Commerce Department Secretary Carlos Gutierrez isn't the only high-level government official who has had trouble keeping data from thieves -- or holding on to the computer itself. A thief, or thieves, stole U.K. Communities Secretary Hazel Blears' desktop computer, the International Herald Tribune reported. The theft prompted British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to ask ministers to safeguard government data better. "Two sets of confidential documents have been left on trains by security officials in the last week," the Tribune reported. "One set of papers included secret briefings on Iraq and al-Qaida."

ComputerWorld posted a fun column on the origins of some of the more common technology words, including blog, wiki, byte and router.

One entry is for chief information officer. Its origin, however, seems hard to believe. ComputerWorld reports:

According to the Computer History Museum, the C-level position for IT is believed to have started in military and government, then becoming adopted by industry. William Synnott and William Gruber get credit for coining the term in 1981.

What's odd is that Congress established the CIO position in government when it passed the 1996 Information Technology Management Reform Act, later renamed the Clinger-Cohen Act after its authors two biggest supporters, Rep. William Clinger and Sen. William Cohen. It's also unusual that government would lead the commercial sector in appointing CIOs. And whatever happened to the position until 1996?

The Washingtonian.com yesterday posted an article asking readers to suggest who could fill the position as federal chief technology officer. Presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama said he would appoint a CTO to coordinate the federal government's technology infrastructure and to promote transparency into policymaking. The article reports such technology luminaries as Vint Cerf, known as the father of the Internet; Microsoft's Steve Ballmer; and Amazon.com founder and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos.

Putting aside whether any of these or other top tech executives would leave their day jobs in charge of some of the most powerful technology companies in the world (it's hard to picture these barons of the tech industry in a government position), it raises the question of what skill sets are needed for such a position. Would someone coming from a high-profile private-sector job have the necessary knowledge and skill to manage through the bureaucracy? Would they become too frustrated with the rules and culture of resistance? Or would someone with government know-how (and some private-sector ingenuity) get more accomplished? Or, on the flip side, would they not be willing to take bold steps, if bold steps are needed?

Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig, who is head of the Center for Internet and Society, told Washingtonian.com that the position required a "true geek." Is it all about bits and bytes? I have a feeling the person also would need a resume showing some healthy experience in change management. And some strong leadership skills wouldn’t hurt, either.

What kind of person would be best for the role?

What do the following items have in common?

• Bill Gates retires as chief executive officer of Microsoft in July 2008 in order to spend time working on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with an endowment of about $35 billion.

• Warren Buffet pledges some $31 billion of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

• Peter Senge, world renowned for his influential book, The Fifth Discipline, is dedicating his brain power to exploring social responsibility. In a recent book, he points out that individuals businesses are implementing creative solutions to establish a sustainable world.

• In defiance of the opposition of the oppressive and incompetent national government, locals in Myanmar Link">organized food distribution and relief efforts for victims of the May 2008 Tsunami, which killed some 140,000 people

• Thousands of volunteers from all parts of China rushed to Sichuan to Link">organize relief efforts in the aftermath of the earthquake that killed some 85,000 people.

• In America, volunteerism is growing dramatically and steadily.

• After President George W. Bush blocked funding for most embryonic stem cell research, private companies and state governments moved to fill the funding gap.

What these items have in common is that they show that some efforts traditionally assumed by the welfare state are being taken over by individuals, businesses and states operating independently of the federal government.

More than three-quarters of American companies and nonprofits that aren't already using video games and interactive software for training plan to use them within five years. Already, 70 percent of major employers are using games. A new study released yesterday by the Entertainment Software Association also found that 75 percent of those using the technologies plan to use them more often in the next three to five years.

That's a pretty ringing endorsement no matter how you cut it, and one federal agencies should heed.

In the press release announcing the study, Michael D. Gallagher, chief executive officer of the ESA, which represents U.S. computer and video game publishers, said, "Businesses across the spectrum, from automobile manufacturers to financial service providers, are utilizing entertainment software to help educate their employees."

What for?

A recent Government Accountability Office study shows the Federal Protective Service is not protecting General Services Administration buildings because of underfunding. And that’s just the story for GSA buildings. What steps has your agency taken to assess the quality of physical protection at your GSA and non-GSA facilities?

The response to this GAO report from most agency heads is likely to be “What does that have to do with me? Are Congress or the Office of Management and Budget going to give my agency a bad grade because FPS is not doing the job?”

Senior managers understand that lots of money must be spent on computer security lest their agency get a “bad grade” (or perhaps even because current computer security is lousy). But they have no idea about the true cost of mission security or what sorts of investments are necessary to improve mission security.

Nextgov's Editor at Large Bob Brewin broke the story this week that the Defense Department planned to withdraw the nomination of Rear Adm. Elizabeth Hight to be the next director of the Defense Information Systems Agency. The reason: Hight's husband, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Gary Salisbury, is vice president of business development and sales for Northrop Grumman's mission systems sector, defense mission systems division. Northrop Grumman is Defense's third-largest contractor, according to a ranking of Defense contractors compiled annually by Government Executive.

At least one senator on the Armed Services Committee thought the relationship presented a conflict of interest and pushed to have Hight's nomination withdrawn.

The reaction to the rejection of Hight, who was considered one of the strongest candidates for the job but will continue to serve as DISA's deputy director, was disappointment mixed with a tinge of irritation. Bernie Skoch, a consultant with Suss Consulting in Jenkintown, Pa., and a retired Air Force general who served a tour at DISA, told Brewin he believed that Hight and Salisbury could have kept their professional lives separate from their personal lives.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Croom, DISA's current director who plans to retire July 22, expressed regret that Hight will not succeed him. She "would have been the most qualified director we have ever had," he said.

DISA purchases hundreds of millions of dollars worth of information technology hardware and services every year, the kind of hardware and services that Northrop Grumman sells. This seems like a slam-dunk definition of a conflict of interest, despite what people say are Hight's rock-solid qualifications. It's hard to see Hight and Salisbury not having to explain over and over again the uncomfortable relationship to the IT industry and even the Hill. But it would be good to hear from you. Did the Senate make the right decision?

The Encyclopedia Britannica just announced that it is adopting a number of wiki principles in developing and offering its product. http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/06/ency.html For centuries (literally), Britannica has reigned as the world’s premier encyclopedia. Its entries have been deemed authoritative to the point that scholars are not embarrassed to footnote them in their scholarly works.

Britannica has depended on experts to write its entries. This served them well until the arrival of Wikipedia, whose entries are developed dynamically by large numbers of “amateurs” who, through a process of checks and balances, manage to produce detailed and (mostly) accurate content. While the Britannica approach provides accurate material, this material is almost instantly dated and remains so until updated some time in an undetermined future. Entries in Wikipedia, in contrast, can be updated daily.

Peter Swire, who served as the Clinton administration's chief counselor for privacy in the Office of Management and Budget for two years, had a dire warning today for the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee: Biometric data, namely fingerprints, is the next security breach waiting to happen. The federal government -- including the FBI, the State Department and the Homeland Security Department's U.S. VISIT program as well as its border agents -- have collected millions of fingerprints. And digital fingerprints are becoming a more acceptable means to identify just about anyone, including using them to gain access to a computer. And the federal government is collecting fingerprints on all government employees and contractors for its new ID badges under Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12. That's a lot of fingerprints.

"It’s not that hard to fake a fingerprint," Swire told the panel. "Google it and you can find a way to fake one for less than 10 bucks."

It's true. A Google search for "fake fingerprint" returns a whole page on how to fake a fingerprint -- even a You Tube video. And most don't even charge for the information.

Swire recommends Congress require agencies to encrypt the fingerprints to protect them from theft.

Political pundits predict that college students will turn out in record numbers to vote in November, and the American Federation of Government Employees wants to make sure they know their rights, in case they are turned away at the polls. AFGE launched on Monday pages on MySpace and Facebook called Voter Protection. (The social networking sites require registration to view the pages.) "College students will account for a large portion of the voting population this election year. Most of them are new voters, making them easy to deceive," said Andrea Brooks, national vice president of Women's and Fair Practices, in a prepared statement. "It is our objective to have more of these students successfully cast a ballot."

Reports have indicated college students have had trouble voting in past elections. During Indiana's primary in May, a college student in South Bend was not allowed to vote because her only identification was from the private college she attended. The ID did not comply with the state's new photo identification law. During the same primary, some Purdue University students weren't allowed to use their state-issued photo IDs to vote because the cards lacked an expiration date, and students in North Carolina who had registered by the deadline were not allowed to vote, according to an article posted on bnet.com.

The MySpace and Facebook pages, created by two AFGE student interns, provide voting tips, including links to boards of elections, and voting options.

Lawyers for Gary McKinnon, who claims to have hacked into more than 73,000 U.S. computer systems, including those operated by the military services and NASA, started their argument today against his extradition to the United States to stand trial. The 44-year-old hacker allegedly started breaking into U.S. computer systems from his London residence "in 1999, looking for evidence of extraterrestrial beings and technology, which he believed the U.S. government was hiding," according to an article posted by ComputerWeekly.com. U.S. lawyers argue McKinnon caused more than $900,000 in damage hacking into U.S. government systems. McKinnon, who hacked under the name Solo, argued that the United States tried to coerce him into waiving his rights for an extradition hearing. The five judges hearing the arguments will take up to two weeks to issue their ruling.

In about seven months, the nation will inaugurate a new president. He will have his work cut out for him.

"Never before have we so badly needed new and big ideas on government management, and never before have we so badly needed strong managers and leaders in government. Never before have we been so bereft of both," writes Alan Balutis, a distinguished fellow and director of the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group, in the latest issue of the journal The Public Manager.

Government Executive's FedBlog reports that the General Services Administration has a new chief acquisition officer. Ted Haddad has been in the agency's acquisition office for the past year.

The following item was posted by Nextgov reporter Gautham Nagesh.

The next chief information officer at Defense Department will be facing a full plate of technology challenges, according to John Grimes, the department's chief information officer. Speaking at a lunch sponsored by the American Council for Technology and the Industry Advisory Council, Grimes outlined what he believes are the biggest concerns facing his successor.

They include:

Network-centric warfare – Grimes spoke about the need for warfighters and intelligence agencies to share information about enemies and operations. He said that when former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked his opinion on the subject, he responded that “sharing information is the only way to go.” He described the initial barriers as part culture and part legal, but said that the Patriot Act had largely eliminated the legal barriers.

Portfolio Management – Grimes said that the importance of how money is allocated was particularly important now, with agencies facing tight budgets. He emphasized the need to bring in industry leadership to obtain technical solutions and said the commercial market was way ahead of government in terms of technology and innovation. He referenced GSA’s Networx telecom contract as an example of how government can use the expertise of companies to accomplish more easily its mission.

Cloud Computing – That's the shift away from independent personal computers to a more centralized base for applications and data storage. Defense is looking at how it can better use the “cloud” and replace users’ current devices with “dumb terminals” that would rely more on enterprise applications and databases, Grimes said. He cited two reasons for the shift. First, users often “mess around” on their computers, creating security and other risks, and, second, moving to a centralized system of applications makes telecommuting and remote access much easier. He added that he hoped to make significant progress on that before leaving.

Globalization – Grimes called it “somewhat shocking” that the government was using code written by programmers in what could be called enemy states. He also cited a rise in the infiltration of data on Defense networks in the past couple years as evidence that “globalization is an issue.” President Bush signed a directive in May that creates the new category of "Controlled Unclassified Information," which is information not suitable for disclosure to the public. The directive did not specify how such information would be categorized or protected under this term. Grimes said the new classification would be a burden to his team, but implementation plans and cost have not yet been determined.

With summer vacation times fast approaching, it looks like it won't be much of one for many information technology workers. Almost four out of 10 IT workers (37 percent) say they plan to contact the office while on vacation, according to the 2008 Vacation Survey conducted by CareerBuilder.com. The only other job position that has a higher rate of workaholics is salespeople -- 50 percent of them plan to contact the office while away. While that's troubling, what is more disconcerting is the survey's finding that 19 percent of IT workers say their supervisors' expect them to work or check email while on vacation. Does that qualify as a vacation? CareerBuilder has some advice for these bosses: "If you are the boss, take a vacation and limit your contact with the office. Workers will feel much better getting away and enjoying themselves if they see the boss doing the same."

Given the federal government's workplace culture, it would seem that government managers wouldn't put the same demands on their employees. (The survey doesn't break down the results by sector.) But I could be wrong. What expectations does your supervisor in your agency put on you? And if you supervise employees, what do you ask of them while they are on vacation?

Hat tip: ComputerWorld

Just how much is teleworking worth to you? For more than one-third of information technology workers, the answer to that question is up to 10 percent of their salary -- if they could telework full-time, according to a survey released by Dice Holdings. That seems like a high price to pay to work from home, until you calculate the price of gasoline. Americans are now spending an average of about 4 percent of their take-home pay on gas, with lower-income Americans paying a much higher proportion, according to a New York Times article. The additional amount IT workers would be willing to give up could be the value they put on the time they gain from not commuting and how much they thought it was worth to stay home to work. About the same percentage (36 percent) said they would not give up any pay to telework -- a much more likely response that federal employees would provide given that Congress is pushing agencies to increase telework opportunities.

Hat tip: InfoWorld

The job outlook in the federal government looks good, and that includes information technology jobs, according to a recent survey. About 100,000 jobs are open. That's good news for workers looking for jobs in a slowing economy.

According to John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the firm that conducted the analysis, job searches in the private sector are lengthening "as business conditions weaken and employers postpone expansion plans. Those who have been frustrated with longer job searches should be casting a wider net. That means looking for positions in other cities and looking in different industries, including government."

Lengthening? Obviously, Challenger never applied for a government job.

Information technology analysis firm Forrester Research Inc. released last week a case study (purchase necessary) presenting how tire manufacturer Michelin Group uses the virtual world Second Life to train employees. The report outlines how Michelin uses Second Life to teach enterprise architecture theory to IT employees, including how it organizes materials and how employees interact with it. Unfortunately, the report is thin on the empirical evidence indicating whether Michelin's virtual "islands" train employees better than, or at least equally as well as, the traditional classroom.

In a previous blog, I mentioned that Intellipedia is a success story in the world of Government wikis. After 9/11, the Director of National Intelligence recognized that in order to deal with terrorist threats to the United States, the US’s 16 intelligence agencies need to share as much intelligence information as possible, rather than play things close to the chest – their traditional modus operandi. Intellipedia was established to encourage intelligence specialists from across all intelligence agencies to share insights on terrorism. By all accounts, it has been successful in opening inter-agency communication.

A problem with Intellipedia is that it is only open to players with US security clearances, so that it is out of the reach of most government employees. I have received a number of inquiries asking whether I was aware of other government-oriented social networking experiments that are accessible by ordinary citizens. Following are three examples of such experiments shared with me by readers:

http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage
This site is hosted by GSA Intergovernmental Solutions. It focuses on a number of communities of interests that are concerned with fairly narrow issues. It provides listings of resources that address the concerns of the members of these communities of interest. (This information was shared by Brian Green.)

http://webstandards.govt.nz/index.php/Home_page
This site is hosted by the New Zealand government. Its goal is to solicit inputs from the outside world to help strengthen the design of web pages produced by New Zealand government agencies. (This information was shared by David Zetland.)

www.futuremelbourne.com.au
This wiki site is hosted by the City of Melbourne (Australia) and its Future Melbourne Reference Group. Its objective is to stimulate insights into future directions that the City of Melbourne can pursue. The site reports that hot topics currently discussed address transportation improvements, tax reform, and improved water quality. (This information was shared by Dale, of the Future Melbourne team.)

Check out these sites. Clearly, government’s involvement in social networking is in a nascent stage. My sense is that as governments move into social networking, their early efforts will focus on information sharing. That is, they will likely be listings of information resources. Their first steps at establishing wikis will be more like chat rooms than full-fledged wikis. However, it is probable than within the next five years, governments at the national, state/provincial, and local levels will begin developing social networking sites that garner substantive inputs from the public that, ultimately, have an impact on how government conducts its business.

If you have information on additional government sites, please share it with us.

The fear that cell phones can cause cancer has been around for a while and has been routinely discredited from many medical organizations, including the Food and Drug Administration.

But the cell phone-cancer link was raised again in an article in today's New York Times. This time the medical experts are renewing the debate.

Thank you to my colleague and FedBlog blogger Tom Shoop for writing the following item.

For your viewing pleasure today, here’s a video produced under the sponsorship of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, NASA and the Air Force’s Rome Air Development Center. It features a live demonstration of e-mail, hypertext linking and teleconferencing.

Oh, and the year of the demonstration? 1968.

Absolutely amazing.

(Hat tip: BoingBoing)

Open competition and no-bid contracts have received quite a bit of attention here in Washington, but the idea seems to have taken some time to get out to other parts of the country. In Lake County, Indiana, for example, the county commissioners is considering opening up a $1.9 million, four-year no-bid contract for data processing it first awarded to Cenifax Management Services in 1992. The contract had recently been awarded to Cenifax on a sole-source basis, but a Good Government study conducted for Lake County, a suburb of Chicago, recommended the county put the contract up for competitive bidding. Most commissioners think that’s a good idea. "I say put it up for bid and see what others have to offer," said Lake County Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez. "The numbers of vendors and services have increased over the years."

The reason to keep the contract as a sole-source contract, according to Council President Christine Cid, is because she "spoke with a couple of officials to get a feel with whether they were happy with the services, and no one had any complaints." After all, says Mark Pearman, executive director of contractor Cenifax, "We brought the county out of the dark ages. The Good Government study didn't show we have an online docket for all the town and city courts or the county's courts data on the Internet, something no one else in the state has to our degree."