Month: November 2008
Three Events of Federal CTO Interest: Will You Be At These?
FYI, in case your schedule will allow us to connect in person I wanted
to update you on a few events I plan on being at over the next few
weeks.
The Advanced Technical Intelligence Association TECHINT conference will
be held 9-11 Dec 2008. This conference focuses on the technical
dimensions of intelligence, and has a theme of "integrated
performance." The theme refers to the need to integrate capabilities
from all the agencies engaged in national security to better perform in
meeting our national security challenges. On 9 Dec I'll be speaking
at a panel on the real and growing threat in cyber space. There will
be no blogging or tweeting from the conference. But if you are going
to be there please drop me a note and lets connect in person there.
For info see http://masint.org
The AFCEA Solutions conference on Cyberspace will be held 10-11 Dec
2008 at the Ronald Reagan Center in DC. This conference will be
focusing on the challenges and solutions of cyberspace related to
national security. Speakers include Secretary of Homeland Security the
Honorable Michael Chertoff, The Deputy Secretary of Defense the
Honorable Gordon England, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks
and Information Integration the Honorable John Grimes, Ms. Melissa
Hathaway, senior adviser and cyber coordination executive for the
Director of National Intelligence, LTG Keith Alexander, Director of the
National Security Agency, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Information and Identity Assurance Mr. Bob Lentz and Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Information Management Mr. David Wennergren.
I'll be speaking on a panel on Wednesday at 1530 on formulating a
common response.
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This unclas conference follows a model that AFCEA has been using for
several similar events. They are actively seeking ways to enhance the
value of these conferences by leveraging more Web2.0 capabilities
before, during and after the formal presentations. Blogging and
tweeting from the conference is encouraged. You can visit the site at: www.afceasolutions.org/group
For the event schedule and program details can be found online here: www.afceasolutions.org
The US Army Intelligence Warfighting Summit will be held 15-17 Dec
2008. This one will also be a conference where blogging and use of
twitter is not appropriate due to the sensitivity of info discussed.
However, I would appreciate knowing if you will be going so we can
connect there in person. Speakers will include the most senior Army
intelligence leadership, plus Vice Admiral Bob Murrett from NGA, LTG
Alexander from NSA, and Scott McNealy from Sun Microsystems. For more
on the event see: http://www.ncsi.com/iws08/index.shtml
So, if you are going to any of these please let me know.
And please follow me on Twitter so I can send you a few bursts from the AFCEA conference. I'm at http://www.twitter.com/bobgourley
Cheers.
Vivek Kundra: Democratizing Data and Putting it in the Public Domain
I'm hoping most enterprise CTOs have had a chance to learn more about Vivek Kundra's Apps for Democracy initiative. I'm really impressed by this activity for many reasons, but primarily because it got results of use to the citizens and visitors of DC. This initiative proved yet again that Vivek Kundra is a CTO who gets things done. From his bio:
to the Cabinet post of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the District
of Columbia. As CTO, Kundra leads the Office of the Chief Technology
Officer (OCTO), an organization of over 600 staff that provides
technology services and leadership for 86 agencies, 38,000 employees,
residents, businesses, and millions of visitors.
Prior to this Vivek was getting things done in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the private sector, and in Arlington Virginia.
In his current position he became an instant hero to an entire enterprise when he took the bold step of moving his enterprise to a Google Apps foundation. The video below provides some background on this move.
An equally wise, and similarly bold move was Vivek's initiative called Apps For Democracy. This contest began with Vivek insuring that the DC government is being as open and transparent with data as possible, exposing data in a variety of common formats. This was no simple task, requiring vision, perseverance, and a dedication to plow through city hall obstacles that only a motivated leader could tackle. Vivek set the groundwork for success by working with a great thought leaders like Peter Corbett at iStrategyLabs and by coordinating with Internet enthusiasts like the crew at Mashable. The Strategy Labs team created a proposal for this project and brought this project to life in six days! created a page encouraging mashup entries, and the result was an incredible generation of capabilities that serve DC citizens and visitors to our Capital. 47 applications were created in a way that did not require long procurement processes or costly integration contracts. What do the apps do? Check them out yourself here: medal-winners
My favorite: DC Historic Tours. This is really really cool. Thanks Vivek!
For more see the video below:
Apps for Democracy from Shaun Farrell on Vimeo.
What else can I say about Vivek? He also has great models for internal program management. His approach is nothing like the one I learned from Gartner the everyone trys to implement. And it is better than the one I learned in the corporate world that worked very well for us at TRW and Northrop Grumman. His approach is nothing like the one we used at DIA. In fact, if I had it to do over again I would use his approach in my old enterprise. For more on his way, see the write up for his 2008 InfoWorld Top 25 CTO award.
So hey, what's next? My hope is that the methods and models of Vivek (and iStrategylabs) are applied across the nation and up to state and federal levels. Think of the good that could be done.
One to watch regarding standards and security
In May 2008 I provided an overview of Standards Organizations CTOs Should Track. Standards groups don't change that fast, so the list is still pretty much ok, but I was very light on industry consortia. Industry groups can play a large role in setting and implementing standards. Industry reps send the majority of thinkers to standards bodies and industry management decides what standards to follow or ignore. Tracking industry consortia can be very important to the CTO.
Since security is such a hot topic (see: The Future of Cyberspace Security and Melissa Hathaway Op-Ed on Cyber Security, for example ) I wanted to point out one I think we should all watch. The Industry Consortium for Advancement of Security on the Internet or ICASI.
The Technology Implications of the Obama Win
There are several megatrends sweeping the technology industry today. Some of them are about to be accelerated.
I like to use five key topic areas to track megatrends in IT:
– Globalization and increasing internationalization of IT and demographic shifts
– Increasing open development of software and hardware
– Power, Cooling and Space (PCS) impacting data centers and every place computing is done
– Increasing pace of technology development and probability of disruption
Over the past two months two major events have occurred which are impacting these trends.
The
first was the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the resulting cascading
effects on the financial industry. The impact on IT spending and the
movement of more enterprises to grid/cloud computing because of that
are still being assessed, but for some thoughts see: Wall Street Crisis
The second was the Presidential election of Barack Obama.
CTOvision Blog 