Economic Recovery Act, Let’s Get Transparency Right: The Importance of Citizen Based Network Transparency

Let’s get transparency right. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, passed this Friday the 11th, requires an extraordinary level of “transparency” on the part of federal, state and local agencies. Title XV embodies the transparency requirements. Section 1511 requires that all local and state governments receiving funding for infrastructure investment, must certify: “..thatRead… Read more »

The Art of Data Modeling – what a IT manager, Project Manager and CIO should know…

Ok, this may appear to be some geek blog about the architecture of relational databases. Or you may pass up this blog for fear of not understanding the terminology geeks tend to push in their blogs. But the term data modeling is something any IT manager/CIO should seriously add to their vocabulary. Especially if youRead… Read more »

Obama Can’t Make Torture a Thing of the Past?

There is a big difference in running on a “change” ticket and actually having to implement “change” in the complex political landscape that is our great nation. President Obama is feeling this right now in full effect. While he pledged to stop the CIA’s involvement in secret defense and torture, a Justice Department official saidRead… Read more »

The rise of the “Third Estate”…

Excerpt for govloop… To get the blog rolling, I think it would be best to level set what “The Rise of the Third Estate” really means. I will assume most interested readers will have a background in Social Media and what can be termed as Web 2.0 / Web 3.0, etc. It is my hopeRead… Read more »

Upset of the Year and Selected Saturday (February 7, 2009) NCAA Men’s Basketball Picks

Got David? We sure do here!! But first, the Hokie Guru’s new favorite guitarist… Paul Gilbert… get out of my yard… Paul Gilbert is amazing And so is Yngwie Malmsteen. The University of South Florida Bulls (David) just defeated the top team in Big East Conference, the Marquette University Golden Eagles (Goliath). The game summaryRead… Read more »

The Patent Office’s Courageous Jump into the Wisdom-of-the-Crowd Mosh Pit.

Peer to Patent / Community Review BACKGROUND: Software and algorithms used to be unpatentable. Recent court decisions and patent-office rule-making has made software the fastest growing patent category. In 1991 the patent office was cut off from general tax revenues and required to subsist entirely on fees for its operating budget. The political argument wasRead… Read more »

Some Things I’m Learning

I spent some time this morning getting more familiar with GovLoop and its many features. I clicked on the Applications link and was amazed at the long list of options available. Having recently joined FaceBook because we are looking at providing some FaceBook-like features on our city’s intranet, I selected the Status application and sawRead… Read more »

Open and Innovative Government – Enabling Collaboration

New GovLoop Group – Enabling Collaboration: Open and Innovative Government “I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive,Read… Read more »

Cognitive Edge in Government

We have started to explore the use of Cognitive Edge methodologies in government. This is an interesting approach using complexity science and other natural sciences as a base of theory and may, much like social computing, change how we think about our relationships, how we communicate and how we share information with our colleagues, stakeholderRead… Read more »

National Academy’s Collaboration Project: Top 3 Tech/Innovation Priorities for President Obama

President Obama has called for government to become more transparent, participatory, and collaborative. The National Academy’s Collaboration Project has issued a paper highlighting three priorities that the new President must focus on to make this vision a reality. The paper, Enabling Collaboration: Three Priorities for the New Administration, encourages the President to: Create an openRead… Read more »

Project Management