Summaries for October 1, 2008

BEFORE PRESIDENT 44, MINTZ WANTS DOT SOLIDLY INTO WEB 2.0
The only way for a federal department to get to a Web 2.0 interactive future is to, well, just get at it. At the Transportation Department, CIO Dan Mintz will depart shortly, after having left a solid start in Web 2.0.  You might be surprised at some of the avenues DOT is using to reach a Web 2.0 future.
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SOME IT EFFORTS CONTINUE AMIDST THE BAILOUT STORM
Although the banking bailout legislation and its defeat Monday have occupied most of the brain cycles in Washington last week, some IT-related development did take place. The Federal Information Security Management Act , Federal Desktop Core Configuration , and IT spending in the Senate's continuing resolution spending bill, are some of the e-government topics that received attention.
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AS RONALD REAGAN WOULD HAVE SAID: "THERE YOU GO AGAIN"
McCain would do away with anything but firm fixed price contracts. Obama would fire incompetent managers, eliminate redundancy in federal programs, and thin middle management ranks. Both would reduce dependence on contractors to do the government's work. Is it possible to suppress the federal employee headcount and save billions in contracting unless you shut down major programs and pull them up by the roots?  Not likely. -> Read More

THE BUDGET GORILLA NEITHER SIDE MENTIONED
Both presidential candidates sounded clumsy when it came to federal budget options during their first debate last week. The question put to them was how the $700 billion banking rescue would affect their budget decisions. Both candidates essentially said they would comb the discretionary agency budgets looking for waste, but neither candidate mentioned two of the three galloping, non-discretionary spending horses: Social Security and Medicaid. -> Read More

• Before President 44, Mintz Wants DOT Solidly Into Web 2.0

  Dan Mintz

  The only way for a federal department to get to a Web 2.0 interactive future is to, well, just get at it.

  At the Transportation Department, in its ultra modern building near the Navy Yard in Southeast Washington , D.C. , CIO Dan Mintz will depart shortly, after having left a solid start in Web 2.0.

  “There are three steps in Web 2.0 use, and we're in the early days,” Mintz said.

  Step one is what Mintz called an unfiltered way of communicating policy to the public. In step two DOT initiated two-way direct communications, as comments to Secretary Mary Peters' blog attests. And the third step, a still-nascent effort, is peer-creation of content—collaboration between DOT and its federal, state and local partners.

  “How do we have partners help create the content? Like Wikipedia, so it's not just participation but creation,” Mintz said.

  Mintz added that the Secretary's blog has become integral to DOT operations, in that everywhere Peters goes, audiences are encouraged to participate.

  The department is integrating Web 2.0 into new information initiatives. For example, there is a new geospatial information officer, and the DOT agencies are encouraged to participate in an internal wiki for using and sharing this information. Mintz likens such efforts to gardening: To get plants to thrive they need nurturing, not strangling with rules.

  DOT has also purchased a small island in Second Life, the online, 3-dimensional interactive community. So-called avatars, representing real people, travel and interact with one another in virtual worlds designed by the island's owner. Mintz, like other early government adapters of online 3D collaboration, sees this as a continuity of operations option, as well as a way of creating and testing policy options.

  The Second Life account will be used by the National Traffic Library and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as a channel for reaching youth drivers, Mintz said.

  DOT is also looking at use of Facebook. Mintz notes that there is a community of federal CIOs who are already using Facebook to communicate informally. Mintz points out two challenges to government in this corner of Web 2.0.

  Security, for one. “Government has obligations regarding privacy and security,” Mintz said. “Government has a tendency to smother everything with rules, yet things with the least number of rules are the most successful. Yet, it is unnatural for government to not put in a lot of rules. We usually say, ‘This is okay to use, but here are 220 pages of rules.' That kills it.” Still, he added, the General Services Administration is coordinating work on acceptable language for use of Facebook.

  Mintz said that longer term, Web 2.0 techniques are, for the next generation of government workers, “the natural way of communicating and getting information. To hire and attract talent, we'll have to deal with it. Government has an obligation to reach out to its stakeholders.”

  Looking ahead to transition, Mintz said, “It's an interesting process. I've never held a political job before. We're identifying areas in the department career people are enthusiastic about. I'm asking if there are things I can help solve before I leave.”

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• Some IT Efforts Continue Amidst the Bailout Storm

  Although the banking bailout legislation, and its defeat Monday, have occupied most of the brain cycles in Washington last week, some IT-related development did take place.

  As for the bailout itself, the bill would create a new alphabet soup that may not rival that of the New Deal, but adds two new ones to remember. There's a Financial Stability Oversight Board, or FSOB, to oversee administration of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

  You can be sure there would be a major IT system component to this activity of buying so-called toxic assets, tracking them and/or the disposal of the properties they represent, and preparing reports on this effort that can be posted to a web site. The republic can not withstand a lack of accountability by the TARP, which would make the Minerals Management Service fiasco look trivial by comparison.

  But, of course, it has to become law first.

  Meanwhile, the Senate Homeland Security Governmental Affairs Committee has advanced a new version of the Federal Information Security Management Act. It would require departments to appoint chief information security officers. It also reported out S 3384, or the Information Technology Investment Oversight Enhancement and Waste Prevention Act. This baby would make it easier for agencies to terminate projects that are out of control on costs or schedules.

  When combined with what the candidates are saying about waste and incompetence within agencies, these gambits promise a tougher environment generally.

  The Office of Management and Budget is also trying to get things over the line in the waning days of the administration. It means business when it comes to the Federal Desktop Core Configuration. FCW is reporting that OMB will use statistical sampling of agency networks to make sure everyone is in fact using the FDCC, citing comments by OMB's Karen Evans at a recent conference.

  There is IT spending in the Senate's continuing resolution spending bill, which passed that chamber last week. The House passed a nearly identical bill earlier. Homeland security would get nearly $45 million for IT projects, plus $48 million for the Homeland Security Data Network. There is also money for the Secure Border Initiative, US VISIT and other big-ticket initiatives that really can't come to a halt.

  Note that the funding is supposed to take the government through March 30, 2009, because congressional leadership would rather deal with a new president.

  But the bill funds the Defense and Veterans Affairs Departments fully. Future Combat Systems, the Army's long-term transformational IT effort, receives full funding at $3.6 billion. The bill also backs lots of hot aircraft — the Marines' tilt-rotor Osprey, and Air Force's F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

  Prospects for passage of a bill (S 2131) reauthorizing e-government looked dim, then brightened again. The yawner was suddenly controversial after Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) added what to the administration was an untenable privacy amendment. Compromise language was worked out, but a vote may have to wait until the next session.

  It's all a bit academic at this point, given that e-government is long established. But forcing agencies to privacy impact studies for use of outside data sources would surely put a damper on expansion of web services.

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• As Ronald Reagan Would Have Said: “There You Go Again”

  McCain would do away with anything but firm fixed price contracts. Obama would fire incompetent managers, eliminate redundancy in federal programs, and thin middle management ranks. Both would reduce dependence on contractors to do the government's work.

  Heard it all before? Of course you have.

  Every presidential candidate runs pretty much on the same platform with respect to how he would handle the federal bureaucracy. So if these sound familiar, they ought to.

  The problem with these pledges is that they are meaningless. You can't suppress the federal employee headcount and save billions in contracting unless you shut down major programs and pull them up by the roots.

  When's the last time you saw that happen?

  With respect to which candidate seems to have the more thoroughly-baked proposals for managing the federal apparatus, you'd have to give the nod to Obama — possibly because a lot of former Clinton-era political appointees are working with the Obama camp in hopes of a restoration. A couple of them are vying for another post Obama would create, that of federal chief information officer.

  Of note is Obama's call for a chief performance officer to oversee the bureaucracy, although it is hard to see how this differs from an existing position, that of deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget. The campaign has expressed doubts about a centerpiece of the Bush President's Management Agenda, namely the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), saying the ratings are politically driven.

  Obama was a co-sponsor, though, of legislation which created the www.usaspending.gov web site, a bipartisan effort, so that is likely to continue.

  McCain favors the line item veto — don't they all — and generally continuing to push outsourcing and making it easier to fire federal managers.

  For a good side-by-side roundup of the candidates' positions on federal management, check the University of Pennsylvania 's Fels Institute of Government site. The institute's Prof. Donald Kettl talked about the candidates plans earlier this week on Federal News Radio.

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• The Budget Gorilla Neither Side Mentioned

  During their first debate last week, both presidential candidates sounded clumsy when it came to federal budget options. The question put to them by the moderator in Oxford , Miss. was how the $700 billion banking rescue would affect their budget decisions. Both Barack Obama and John McCain essentially said they would comb the discretionary agency budgets looking for waste.

  McCain made additional emphasis on earmarks. Offensive as earmarks may be, they comprise a tiny portion of the annual discretionary spending that now exceeds $1 trillion.

  But neither candidate mentioned any hoped-for initiative to rein in two of the three galloping, non-discretionary spending horses: Social Security and Medicaid. Those, combined with interest on the national debt, account for roughly two thirds of total federal spending. The only reference to what's really squeezing budgets was a passing comment by McCain. He said he would freeze all spending except Defense, Veterans Affairs and entitlement programs.

  What this means is that discretionary spending will be under unprecedented pressure not only in this fiscal year (which starts under a continuing resolution) but for years to come. For this community, it means new IT initiatives will be a tough sell unless they can promise immediate payoff.

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