Weekly Round-up: February 24, 2012

Gadi Ben-Yehuda

• On Twitter and NPR: The State Department's use of social media was featured in an extended piece broadcast on NPR.  Is that kind of coverage a metric of social media impact?
• From the Cloud to Your Pocket. This week, Gov.AOL published two pieces on the federal government's movement toward mobile.  The first, about the nascent plans for federal mobility, the second about a recent conference on mobility and the priorities of its attendees.  Though there is a federal wiki devoted to formulating mobile strategies, what they could consider using is:
• A New, Free Brainstorming Tool. All Our Ideas, a project out of Princeton, is a new ideation platform built on open source software.   Might be a good idea to try it out, for example, if you're looking for suggestions and evaluations of mobile strategies?

Dan Chenok

• White House releases voluntary privacy guidelines.
• E-Rulemaking gets a new launch -- progress, but still a ways to go.
• NIST opens up new cybersecurity research lab.
• New site to help small business goes live.

John Kamensky

• Will the new Trade and Export Agency be Virtual?  Last week, President Obama released a memo that takes the next step in his effort to reorganize the government’s trade and export functions.  The memo, according to an OMB blog post, gives greater authority to a cross-agency cabinet council to coordinate efforts and puts Assistant to the President Michael Froman, in charge.  The memo also announced a new “Business.USA.Gov” website that serves as a “no wrong door” for businesses to access government services for trade and exports.  WFED Radio’s Jack Moore also notes that President Obama formally has asked Congress for authority to reorganize trade and export agencies.
• OMB Refreshes Regulations.gov Website.  A long-awaited, and long-promised refresh of the federal government’s one-stop portal for draft federal regulations is finally open for business, and according to Government Executive magazine’s Charles Clark, it has received plaudits for the redesign.  According to Cass Sunstein, OMB’s administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the new website will allow web developers to create APIs using its data, making it available on mobile devices and for other applications.
• Closing Doors.  The Obama FY 2013 budget has led to a number of agencies announcing field office closures.  Commerce announced it will close 5 regional offices.  Agriculture leads the hit list, with 260 offices to close or consolidate.  Labor says it will close over a dozen, and Census will close 6 of its 12 field offices.  The Department of Justice announced it will close its National Drug Intelligence Center. . . . Of course, the Post Office says it wants to close about 10 percent of its post offices around the country – a total of 3,653 – but it is being held up in its cost-cutting drive by both citizens and Congress.

The Business of Government Radio Show: Steven J. Kempf

Federal News Radio 1500-AM
Mondays at 11 a.m., Wednesdays at 12 p.m., Fridays at 2  p.m.

The Business of Government Hour features a conversation about management with a government executive who is changing the way government does business. The executives discuss their careers and the management challenges facing their organizations.

  Steven J. Kempf sets strategic direction and oversees the delivery of over $50 billion of best-value products, services and solutions to federal customers, allowing them to effectively and efficiently achieve their missions.

Broadcast Schedule: The show airs Monday, February 27, at 11 a.m., Wednesday, February 29, at noon, and Friday, March 02, at 2:00 PM on Federal News Radio 1500AM WFED

If you can't wait, though, you can listen to (or download) this week's program and all our previous interviews at businessofgovernment.org and by searching our audio archives.