GovLoop Advisory Board #5 – Chris Dorobek

I mentioned last week, we are launching a GovLoop Advisory Board to help us make GovLoop more awesome. For more information, click here.
#1 – Craig Newmark, Founder of Craigslist
#2 – Bill Bott, former Missouri Deputy CIO
#3 – Anthony Williams, Consultant and Best-Selling co-Author of Wikinomics
#4 – Steve Kelman, Harvard Kennedy School Professor

I have been covering the nexus of government and technology for almost two decades now — and I often think that I’m the luckiest man in the world. I get to cover some of the most passionate people anywhere who are facing some of the most interesting challenges anywhere. Day in and day out, I get to talk to smart people as they work (and even struggle) to deal with some of the most interesting projects.

The great part of my job: I get to help the government operate better.

My full bio is here:
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AUFF4P_YjW-qZGZrZGduNnRfNTVoZm0zMzRoag&hl=en
In short, I started at Government Computer News… then worked at an early dot-com called PlanetGov.com… and then joined Federal Computer Week. In 2008, I joined Federal News Radio 1500 AM as the co-anchor of the afternoon drive program, the Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris, which airs from 3-7p ET on the radio — and online at FederalNewsRadio.com. I also write the blog,DorobekINSIDER.com.

How did you become interested in government?
I started working for Government Computer News in the 1990s. It was an interesting time — agencies didn’t have Web sites. We didn’t even have e-mail. And often when I told people where I work, they would say, ‘The government uses computers?’ We’ve come a long way. Today, nobody has to ask if the government uses technology.

Why you love GovLoop?
I have been fascinated by GovLoop since Steve Ressler first launched it. I think this is such an interesting time for government — and a real opportunity to make improvements. There is a real yearning for change — both among government workers, but also in the public at large. But there is a real opportunity to use these collaborative tools to share information in ways that people couldn’t even have dreamed of when I started covering this stuff back in the early 1990s. One of the best examples is GovLoop’s marvelous Acquisition 2.0 community. The discussions on GovLoop spurred the development of the Better Buy Project, which is so powerful because it is people trying new ways of doing business. (One of the worst phrases out there is, ‘That’s not how we do business here.’ What GovLoop and the Better Buy Project are doing is trying new ways of doing business. And they are doing it with the understanding that it might not work perfectly, but there will be lessons learned.