TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
10/31/08 05:36 pm ET
One of the reasons states may be pulling the plug on electronic voting machines and going back to paper ballots may be the poorly designed interface of the machines. Most manufacturers of e-voting machines calibrate the devices so that they are sensitive to the...>>
10/31/08 05:07 pm ET
Anecdotes abound about how e-mail can result in miscommunication and lead to embarrassing errors. here's one found by Nextgov Web Producer Melanie Bender. In an article posted on Friday, the BBC explained that in Wales, all official road signs must be bilingual -- both...>>
10/31/08 11:45 am ET
Many information technology professionals both in and out of government believe an Obama administration would boost investments in IT to improve government service and create more transparency. They point to how technology helped the Obama campaign raise a record amount of money and how...>>
10/30/08 04:04 pm ET
It looks like Maryland and Virginia have had it with electronic voting machines. After the election on Tuesday, the two states are phasing out the machines, which have suffered from security vulnerabilities and miscounted votes, and returning to paper ballots. Maryland will go back...>>
10/29/08 05:25 pm ET
Robert Jamison, under secretary of the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Homeland Security Department, told ComputerWorld: "As we go ahead into the election, the first thing that's important is career leadership ... that we have the right people in the right jobs,...>>
10/28/08 03:38 pm ET
Government management scholar Paul Light is bullish on information technology. Speaking to an audience attending the Executive Leadership Conference in Williamsburg, a gathering of federal IT contractors and government technology executives, Light expects the federal government’s procurement budget to increase 5 percent to 10...>>
10/27/08 04:44 pm ET
David Walker, president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and a former comptroller general of the United States, for years has been warning that the government’s inability to reduce the nation's debt and to control spending on programs such as Medicare and Social Security...>>
10/27/08 04:27 pm ET
The recent experience of a former defense employee, shared during the Executive Leadership Conference Monday in Williamsburg, Va., showcases what very well may be the biggest threat to government's information security posture: the government people themselves. This individual, who left DoD to join another...>>
10/24/08 05:28 pm ET
For most of the Bush administration, a core debate in the information technology arena has centered on this: To whom should the chief information officer report? Authors of the 1996 Clinger Cohen Act believed to whom the CIO reports matters and inserted language calling...>>
10/23/08 06:22 pm ET
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- better known as ICANN -- is expected to release on Friday its plan for assigning domain names, such as .biz, .info and .us, according to a Congress Daily article, a sister publication of Nextgov. The...>>
10/22/08 12:20 pm ET
CSC Corp. has issued a press release on Wednesday listing its 10 most disruptive technologies. While geared toward business, it has relevance for the government. Some are obvious and others not so. CSC sent an email of explaining the 10 disruptive technologies, including a...>>
10/22/08 10:24 am ET
Army Knowledge Online, one of government's first knowledge portals and Web 2.0 projects (years before the term Web 2.0 was coined), plans to announce next week that the site will reach a major milestone: the 1 billionth log on. The Army created AKO in...>>
10/21/08 05:48 pm ET
InformationWeek reports that two Swiss researchers have demonstrated how to intercept the radio frequencies of wired keyboards to steal the keystrokes of the user -- from up to 20 meters away and even through walls, no less. But no need to worry about hackers...>>
10/20/08 04:27 pm ET
BusinessWeek has an article on who would be the best candidate to fill the role as chief technology officer in an Obama administration – if he were to win the election, of course. The potential candidates include Google’s Vint Cerf; Microsoft Chief Executive Officer...>>
10/17/08 10:26 am ET
If Barack Obama were to win the election in November, who would be in charge of his government management reform initiative, which relies heavily on information technology? It wouldn't be his running mate. In the Oct. 20 issue of New Yorker magazine, author Ryan...>>
10/17/08 09:54 am ET
Since 1997, the IRS has designated computer security as a material weakness, i.e., “shortcomings in operations or systems which, among other things, severely impair or threaten the organization’s ability to accomplish its mission or to prepare timely, accurate financial statements or reports.” Given this...>>
10/16/08 02:46 pm ET
Much has been written about the need for agencies to provide young workers – called Generation Y or the Millennials – with the technological devices and applications they have grown accustomed to using in everyday life – for most of their life. Allowing these...>>
10/15/08 04:37 pm ET
I’ve written before (and here) about the value of Second Life and other virtual applications including simulation training, asking whether it improves outcomes – or in other words, results in better decisions and results. Well, my Tech Insider colleague wrote on Wednesday in her...>>
10/14/08 05:46 pm ET
A study released today concludes that Americans still are not fully supportive of electronic health records, although the press release headline reads, "Electronic Medical Records Viewed Favorably." According to the study, conducted by Morpace, 48 percent of those surveyed support the creation of a...>>
10/14/08 09:53 am ET
Bruce McConnell has sold the federal consulting firm McConnell International LLC, which he founded in 2000 after leaving government. Clinton Rubin LLC, based in Philadelphia, bought the firm for an undisclosed sum. The purchase will give Clinton Rubin its first presence in the Washington,...>>
10/10/08 05:19 pm ET
Chase Garwood, the chief information officer for the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program, has been named the CIO for the National Protection and Programs Directorate, which is part of the Homeland Security Department. "With the addition of Chase, we continue to...>>
10/09/08 04:58 pm ET
ComputerWorld reported on Thursday that traffic to USAjobs, the federal government's jobs Web site, has increased 45 percent during the past six months, 500,000 visits per day. The reason is most likely the worsening economy and increased unemployment; federal jobs are seen as being...>>
10/08/08 04:44 pm ET
An article in The New York Times today outlines how the FAA is relying on simulators to train the next generation of air traffic controllers. The agency needs to train thousands of controllers before nearly two-thirds of the 15,000 air traffic controllers leave work...>>
10/07/08 05:30 pm ET
CNet News blogger Declan McCullagh writes about a new study from the National Research Council on whether data mining works to identify and flag terrorists. According to McCullagh, data mining just gives too many false positives to make it reliable. The authors of the...>>
10/06/08 02:32 pm ET
Harry Raduege Jr., the three-star general who was head of the Defense Information Systems Agency for five years ending in 2005, has penned an article calling for the federal government to give chief information officers more clout, pay and stature needed to improve the...>>
10/03/08 05:03 pm ET
You know your computer systems and Web applications are so wide open to hackers when your auditor stops his investigation before it's even one-fifth of the way through, fearing that some real damage could be done if he doesn’t start clanging the alarm bell....>>
10/02/08 03:06 pm ET
Political experts don't expect tonight's debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin to hit on a lot of technology too much. But that didn’t stop PC Magazine from breaking down their respective technology record and positions. The magazine gives the techno nod to Biden,...>>
10/01/08 03:26 pm ET
A memorandum sent to federal CIOs by OMB yesterday outlines additional guidance for agencies seeking to comply with OMB's Trusted Internet Connection program. The memo, issued by Karen Evans, administrator of OMB's Office of E-Government, orders agencies to provide their current plans of action...>>
Excellence in Government 2009
Join us for the 2009 Excellence in Government Conference Series as we explore “Advancing in the New Federal Landscape” in a series of three one-day conferences. Today’s leaders must be able to maneuver strategically, think boldly and balance risks at every turn.