Weekly Round-up – July 08, 2011

Gadi Ben-Yehuda

• Nonplussed: now it means something else entirely. Google+ launched. Mayhem has swept the internet. What does it all mean? And what does it mean for government? GovLoop hosts a lively conversation.
• First, social, next, government? Now that Google has taken care of social networking, they are setting their sites on developing applications to “improve transparency and openness with government.” Why not just buy iStrategy Labs?
• Is there a theme here? Brookings hosted a panel, “How Social Networking Can Re-Invigorate Civic Participation.” Alicia Mazzara has the recap. Related: maybe not.
• Still about the band. Last week, I alluded to Antitrust when I wrote about connectivity (“The answer isn’t in the box, it’s in the band”). This week, I’ve added two new posts to the thread, including one on two ways to improve GovLoop.

Dr. John Bordeaux

• Thirty-one years after the Paperwork Reduction Act, the New York State Supreme Court experiments with digitalization (or “dematerializzazione” in Italian). Best quote: Getting rid of the paper is a “tremendous culture change.”
• As we co-evolve with technology, “digital literacy” represents a set of necessary life skills. One gaming company seeks to tackle this directly, developing a privacy game.
• Open Data movement, contrary to some reports, is not dead. Recent personal conversations with officials in Paris and Rome, and this from Oklahoma.

Dan Chenok

• OMB directs agencies to reduce contracting costs by 15%.
• Do we need a new “dot.secure” network for critical internet services?
• DOD introduces public-private IT Exchange program for IT worker.

John Kamensky

• SES Job Rotation Legislation. Legislation has been introduced in both the House (H.R. 2314) and the Senate (S. 1268) to “provide greater interagency experience” among national security and homeland security personnel by making it easier (and encouraged) to work in cross-agency positions, and making such experience a requirement for promotion to the Senior Executive Service.
• On-Line Clout. Which agencies have the most influence on-line? Federal Computer Week’s Alice Lipowicz writes in “Online Influence: How Does Your Agency Rate?” that an on-line influence tracking company, Klout.com, computes scores for each agency and scores the State Department at the top of the list (who would have thought??)
• Defense Business Systems Modernization: Progress, But It’s Tough Slogging. Congress has been pushing the Defense Department for more than a decade to streamline its internal business systems. A new GAO report, Department of Defense: Further Actions Needed to Institutionalize Key Business System Modernization Management Controls shows some progress, but there’s more to be done to institutionalize the integration of the 2,258 business systems via enterprise-wide architecture and investment management controls. Defense is a case study of just how hard it is to do in large agencies!
• Cuts to Service Contracting. The Obama Administration came into office promising to cut the size of the contract workforce in government. A recent Washington Post article by Joe Davidson, “White House Plans to Cut Service Contractors,” says the White House has set a new goal of cutting contracts for management support services from $40 billion a year to $34 billion a year.

The Business of Government Radio Show: David Lebryk

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. Past government executives include Administrators, Chief Financial Officers, Chief Information Officers, Chief Operating Officers, Commissioners, Controllers, Directors, and Undersecretaries.

David Lebryk serves as the Commissioner of the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Management Service (FMS). In that role, Mr. Lebryk provides leadership, policy direction and guidance for FMS’ financial management programs, including payments, collections, debt collection, and government-wide accounting and financial reporting.

Each week, The Business of Government Hour interviews government executive who are changing the way government does business. The show airs four times a week on two radio stations in the DC Metro Area. If you can’t wait, though, we also put it online. You can also search our audio archives for your favorite interview.