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Transparency

On January 15th, I was part of a panel for the Countdown show hosted by Francis Rose on WFED, 1500 AM, here in Washington DC.

The premise of the panel is that every Friday, Francis asks three people from the ‘community’ to each select three news stories having something to do with the Federal Government. I selected three Information Technology related stories.

You can hear the panel which consisted of myself, Jon Desenberg, President of the Performance Institute, and Jeff Sural, a former DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary, and now of Alston and Bird at:

http://www.wfed.com/index.php?nid=17&sid=1865007Transparency

Buffalo Bob, Howdy Doody, and Hilton Head Island

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Periodically my wife, Ellen, and I go to visit Ellen’s parents in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Every time we visit I am reminded how lucky I was to not just to marry Ellen but also to marry into such a wonderful family. I have learned much about my professional life and how to behave like an adult, something I recognize is always a bit out of reach for me, from both David and Barbara Elow. And to top it off their relationship with my two daughters which has only deepened over the years is such a pleasure to experience.

In addition, there are always great things to do and see and learn about when we visit Hilton Head and the area around it, as we did this last weekend, January 9th and 10th.Buffalo Bob, Howdy Doody, and Hilton Head Island

Technologies to Watch in 2010

Recently Wyatt Kash, the Editor in Chief for both Government Computer News and Defense Systems, wrote me a note saying that GCN was working on an article about technologies to watch in 2010 and that he wanted my two cents.

Naturally I had more than two cents worth of thoughts about the issue and most likely my take was so orthogonal to what they were working on that it ended up being of marginal utility.

On the other hand, it gave me an excuse to think about the topic and allowed me to fill out another blog post. With Wyatt’s permission, the rest of the entry is what I sent to him in response to his request.Technologies to Watch in 2010

SCADA Conference Presentation

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I am one of two representatives from CSC speaking at a SCADA Conference on Tuesday.

My focus, as usual, will be on the strategic reasons behind the movement to SCADA. Oops, perhaps I should back up. SCADA is an abbreviation for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. It usually is used as a catch-all term dealing with computer controlled equipment or machinery (or plants or smart grids or, well you get the idea).

Many of these systems were controlled individually by locally provised systems and thus security, while relevant, wasn’t the most critical factor when designing such solutions. Now that many of these systems are managed over the Internet and an increasing percentage of what most would consider our/US economic critical infrastructure touches these systems, cyber issue have become a very hot topic.

So my presentation will focus on why this is happening and also touch a bit on some of the issues the Government is facing in this space. The second presenter from CSC is an industry expert in the utility, chemical and natural resource market and will provide some more detailed oversight and advice.SCADA Conference Presentation

Our Man In Brazil

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I have been recently asked to provide some insights for the Brazilian government based on my experiences as the CIO for the US Department of Transportation. The initial discussions will occur later this week and… Our Man In Brazil