SEC Allowing You To Tweet Financial Disclosures – Plus the DorobekINSIDER’s 7 Stories

On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER:

• Do you want to work in the foreign service? The State Department has launched a mobile application to help. The app gives prospective Foreign Service officers a taste of what could be in store for them. Click here for the full recap.

But up front:

If you still don’t take social media — or Web 2.0 or collaboration tools or whatever you want to call it — if you don’t take it seriously, can you imagine this story happening just a few years ago: The Securities and Exchange Commission is now allowing companies to, essentially, Tweet financial disclosures.

While Forbes notes that the move will “test investors,” they also note it is a big step… for regulators, and I would add… for government.

It comes on nearly the same day that the first mobile phone call was made some 40 years ago… just in case you need a reminder about how quickly things change… and they seem to only moving faster. (We noted last month that Twitter is only 7-years-old.)

The SEVEN stories that impact your life

• Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry is stepping down later this month. That’s when his four-year term ends. The White House could renominate Berry for the role. But the Washington Post is reporting Berry is the leading candidate for Ambassador to Australia. Berry’s departure would leave OPM with a leadership hole. The number-two spot has been empty since August 2011.

• There are more women among the federal Senior Executive Service than at any time in the past five years, according to new numbers from the Office of Personnel Management. That’s despite the fact that the SES corps has shrunk slightly since 2011. The government has made a concerted effort to diversify the elite service by presidential order and through leadership seminars. Men are still two-thirds of the SES. Whites make up 80 percent.

• Three weeks after he left his job as assistant secretary for information and technology and chief information officer at the Veterans Affairs Department, Roger Baker signed on today to the newly created post as chief strategy officer for Agilex, a relatively small (400 employees) Chantilly, VA-based technology company whose focus includes healthcare and mobile computing.

• The Army has lost control of its commercial mobile devices said Defense Systems. The inspector general of the Defense Department found more than 14,000 smartphones and tablets are untracked within the Army and the Army chief information officer’s office did not implement an effective cybersecurity program that identifies and mitigates risks surrounding CMDs and removable media, according to the DOD IG.

• Experts are apparently more costly than expected — at least a database of them. The White House has decided building a database of exerts isn’t worth the cost of time and resources. NextGov reports, the White House is abandoning plans to build ExpertNet, an online community of academic and private sector experts to advise federal officials. The White House announced plans for ExpertNet in an action plan delivered to the international Open Government Partnership in September 2011.
• The California city of Stockton can file for bankruptcy protection, over the objection of creditors who argued the city could come up with more money. The Los Angeles Times reports that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein said Stockton can move forward with a plan to reorganize debt. He twice stated that the creditors had acted in bad faith and had refused to pay their share of the costs for negotiations. The bankruptcy — and what it means for the city’s pensions — has national implications, Government Technology reports.
• And on GovLoop. You can now register for the April edition of DorobekINSIDER Live. We’ll be talking citizen engagement. Register for the free event here.

Watercooler Fodder

• New York Times: The Federal Trade Commission has announced the winners of their Robocall challenge. The FTC expressed hope that the winning proposals find their way to the marketplace soon, to provide relief to millions of American consumers

• After cyberattacks, South Korea announces new cyber policy team.

• CNN Reports, And… as we head toward April 15 tax day: Nose jobs. Bail money. Sex toys. These are a few crazy deductions some people try–some legit, others not so much.