Daniel

Government 2.0—Fact or Fiction?

This is a copy of the article that I wrote for the Public Manager, reprinted here with their permission, originally published October, 2008 ; http://thepublicmanager.org/cs/blogs/featured/archive/2008/10/14/government-2-0-fact-or-fiction.aspx.

I, and the other authors that contributed similar articles making predictions and/or providing some thoughts about the then upcoming Obama Administration, are in the process of writing brief updates based on how the first year has gone.

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Cyber-Security Discussion at the Fedscoop Conference

I was lucky enough to be part of a panel discussing cyber-security at a Fedscoop conference Wednesday, October 14, at the Newseum. The agenda for the conference is here: http://fedscoopevents.com/agenda.php. I thought it might be useful to summarize my general points for those who were not able to attend.

The theme of the conference was Lowering the Cost of Government with Technology though the panel’s comments ranged from cost issues to government 2.0 and social networking to cyber-security in general.

The panel was moderated by Chris Dorobek, the afternoon co-anchor for WFED. The other panelists included Vance Hitch, the Department of Justice CIO, Pat Howard, the Chief Information Security Officer, CISO, for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Dr. Ron Ross, a key figure in defining security requirements and policy at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, Gary Galloway, the Deputy Director for Information Assurance at the Department of State, and Rue Moody, the Director of Strategic Technology at Citrix.

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Gettysburg – Everyone Has A Backstory

This weekend my wife, Ellen, and I decided to spend the weekend at a B&B in Gettysburg, swinging through Antietam on the way home Sunday. She had never visited and I hadn’t been in a long time.

The area is really beautiful this time of year, the B&B is very nice (out of town so pretty quiet), we enjoyed walking around a bit late this afternoon and early evening and plan to be battlefield tourists the next two days.

One side note, the ice cream at Kirwin’s, which I am happy to report was started before I was born, an increasingly unlikely situation, and which evidently is a chain, was very good.

We noticed that in the sort-of-farm next door there were two chickens and a horse. It turns out that the two chickens belonged to the neighbor’s first wife and thus we learned the backstory here, in the outskirts of Gettysburg.

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NATOA Presentation

I recently attended the annual conference of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, http://natoa.org/events/annual-conference/2009/. NATOA is a national trade association representing local governments. It includes both elected and appointed officials and staff who oversee communications and cable television franchising.

It was great interacting with the attendees and hearing the kinds of issues that local officials face, as well as spending a little bit of time in New Orleans, where the meeting was held. It was the first time I was in New Orleans.

The panel I served on discussed Government 3.0, what it might be, and some of the issues associated with it.

My major points were that the ‘classical’ description of 3.0 has been that the next step is to implement what is called the Semantic Web. The term is generally used to mean that the web will understand its own content and with that knowledge allow more robust searches and interactions. I call it the “Return what I want, not what I ask for” web. I expressed some skepticism about the likelihood of this happening.

I pointed out that there was much to do with the old-fashioned Government 2.0 approach, which still is very young. And I brought up my favorite topic, the integration of fast sensors into networks and its implications to local and state government.

My NATOA Government 3.0 Presentation

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE

Note: what follows was a document I prepared for my Syracuse University class, I would be interested in any feedback on its contents either in the comments section or sending me an email at dmintz@ourownlittlecorner.com. Thaanks.

One of the first discussion topics for our class dealt with an excerpt from one of our textbooks relating to where the security function should report within an organization.

The excerpt said “In these cases, the information security manager generally reports directly or indirectly to the CIO but in some cases may report to the CFO or, unfortunately, even to Operations.”

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Sensor Technology

This Week

Before I get to the topic of this blog entry, sensors, I wanted to mention that I have been privileged to play a small role in the Government 2.0 Expo, www.gov2expo.com, occurring Tuesday, September 8^th, and the Government 2.0 Summit, www.gov2summit.com, occurring Wednesday and Thursday, all at the DC Convention Center.

The fact that so many people around the country are interested in experimenting with 2.0 technologies to improve the way Government interfaces to its external and internal stakeholders and in a fundamental fashion rethink how it should operate, is wonderful.

Democracies only work well when there is vigorous debate and participation in the public square. I encourage anyone who reads this blog, recently calculated in the ten’s of viewers, to access these web sites and get active in future such activities.

Sensors

One of the ways to look at the development of Information Technology is the increased capabilities of fast computers, fast networks and fast sensors.

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The Edict of Milan

As those who know me know, I have become very interested in the archaeology of the Bible. By Bible, I mean the Hebrew Bible.

My personal opinion is that faith is just that, faith. To me, faith does not have to be ‘proven’ by the historicity of religious texts or disproven by the lack of same. My interest has pretty much nothing to do with my Jewish beliefs, but rather curiosity as to whether the historic record is consistent or inconsistent, or has any evidence at all, related to the Bible as history. There has been a lot of new information collected over the last twenty years and the ability to interpret the material already collected has increased enormously. Thus there is lots to read and think about.

Over time, my interests stray a bit from that original focus and have moved to early Christianity and on to the middle ages and Islam, covering what I call the three major Abrahamic religions. When I talk about, and I guess write about, these thoughts I do find myself more cautious when discussing Christianity or Islam, since as a Jew I sometimes feel how my thoughts will be taken, which I try to always disassociate with faith and belief, may be misinterpreted.

A discussion about the Edict of Milan after the jump …

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The Lives of Others (2006)

In December, 1975, I was one of a group of young political and civic leaders on a State Department sponsored visit to Europe. One of the places we visited was pre-unification Berlin.

The initial visit to East Berlin was sobering. On the West Berlin side, the Christmas season lead to brightly colored decorations, shoppers, and a great deal of activity both day and night. I remember that when we were in East Berlin one evening, it was almost as if we were in The Wizard of Oz, going back to Kansas, from color to black and white film.

There were literally no bright lights at all in East Berlin. Well, except for, of all things, a Diners Club sign in a bar that was near the wall on the East side. This blue blinking sign stood out in the grays and whites of everything else.

A discussion of the Berlin wall and the movie after the jump … Continue reading “The Lives of Others (2006)”

So How Do You Start The Darn Thing

After staying in a hotel in Sacramento where the air conditioning broke and where there were no other rooms free, I flew down to Los Angeles this morning for the second of my two stops in California.

The plane flight was uneventful, I was able to get tomorrow’s boarding pass before leaving the airport, and then went outside to catch the rental car shuttle.

After waiting for what seemed a VERY long time for the shuttle for my unnamed rental car company to come, whose name rhymed with Mudget, I arrived to get my rental car. The guy at the counter told me it was in C-8 around the building to the back, the list location near the road. Continue reading “So How Do You Start The Darn Thing”