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Everything As A Service

Recently I was on the DorobekINSIDER LIVE show along with Sean Herron, Product Lead and Developer at 18F; and Richard Beutel, Senior Advisor and Counsel for Acquisition Policy House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The link to the show is here.

The attitude to Cloud has changed dramatically since I was the CIO at the US Department of Transportation. Then, there was great reluctance from all stakeholders to even try moving applications to the Cloud. Now, there is general agreement that many applications are candidates for such a move, though there clearly are security and acquisition hurdles that need to be overcome.

Everything As A Service

Federal News Countdown – February 1st

I was, to my continual amazement, invited back again to be on the Federal news Countdown, hosted by Francis Rose, on WFED, on the AM dial at 1500.

During the show two guests go over their top three Federal news stories of the week, starting with their third most important, then their second and finally their most important story. The other guess this time was Larry Allen, http://www.allenfederal.com/. Larry is a long-time industry expert on acquisition and a good person. Having been on this particular show a number of times, this one was particularly fun to do.

It can be heard here, http://www.federalnewsradio.com/86/3215767/Federal-News-Countdown-Mobility-Section-508-update-and-sequestration-worries.

Federal News Countdown – February 1st

Why FedRAMP Is Worth Caring About

Reposted from AOL Government, http://gov.aol.com/2011/12/12/why-fedramp-is-worth-caring-about/.

If you have been at a recent Washington Capitals hockey game when the opponent scores a goal, you know the crowd routinely shouts out “Who cares!”

Last week, Steven VanRoekel, Federal CIO, released the long awaited OMB plan for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP; which reminds me to be thankful for pronounceable acronyms. The purpose of FedRAMP per the implementing OMB memorandum, is to “provide a cost-effective, risk-based approach for the adoption and use of cloud services”.

This blog entry is my attempt to answer the question “Who cares!”

Why FedRAMP Is Worth Caring About

Lessons From a Political CIO by Dan Mintz CIO, Department of Transportation

This morning in the Washington Post there was a column discussing the regular transition of political appointees, http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/fedcoach/2011/02/political-appointee-merry-go-round.html?hpid=smartliving. For those of you are are thinking of becoming a political appointee or wonder about the process,… Lessons From a Political CIO by Dan Mintz CIO, Department of Transportation

Cloud Computing Thoughts – Part I

The Cloud Computing freight train roars on, if not with a lot of motion, at least with a lot of noise and tumult.

I have been part of a number of panels over the last few months which focused on the subject of Cloud Computing, the current state of the’art’, and as usual what barriers exist that need to be dealt with to make it easier to utilize. There certainly has been much written about it both pro and con and it remains a high-priority focus for the current Administrator and, in particular, Vivek Kundra, the Federal CIO.

For one of the graduate classes I am teaching this semester at the University of Maryland University College, the subject is touched upon as part of a broad look at technology changes and implications. The topic generated much comment by my students.

It seems to me that the subject starts from the wrong side of the discussion, the technology side. When the discussion turns to the impact, it starts at an important but not the most important concern, that of return-on-investment (ROI).

Today and in a number of future blog entries, I will talk about what I think are the current important issues associated with cloud computing. Today I start with what I perceive as a foundational issue, cost, but later in the week will move to what I believe are more important considerations and goals.

Note: I do not plan to rehash what cloud computing is, or is not, there are too many other write-ups that do this. Look at the National Institutes of Standards work on such definitions, I think it is pretty good.Cloud Computing Thoughts – Part I

Ambient Knowledge

I have been giving a lot of thought lately about the impact of technology being integrated into everything.

In a separate post, I will talk more about that, but until I get that written, one of my students in my Syracuse University class on CIO on “CIO’s and the Global Enterprise”, wrote an interesting discussion about Ambient Organizations.

As I understand the various phrases that use the word ambient in this context, what is being said is that we come across information all the time; conversations, books we read, news sources, and so on. Over time even when we do not realize it, we tend to process and integrate this information often in unexpected ways. This is becoming even more relevant as the number of information sources and the pervasiveness of them increases.

For a simple example, for those of us who participate in such things as twitter or facebook, it is not infrequent that we when we run into someone for the first time physically that we are connected to on one of these social networks, it is as if we already know them. Even when we didn’t notice it, we pick up on what a person is interested in and what their opinions on a variety of topics are.

Helen Patricia McKenna is one of my students in this semester’s CIO class, the class itself in fact is completely on-line; taught asynchronously – that is, no direct lectures. It is part of the on-line graduate curricula at Syracuse University’s iSchool,  http://ischool.syr.edu/. She often posts very interesting comments, this one I thought was of particular interest – I will warn those who go on, that in addition to being interesting it is a bit long.

BTW, in the interests of full-disclosure, I also teach at the University of Maryland University College. I find that the “do not want to appear like an idiot” syndrome forces me to keep relatively up-to-date in the topic areas I teach – which typically range from Cyber-Security Policy to CIO Management to IT Acquisition.Ambient Knowledge