Gadi Ben-Yehuda
Attention, Government Newsletter Writers (and those who analyze the metrics): New Gmail Rules Will Destroy the ‘Open Rate’ Metric (or not). Related: Is your web traffic inhuman?
Dan Chenok
- Defense authorization passes without IT reform language, which will likely come back next session:
- FOIA Modernization may advance given commitment in Whitre House Open Government Plan.
- COBOL — a computer language invented in 1959, still in use by government today and may be for years to come …
John Kamensky
- Creative Supply Chain Management. Consolidation, insourcing, and streamlining are all strategies creative supply chain logisticians around the government are using to cut costs, according to an article by Adam Stone in the Federal Times.
- PortfolioStat Snapshot. FCW has turned a 107-page GAO report on the status of PortfolioStat into a short, really useful Infographic!
- Reverse Auctions on the Grow. According to Mark Rockwell, Federal Computer Week, “The government’s watchdog agency recommended that federal acquisition rules be amended to better account for agencies’ growing use of reverse-auction platforms for buying IT gear and products.” Here’s a link to the GAO report. . . . But based on the GAO report, the Department of Veterans Affairs suspended its reverse auctions temporarily to determine if they are getting the best value.
- DIA Using “Needipedia” Instead of RFPs. According to Nicole Blake Johnson, Federal Times, the Defense Intelligence Agency is piloting a faster approach for getting ideas, in lieu of the traditional call via Requests for Proposals: Needipedia. Johnson writes: “DIA launched the initiative late last month as a means to express its needs to a larger community of innovators, according to the Needipedia website. Individuals, companies and academia can submit ideas and proposals for grants or contracts through an open broad agency announcement, based on DIA’s specific needs. Those needs are articulated on the Needipedia website and replace the traditional request for proposal process.”
- In Interior, He’s the One. According to Jason Miller, Federal News Radio, the Department of the Interior’s Chief Information Officer, Bernie Mazer, is now the only person in the department with that title. In an interview, Miller writes: “He said the department is moving out of the initial start-up phase when bureau-level CIOs became assistant directors for information resources (ADIR), and Mazer’s office began consolidating commodity IT services, including reducing 14 email systems to one. . . . He said many of the ADIRs now can focus on the mission IT for the bureau instead of the commodity or common technologies, which will be delivered through a shared service.”
Miachel Keegan
Experts debate value of reverse auctions – Federal procurement experts told lawmakers that the government needs to better explain the nuts and bolts of how reverse auctions work to avoid turning the relatively new contracting method from a money saver into a money waster.
Air Force strengthens CIO role – Air Force leaders are making some changes in order to bring the service’s IT under centralized governance, including adding decision-making powers to the CIO position and transitioning, at least in part, to the Defense Department’s enterprise email system. The CIO office will soon have greater influence on IT strategy and the budget review and approval processes, according to Air Force CIO Lt. Gen. Michael Basla, who spoke Dec. 11 at an AFCEA event in Vienna, Va.
Army, Navy using big data to increase energy savings – The Army and Navy are using big data analytics to identify energy savings opportunities in more than 650 worldwide facilities, with a target of making half of all Navy buildings net-zero energy by 2020, producing as much energy as they consume.
Defense authorization bill leaves out reforms to federal IT acquisition – The annual policy legislation also fails to merge the DoD’s chief information officer and deputy chief management officer positions
The Business of Government Radio Show: Conversations with Authors: Dr. Jennifer Bachner
The Business of Government Hour features a conversation about management with a government executive who is changing the way government.
Dr. Jennifer Bachner, author of Predictive Policing: Preventing Crime with Data and Analytics, explores issues such as: .What is predictive policing? How does predictive policing complement traditional policing methods? What are the operational challenges of predictive policing? She is the Program Coordinator and Lecturer in Governmental Studies for the M.A. in Government in the Johns Hopkins University Center for Advanced Governmental Studies.
Broadcast Schedule: The show airs Monday at 11 a.m., and Wednesday at noon, on Federal News Radio 1500AM WFED
If you can’t wait, though, you can listen to (or download) this week’s program and all our previous interviews at businessofgovernment.org and by searching our audio archives.
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