship coal to Germany to heatRead… Read more »

Get Excited about Government in the Cloud!

Is the cloud exciting? If you ask some people—maybe even a lot of people—that question, you might be met with a blank stare (“What is the cloud?”) or a no (“Tech is boring!”). But if you ask Tony Scott, Chief Information Officer of the federal government, you’ll get a very firm “Yes!” At last week’s GovLoopRead… Read more »

Cutting Costs by Building Energy Efficiency

We hear it every day: Government needs to cut costs. But how? If government is going to continue serving the public, there are certain things like workforce, infrastructure, and technology that must receive funding. Instead of cutting vital assets, we must instead seek efficiencies. According to IBM, a primary focus area should be how weRead… Read more »

STEM vs Humanities: Why Both are Needed for Analytics

A national conversation is continuing to brew over whether Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) skills should be emphasized in schools and universities over humanities and liberal arts education. Several recent studies have found that the perceived higher marketplace value of STEM skills has led to a drop in the percentage of students pursuing humanitiesRead… Read more »

Updating the Department of Defense with Open Source

This interview is an excerpt from GovLoop’s recent guide, The DoD of Tomorrow, which explores how the department is transforming its operations, technology, workforce, and acquisitions process to confront 21st century challenges. When you think of DoD’s information infrastructure, you might think mostly of complex, secret networks. Yet the reality is that the department maintainsRead… Read more »

Connecting Spatial Analytics with GIS

Simplifying what your agency can do with its data can actually be somewhat complicated. In last week’s online training, “Simple Ways to do more with Your Data,” topic experts explored what their agencies are doing with their data. The speakers included: Dawn Wright, Chief Scientist, Esri Brian Tisdale, Booz Allen Hamilton, NASA Atmospheric Science DataRead… Read more »