Vivek Kundra: The Alpha CTO

Every CTO I know has heard of Vivek Kundra, CTO of
the District of Columbia.  We have all been following his accomplishments
in transforming the technology program in DC and have watched in excitement as
more and more capabilities have been rolled out to serve the city and its
citizens. We have followed reports of bold moves he put in place to ensure
technology programs deliver.  We have read about his new approaches to
technology portfolio management and watched as he discussed the leap ahead he
delivered to his enterprise by his audacious, courageous use of Google Apps and
other cloud-based solutions.

If you are not one of those familiar with Vivek, here
is a short bio: Vivek Kundra is the CTO for the
District of Columbia where he leads an organization of over 600 staff that
provides technology services and leadership for 86 agencies, 38,000 employees,
residents, businesses, and 14 million annual visitors. He brings to the role of
CTO a diverse record that combines technology and public policy experience in
government, private industry, and academia. Previously, Vivek
served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Technology for the Commonwealth
of Virginia, the first dual cabinet role in the state’s history.  In the
private sector, Vivek led technology companies
serving national and international customers. Earlier he served as Director of
Infrastructure Technology for Arlington, Virginia. He also taught classes on
emerging and disruptive technologies at the University of Maryland. Since Vivek became District CTO, he has been honored with major
IT awards. In 2008, the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium recognized him among
outstanding IT innovators. In addition, InfoWorld Magazine named Vivek among
its “CTO 25″.

I recently saw Vivek at a meeting of the Washington Area CTO Roundtable,
an informal collective of area CTOs led by Yuvi Kochar, CTO of the Washington
Post Company. Before the meeting we chatted about mashup technologies (including his Apps for Democracy  contest and also JackBe).  During the meeting Vivek discussed several
aspects of his innovative efforts to transform the District’s information technology
infrastructure.   A point that struck me was his leadership through
principles.  Three key ones he articulated were: 1) Leveraging commercial
technology, 2) Driving transparency, and 3) Rethinking notions of IT
governance. 

Vivek and I just finished a phone call where we discussed these and other items
in more detail.  Here is a bit more on his approach. 

1) Leveraging commercial technology: Commercial radios and cell phones
allowed a rapid enhancement of the tactical communications infrastructure of
the DC workforce, including the police workforce.  Police squad cars are
also now equipped with commercial, but toughened, laptops.  Commercial web
technology has been leveraged in ways that leaped ahead of old clunky office
automation and also enable rapid development and mashups. 

2) Driving transparency and engaging citizens:  Technology
impediments to information access and information sharing were eliminated in
ways that enable citizens to see how government decisions are being made. 
Data was also exposed in ways that enabled mashups and agile
programing/development.  Examples include DCs digital public square and
Apps for Democracy efforts.

3) Rethinking notions of IT governance: Totally new, innovative ways to
manage IT portfolios were created and used to ensure all stakeholders could
evaluate the technology program and better make informed decisions on when to
terminate programs and where to invest more money.  Chief among these
innovations was an approach to portfolio management that replicates a stock
market trading floor.  More important, however is the relentless focus on
performance and innovation to support performance.  Beside rethinking
these notions of governance Vivek also took measures to smartly
watch/reduce/reprioritize IT costs.

I asked Vivek for thoughts that might be relevant to technologists who have set
their sites on careers where they can deliver results.  Many of us would
like to follow in his footsteps.  I wondered, if there is a particular
computer programing language we should all be learning now?  Should we be
diving into Python?  That’s hot now.  And what about databases? MySQL
and Hadoop are all the rage.  The thoughts I got back from Vivek were
incredibly insightful and far more relevant than the simplistic question I
asked. 

V:  Technology is important, and we do need to know technology.  But in these very exciting times where
Moore’s law pushes us all forward it is actually more important to be able to quickly learn new technology rather than focus on one and only one.  This is the beauty of the new world of
technology. There is always something to learn.  We should also always remember that the reason to learn is the mission.  To an enterprise CTO, technology by itself is worthless.  Technology
only has value if it addresses business problems and drives business success.
Therefore technologists must have an ability to translate between the worlds of
mission needs and technology and need an ability to rapidly learn and deeply
understand both.

I asked Vivek for his intention for sharing his models and methods, since they
have clearly delivered success in DC.  He is doing quite a bit there so
all of us who would like more info have plenty of ways to learn more:

V: The DC CTO site at http://octo.dc.gov
provides links to many of the ongoing activities of the office and for those
who would like more on the models that produce the results we link to policies,
guidelines and procedures.  We also provide information on how our
governance process works.   But additionally we host visits to our
office by interested parties and have begun blogging about them.  In
another effort we hope will help move the models forward we are pressing ahead
with plans to turn our stock market approach to portfolio management into an
open model and will open source the code that makes it work, which should help
drive more innovation there.

Speaking of innovation, Vivek seems to have found a way to accelerate
innovation, which is something all CTOs are interested in doing.  I asked
him for his thoughts on where to look for innovation.  Another interesting
reply:

V:  You can look for innovation many places, but remembering that
necessity is the mother of invention you should keep an eye open for places
that innovate because they really need to.  I always keep an eye on the
developing world and am so incredibly amazed at the tech innovation
there.  Enterprise IT does not mean that every program and project must be
delivered with huge budgets and huge staffs and the incredible innovations
coming out of the developing world prove that time and time again.  I’m
excited and enthused about developments like cell phone voting in Estonia,
electronic census that works in Chili, fishing villages around the world using
instant direct data to plan movement.  Innovation occurs many places, but
some of the greatest lessons for innovation are coming from the developing
world.

I asked Vivek about how to find balance between setting standards and enabling
innovation:

V:  Standards are important, but if a standard gets in the way of
innovation kill it.   Use standards that enable innovation. 
This is the role of the CTO.

Vivek also offered thoughts on social networks.

V:  In seeking ways to make your cycles of innovation move faster, never
underestimate the power of social networking tools and the networks you can
build with them.  Facebook is the example most talked about but there are
many others including networks built around ecommerce like eBay and
Amazon.  I believe we should not only embrace them to enable the power of
social networking but to help us leverage, in a large way, the IT
infrastructure of these platforms.   The new generations today are making
maximum use of these platforms and I view this as a very optimistic point.

As for me, I view the results of Vivek Kundra and his models as optimistic
points.  The great thing about being a CTO is the learning never stops in
this field and Vivek is a great teacher we should all be learning from.

For more on Vivek and the way hew views technology, including some of his inputs to the Obama adminstration, see: http://www.ctovision.com/2009/01/federal-government-technology-directions-and-the-fed-cto.html

Threats In the Age of Obama

The world does not change in discrete, binary steps.  There is a great deal of continuity from the past to the present and on to the future.  But many of us sense things are different in the world today.   Technology is changing every life and every business, economic megatrends are producing changes, war and conflict and terrorism inject uncertainty, and the entire dynamic of human events is moving faster and faster.

On top of that, a new U.S. administration led by a new President has just assumed executive power in the U.S.  This is clearly a time for us all to take stock.

I was privileged to have been asked by Michael Tanji to contribute to a book he edited on topics relevant to this new dynamic called “Threats In The Age of Obama.”  This compilation consists of a survey of the new national security threat landscape by Tanji and then examinations of a wide swath of threats captured by national security experts.

Topics and Contributors include:

• The Threat Landscape, Michael Tanji
• The Tangled Relationship Between Organized Crime,
  Terrorism and Proliferation, Christopher A. Corpora, Ph.D
• The Terrorism Meme–Looking Beyond the Current Threat,
  Matthew G. Devost
• Crazy as a Fox, Adrian Martin
• Infectious Diseases, Foreign Militaries, and US National
  Security, Christopher Albon
• Pakistan as a Nuclear Risk, Steve Schippert
• Nuclear Nonproliferation in the 21st Century, Cheryl Rofer and Molly Cernicek
• Into the Complex Terrain, Tim Stevens
• Simulated “Black Swans”: National Security, Perception
  Operations, and the Expansion of the Infosphere,
  Adam Elkus
• An Outbreak of Peace and Democracy, Daniel H. Abbott
• Ideas and Strategies for a More Secure Future, Michael Tanji
• Preparing One’s Mind to See, Art Hutchinson
• The Issues of Non-State Actors and the Nation State, Samuel P. Liles
• The Future of Missile Defense Policy, Tom Karako
• Toward a Contemporary Deterrence Strategy, Carolyn Leddy
• An Information Age Strategy for Government Information Technology, Mathew Burton
• The Future of Cyberspace Security: The Law of the Rodeo,
  Bob Gourley
• Security Evolution, Gunnar Peterson
• Arming for the Second War of Ideas, Matt Armstrong
• Blurring the Lines Between War and Peace, Shane Deichman
• Reconfiguring the National Security Architecture, Shlok Vaidya
• A Grand Strategy for a Networked Civilization, Mark Safranski

Most of these authors are wired web2.0 experts who are well published in new media and reachable by any who seek to interact on these very important topics (see contact info below).   My recommendation: Read the book and scrutinize it.  If you find any aspect you take issue with, seek out the section’s author and engage them in the intellectual interaction required to drive a greater understanding of these many issues. We also plan several events where the contributors will sit on panels and take questions and interact. 

Whatever your method, please find ways to contribute to the dialog. Your contributions can significantly enhance our nation’s ability to succeed in our responses to the many threats of this age.

Please check out the book here: “Threats In The Age of Obama.”

Contributing authors include, in alphabetical order, Dan tdaxp, Christopher Albon, Matt Armstrong, Matthew Burton, Molly Cernicek, Christopher Corpora, Shane Deichman, Adam Elkus, Matt Devost, Bob Gourley, Art Hutchinson, Tom Karako, Carolyn Leddy, Samuel Liles, Adrian Martin, Gunnar Peterson, Cheryl Rofer, Mark Safranski, Steve Schippert, Tim Stevens, and Shlok Vaidya. And of course, editor and contributor, Michael Tanji.

Social Media and the National Security Professional

This is an update of an article I published last August in Social Computing Magazine (a great enterprise Web2.0 site edited by Dion Hinchcliffe).   A key goal of this piece has been to encourage more in the national security world to use capabilities like Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, and of course Twitter.  If you know someone you would like to encourage to use these sites please feel free to lift from this.  If you know of other sites or capabilities that deserve this sort of tutorial please let me know.

Another key goal of this paper is to enhance the security of our nation, and my thesis is that by getting more senior thought leaders into these web2.0 capabilities we can do just that. 

Social Media and National Security Professionals

24 January 2009

Bob Gourley

Social
Media is a term used to encompass a wide range of technologies used to
enhance shared meaning among participants.  When properly used, Social
Media capabilities also address the information explosion we are all
experiencing.   Social Media includes weblogs, wikis, email, instant
messaging, tagging and broadcast text. Popular social media services
include such familiar names as AIM, TypePad, Facebook, LinkedIn,
Twitter and Plaxo.

This note captures some tips and techniques for the use of social media focused on national security professionals.

First,
for context and background, let me start with the analogy of
traditional media and it’s still significant contribution to dialog in
the national security space.  Great thinkers with something to say
frequently author an editorial submission to news outlets.  Examples
abound, but as a reference let me point out the thought provoking piece
by Mark Lowenthal in the 25 May 2008 Washington Post titled “The Real Intelligence Failure? Spineless Spies.” 
Here one of the more elegant writers in the intelligence community laid
out his personal views and made a contribution to the dialog on the
intelligence community.   This type of article is of value in helping
us collectively think through some key issues.  The article also
underscores that the explosion of social media does not eliminate the
need and value for authoritative voices.

Now let’s discuss how new media helps the dialog.

With
new media, you do not have to be one of the leaders of the national
security domain to publish your thoughts.  You can establish your own
blog.  There are many services that do this. The most popular ones are Moveable Type and TypePad.  I like them both and have used both.  If you are just starting out I recommend you sign up with TypePad.  You can have a blog up in minutes, and with a little more time
you can have your own domain and a blog configured with your own
design.  Having a blog does not mean you are automatically an expert,
but when you have something to say you will have a path to say it.

Part
of the power of new media is that capabilities like blogs give more
people an ability to inject ideas into the dialog, and in many national
security issues more brains with more ideas can be a significant
enhancement to the dialog.  But new media gives even more benefits. 
New media gives others an ability to discover and comment on your
thoughts.  For example, blogs all come with rich commenting and
moderating features so others can share thoughts and endorse, critique,
or add to your original post.  This provides a way to highlight good
ideas from social media.

New media is also known for speed.  The
instant your thought is published you can have it provided to others
via RSS feeds, by e-mail push, and by alerts to Twitter, a micro
blogging site which is also being used by a growing number of national
security professionals.

To see how Twitter works, visit my site at http://www.twitter.com/bobgourley
.  You will see a series of small posts made by me.  Some were
automatically created when I posted to my blog.  Others were either
sent in from my cell phone while I’m on the road or from my computer at
home.    If you desire to “follow” me on twitter all you have to do is
sign up for a Twitter account and click the “follow” button.  Then you
can read those micro posts whenever they are made.  You can also find
other national security professionals to follow on Twitter, and they
will be able to find you as well. For example, from my page, look for
the graphic that shows Lewis Shepherd and click on his head.  You will
see his Twitter site. Or if you don’t remember what Lewis looks like
can click on the list of people I follow and find him there.  
Following feeds like this will keep you informed of key meetings,
conferences and events and of course blog posts.   Producing your own
Twitter feed will provide you with a way to contribute to the dialog.

Another tool of increasing use by people in this discipline is LinkedIn.  This is a site that lets users add a bio or resume and then helps
them manage their social network.  LinkedIn lets you connect to others
on the site who you know.  You can help out people you know who might
need to meet someone you know and vice versa. This site is very helpful
in learning a bit more about people before you meet with them and in
staying in touch with people when they change positions. LinkedIn also provides simple ways to communicate with others, either all at once or direct person to person and I frequently hear from other CTOs via this path.  How do you
get started with LinkedIn?  Sign up for an account, fill in as much of
your bio as you are comfortable sharing, and follow the instructions to
find people you already know and connect with them. 

A site with a different but somewhat related functionality is Plaxo
and I also recommend you create an account there.  Plaxo specializes in
contact management.  You can keep your entire address book there. 
You can also synchronize Plaxo and LinkedIn so if one of your contacts
changes their information in LinkedIn it will update Plaxo.
Additionally, you can have your blog and your Twitter feed
automatically update Plaxo (many readers in the national security space
prefer to read blogs via Plaxo).   The way to get started here is to
log into Plaxo, create an account and upload your address book to it by
following your instructions.  Is that safe?  It is at least as safe as
having your address book on your own computer.  I’ve never had any
problems doing that.

Another key social media site is Facebook. 
A growing number of national security experts are using Facebook to
stay in touch with friends and associates.   It is also a good method
for communicating. You can send private messages to Facebook users and
can also send open messages to them by writing on their “wall”.  You
can configure Facebook to display your latest blog posts and twitter
feeds.   You can join up with Facebook from their site, and then
Facebook’s “friend finder” will help you find the right people to
connect to.

Now let’s continue our discussion on the article Mark
Lowenthal published.  In this case, if you had an opinion on his
content you could post a note at the Washington Post website, and I
noticed many did.  Because the Post is an old media powerhouse they
seem to publish most comments, which has the benefit of letting you see
a spectrum of thoughts.   You can also post comments in your own
blog.   I published my thoughts on Mark’s piece here. 
My blog automatically sent word to Twitter, Facebook and Plaxo when I
did.  It also automatically pinged some key blog search engines so they
could access my content.  Another friend of mine in the community
posted his views on his blog.  Other friends on Twitter began dialog
with me via that channel.  And other associates began an e-mail dialog
with me on the issues raised by Mark.   So within a matter of minutes
wide swaths of people were engaged in collaboration and discussion on
the topics Mark noted.

Perhaps the greatest power of new media,
however, is when it is used to accelerate new ideas that were not
identified by one of the greats like Mark.  For example, I recently
read a Twitter post from a thought leader in this new space named
Jeffrey Carr (see his Twitter Feed at http://www.twitter.com/jeffreycarr)   
He posted a short comment about a blog entry he wrote and said it
included “3D imaging and Virtual Earth – mind blowing video http://bit.ly/3SxtdA
”   His Twitter post alerted me and I checked out his blog and yes, he
was right.  I saw a YouTube video that was absolutely mind blowing and
of direct relevance to others in the national security space.  And the
video, frankly, could change things more dramatically and in a more
positive way that Mark Lowenthal’s well thought out piece ever could
(Jeffrey you rock!). So I’ll be blogging about Jeffrey and will be
talking about the capability he highlighted when I attend a major
intelligence conference next month.  Jeffrey’s other readers in the
national security space will also be considering the significance of
his posting and the result will likely be an acceleration of a
capability into the fabric of the national security apparatus, thanks
to social media.

Another example of the power of social media for
national security professionals is in coordinating action and
participation prior to conferences.  How do you decide which
conferences to attend?  I try to pulse experts to see who else is
going.  Once I make up my mind I let everyone I network with know I’ll
be there so they can advise me of their intentions and so we can
arrange side bar meetings as required. This is all so simple in the
world of social media like Twitter, Plaxo and Blogs.

So a key
benefit of Social Media for national security planners is to accelerate
good ideas, whether they be good ideas for policy or good ideas for
technology.  Social Media can also be leveraged to address the
information explosion by enabling people to enlist the capability of
others to seek out and bring the right information to your attention. 
These others can be crowds, random individuals, fields of experts or
trusted friends.  Which of these you leverage can vary from subject to
subject or task to task.

Is there a dark side for national
security?  What are the risks of social media?  Perhaps the greatest
risks are that we not fully engage in the power of these tools,
especially when adversaries are not constraining themselves.   But
there are risks to mitigate in our use of new media.  These include
risks to the confidentiality of ongoing operations and in some cases
risks to personal security.  By identifying these risks and taking
steps to address them now we can accelerate the use of new media faster
through the community.

I have personally encountered several
other examples, but it seems we have just scratched the surface on the
benefit of these capabilities to our nation’s security.  New thinkers
are pioneering paths that are already helping the nation come to grips
with some significant issues. With more participation by thinkers like
you the contributions of social media will likely grow in importance.  
So please, if you have not started engaging in social media sites yet,
jump in now.

Bob Gourley
http://ctovision.com

Government 2.0 Camp 27-28 March 2009 in DC

Have you ever heard of an Unconference?

Have you ever heard of a BarCamp?

If these are new terms please read on, there are some important aspects of these concepts that CTOs should be familiar with.   And there is a specific BarCamp Unconference coming up 27-28 March in the DC area focused on Gov2.0 that I’ll mention below.

But first, back to those two terms.

An Unconference is a participant driven conference, normally facilitated, but never dictated.  Unconferences are centered around a theme or a purpose.  For more on Unconferences see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference

You can think of a BarCamp as a type of unconference.  BarCamps are a network of user generated conference that are open, participatory events based on workshops.  They have been commonplace in the open source community, but have also been applied in other areas, even political organizing.  For more history see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcamp   But if you really want to know what a BarCamp is, go to one and contribute and see how you can change the world.

A great opportunity to contribute is coming on 27 and 28 March.  The Government 2.0 Camp, organized by three widely followed experts in social media and collective action (Maxine Teller, Peter Corbett, Mark Drapeau) is a 100% participant planned, not-for-profit event that will bring together leading thinkers from government, academia and industry to share government 2.0 initiatives that are already in process and to collaborate about leveraging social media tools and Web2.0 technology to create a more efficient and effective government– Government 2.0.

Maxine Teller writes that:  “The
unconference format embodies these same collaborative principles as our
nation’s democracy–of the people, by the people, for the people–and
thus, is the ideal structure for the topic of Government 2.0.  This
event is a tremendous opportunity to practice what we preach and create
something better collectively than we could individually.“

This event will be happening at a great time.  The Obama administration will have been on scene long enough to have mapped out not only their strategy for the future but strengths, weaknesses and gaps in pursuit of their strategy.  With input from feds in the know, the attendees at this event may be able to help address gaps and contribute to the technology path of the nation in ways that are hard to predict, but likely very positive.     

To learn more about the event and to sign up for it (and to help plan for and sponsor it), see the event wiki at: http://barcamp.org/Government20Camp

To register for the event visit the site at: http://gov20camp.eventbrite.com

I hope to see you there.