IT

The RSA Conference (http://www.rsaconference.com/2011/usa) hosts the leadership and a large swath of the membership of the cybersecurity world.  Key figures speak at plenary sessions, including White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt, Cyber Command Director Keith Alexander, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Lynn, DHS Deputy Under Secretary Phil Reitinger, and NIST Director Pat Gallagher.  A much larger number participate in panel sessions and informal discussions.  I moderated a panel around the challenges that security and pri

Federal Chief Information Officers, like their private sector CIO counterparts, lead the integration of information technology and organizational strategy.  CIOs must balance the daily needs of operational IT across their enterprise with how IT can contribute to longer term mission goals – including how government can best serve citizens with modern technology platforms, and protecting the nation from physical and cyber threats – while at the same time overseeing policy and resources for IT in a challenging fiscal environment.  U.S.

Blog Co-Author:  Haynes Cooney

Remember when businesses all kept their own ledgers, which required updates as each new business transaction occurred? How about the added expenses that had to be paid to intermediaries adding margin for services?  And what about the inefficiencies as each business in the network (supplier, buyer, seller) all recorded the same transactions in their individual ledgers? While many businesses and industries, including healthcare, still operate this way, an emerging technology has great potential to advance Healthcare IT across the economy and in the government, namely “Blockchain.”

Federal Chief Information Officers, like their private sector CIO counterparts, lead the integration of information technology and organizational strategy.  CIOs must balance the daily needs of operational IT across their enterprise with how IT can contribute to longer term mission goals, while at the same time overseeing policy and resources for IT in a challenging fiscal environment.  U.S.

DOD Acquisition Reform Panel. In an Op-Ed in Federal Times, Dee Lee and Hannah Oh write: “Repealing or amending outdated provisions that bog down the acquisition process is long overdue.

68 percent. Government Executive reports: “Sixty-eight percent of the federal government’s top career corps will experience their first presidential transition in January as senior executives, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management.” 

Michael J. Keegan

Obama appointee to lead VA under Trump. Dr. David Shulkin, the Department of Veterans Affairs current undersecretary for health, was tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the agency. Check out my interview with Dr. Shulkin on The Business of Government Hour.

The data breach at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in the spring of 2015 was breathtaking in scope – nearly 22 million sensitive personnel records stolen.  But this wasn’t a new issue.  There had been breaches at the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, the IRS, even the National Security Agency.

The IT Reform policies announced by OMB Deputy Director Jeffrey Zients and Federal CIO Vivek Kundra two weeks ago continue to have an impact on the IT community and beyond.  Their strategy drew in good measure from government and industry recommendations, one of the most prominent of which was a study by the TechAmerica Foundation, entitled “Government Technology Opportunity in the 21^st Century” (www.techamericafoundation/gto21) (I served as an advisor to the Commission).