Weekly Round-up: August 24, 2012

Gadi Ben-Yehuda

• Start Your Engines! The White House announced the first round of Presidential Innovation Fellows. Of particular interest to me are those working on the MyGov project, which has already launched an IdeaScale component.
• Now Get to Work! In related news, the White House has also open-sourced its “We the People” platform, so anyone can grab the code, improve upon or stand up their own e-petition site. This post on O’Reilly’s Tumblr explains why this is “a big deal.”
• Or go on vacation. The State Department wants to know which of its services you’d like to see optimized for mobile use. How about passport renewal?

Dan Chenok

• The march toward sequestration picks up.
• Conference reviews pick up steam.
  — Feds find value in conferences:
  — Hill questions conference costs:
• Agencies expected to take 10% cut in IT spending, can reinvest in priority programs.
• Administration looks to experiences of the States in developing a policy that could share costs for employees to bring their personal phones or PDAs to work.

Michael Keegan

• Is the government dropping the ball on cybersecurity? In any discussion on cybersecurity, there’s at least one elephant in the room: The U.S. faces serious threats to national security, and, despite warnings, seems to not be making much progress toward doing something about it.
• Mobile lab 3D-prints gear as needed in Afghanistan The Army has joined the growing 3D printing movement, deploying mobile laboratories to Afghanistan equipped with prototyping and printing equipment that can create tools and other gear for soldiers on the spot.
• As BYOD gains fed acceptance, assume devices been hacked, protect the data It’s only a matter of time before government workers can securely use their own smart phones and tablet devices within their agencies — after the legal, reimbursement and security issues are solved, several high-ranking agency IT officials told a Washington audience Tuesday.
• IT budget facing 10 percent cut, would shrink to 8-year low Agencies should target six types of technology projects to account for the 10 percent cut to their budget the White House is calling for in fiscal 2014. These reductions would bring total spending on technology to the lowest levels in eight years.

The Business of Government Radio Show: Governing to Win Series: Lawrence J. Haas; Governing to Win Series Part 4: A Conversation on Understanding What’s Driving the Annual Deficit

Federal News Radio 1500-AM
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The Business of Government Hour features a conversation about management with a government executive who is changing the way government does business. The executives discuss their careers and the management challenges facing their organizations.

Lawrence J. Haas, a former White House communications strategist and award-winning journalist, is now Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the American Foreign Policy Council, a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, and a public affairs consultant.

Broadcast Schedule: The show airs Monday, August 27, at 11 a.m., and Wednesday, August 29, 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.