Skip to content

Oversight in the Federal Government – The Underutilized Part

One of the things I learned during my time as the Chief Information Officer at the US Department of Transportation is that one of the core competencies of the Federal Government is looking over someone else’s shoulder, that is the provision of oversight.

The CIO has three major organizational best friends providing helpful advice. First there is the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) which has the added lever of having a big impact on how much money you will potentially get in your budget in coming years. Second if you are associated with a big program, and at DOT there was always something going on at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which was a big program, then the Government Accountability Office (GAO) got involved. Often, by the way how OMB rated programs and how GAO rated programs were slightly different so fixing for one did not always fix for the other, but that is another story for another post.

And finally there was the internal to the Department based Office of Inspector General (IG).  IG’s investigate many things but one of their required areas of focus relates to how Information Technology is provisioned within an agency or department.

Oversight in the Federal Government – The Underutilized Part

Today’s AFCEA Bethesda Panel on Leveraging Data

This morning was the first of two breakfasts that AFCEA Bethesda is hosting relating to the importance of data within the Federal Government with panelists talking about how to maximize the use of the large amounts of Government generated data.

The panel was moderated by long-time industry veteran, Wyatt Kash, who currently is the Vice President of Content Strategy, Scoop Media, FedScoop.

Panelists included:

  • Michael Kennedy, Executive of Architecture and Interoperability, Office of the Program Manager, Information Sharing Environment, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
  • David McClure, Jr. Data Asset Portfolio Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce
  • Michael Simcock, Director of Enterprise Data Management and Chief Data Architect, Department of Homeland Security

Today’s AFCEA Bethesda Panel on Leveraging Data

My Top Three Articles Relating to the Federal Government From Last Friday

On Friday, October 24, I was on the Federal News Countdown, hosted by Francis Rose, along with Jenny Mattingley, director of government affairs for Shaw, Bransford and Roth. You can hear the show, and see a picture of an old, bald guy standing next to Jenny, here.

The format of the show is each guest talks about their third most important article, then their second and finally their most important article of the week. Both guests will comment on each other’s second and top articles.

My Top Three Articles Relating to the Federal Government From Last Friday

Counting Down

I’ll be on the Francis Rose hosted Federal News Countdown this coming Friday at 4pm, on WFED, 1500 on your AM (yes, they still broadcast on AM) dial. The format of the show is two… Counting Down

Rent Seeking, Teeth Whitening, and Grapes

George Will has an interesting column today about rent seeking as it applies to teeth whitening.

Rent seeking is an economics term used when someone attempts to achieve additional profits without creating actual value. It often is used to describe situations when someone uses the government to implement policies that reduce competition to allow this incremental profit to occur.

The situation described in George Will’s column discusses the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners. The NC Board has said that only licensed dentists can perform teeth whitening and, in fact, has also asked the North Carolina Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners (I wonder if Maryland has such a thing) to forbid licensed cosmetologists from performing teeth whitening also.

Rent Seeking, Teeth Whitening, and Grapes

Co-Creation and Government

The impact of mobile computing devices on Government can be divided into three areas of focus: Improving, or at least changing, the nature of IT infrastructure and organizational operations Revising the delivery and implementation of… Co-Creation and Government

Defense One Webinar

  • by

AMARC, www.amarcedu.org, was the sponsor for a webinar last week entitled “Beyond Mobile: Arming DoD for the Future”. The guest was Dan Kaufman, the Director of DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, interviewed by Kevin Baron, the Executive… Defense One Webinar