This month, on the fourth anniversary of the E-Gov Act of 2002, The DotGov Buzz completes its first year as a source of news and information for the e-government community.

One of our favorite features has been the monthly CIO Spotlight, where we highlight some of the individuals who have been instrumental in helping citizens realize the promise of e-gov. Far from being narrowly focused techies, these are incredible visionaries, committed to using innovative technology to enhance the delivery of services to citizens and to making the operations of government increasingly efficient.

The CIOs we profiled are a varied lot. Their college degrees range from psychology to architecture to information resource management. One has a PhD in computer science. Many have MBAs. One was a weatherman. One was an elected official. They learned leadership in the military, the federal government, the state courts, the auto industry and other Fortune 500 companies, and on the soccer field. They are all movers and shakers in the e-gov community.

For this month's spotlight, we thought it would be interesting to take a look back at their stories and listen again to some of what they had to say, in chronological order.

Lisa Schlosser, CIO, Department of Housing and Urban Development, in only a few months, led HUD to modernize several legacy mainframe systems, transitioned critical business applications to a new data center, migrated to a new human resource system and accelerated several key security initiatives.

Dave Wennergren, then CIO of the Navy, now Deputy CIO, Department of Defense, and still Vice Chair of the Federal CIO Council, is renowned as a promoter of teamwork and a dedicated mentor for future IT leaders. "Success today is very rarely about personal accomplishment or ambition, but much more about the result of teamwork," he said. "What is important is what you do to help make a team successful, what you do to help empower others and what you do to help train the next generation of leaders."

Charlie Havekost, CIO and Deputy Assistant Secretary for IT, Department of Health and Human Services, says the need to achieve economies of scale through consolidation, streamlining, competitive sourcing and standardization, especially in areas like grants management, is one of the most important issues facing federal IT officials. He has been widely praised for how far he was able to take the Grants.gov e-government initiative-which offers $400 billion in grants online-by gaining the cooperation of 26 Federal agencies, state and local governments, industry and academic organizations, individuals, OMB and Congress to cooperate.

Barry West, then CIO of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but now CIO of the Department of Commerce, says the role of the CIO is becoming even more important, as technology touches every major process, service and major initiative in the Federal government. "In 10-15 years," he forecasts, "we will see the majority of all citizens interacting with the Web to perform every task that we perform today using paper and pencil. By 2020, 90-95% of citizens will be going online to communicate with the government."

Larry Olson, Texas CTO until his resignation effective December 31, is credited with creating a strong public IT enterprise in Texas while saving the state more than $270 million. His numerous successes in only two years on the job include a new shared services vision for statewide enterprise, renegotiation of the TexasOnLine.com partnership agreement, and completion of a data center services agreement that will transform data center and disaster recovery services in the state. "Our goal is to get something done, not to talk about what we plan to do," he said.

Teri Takai, Michigan CIO and President of the National Association of State CIOs, believes "…the challenge isn't about technology. It's about overcoming the real and complex cultural, governance, funding and jurisdictional challenges within the public sector so that we can put the interests of citizens and their communities ahead of everything else."

Mike Carleton, CIO, General Services Administration, while not dismissing the importance of having a "seat at the table" in leading the agency, views his responsibilities for running GSA's $500 million IT program as paramount. "I retain a substantial operational role at GSA running shared IT services that has to work reliably before I can expect others to want to hear from me about strategic issues," he said.

Dave Molchany, Deputy County Executive for Information, Fairfax County, VA, greatly expanded the CIO's role and moved up to become a key advisor to the County Executive. His responsibilities now include management of the county's cable TV station, library system and archives, and communications, as well as IT. He also is very active in pursuing high-tech firms from around the world, to get them to locate in Fairfax County. During his watch, the county has been rated first or in the top few best in e-government and IT in its category.

Wanda Gibson, Chief Technology Officer of Fairfax County, runs day-to-day IT operations for the county. Together, she and Molchany were named Governing magazine "Public Officials of the Year" in 2003, a prestigious designation awarded annually to governors, mayors, legislators and other high government officials for their teamwork in putting Fairfax County at the forefront of e-government.

Tom Hughes, Social Security Administration CIO, sees Federal CIOs helping the United States--public and private sector--prevail against foreign competition in the technology arena. "Federal CIOs in particular are in a position to help the private sector by deploying technology-leading solutions throughout the Federal government, which, in turn, allows a critical mass to be developed for the private sector," he said.

George Strawn, National Science Foundation CIO, was integrally involved in the creation and enhancement of the Internet. He is still searching for the next world-changing technology. "Not many in the '70s predicted the importance of the personal computer, nor, in the '80s, the importance of the Internet," he said. "What are we not predicting now for the next decade that will be as revolutionary as PCs and the Internet? Maybe it's modeling of complex systems (from cells to people to organizations to galaxies) by supercomputers. Maybe it's information itself."

Tune in-rather, click in-next year to catch up on a dozen information czars-beginning with Karen Evans, our own national CIO, and Ann Steward, the CIO of Australia.

On the fourth anniversary of the E-Gov Act of 2002, Karen Evans, Administrator for E-Government and IT, reported that the federal government continues to deliver results through the presidential e-gov initiatives, while reducing overall agency spending on e-government in favor of a fee-for-service model.

The annual report issued December 18, Expanding E-Government: Making a Difference for the American People Using Information Technology, highlights the accomplishments of federal agencies in FY 2006 and sets forth the goals for 2007.

Accomplishments described in the report include:

• Reduction in agency funding for e-government from $244 million, its peak in FY 2004, to $156 million projected for FY 2007; and a corresponding increase in fee-for-service fees from $91 million in FY 2005 to $301 million for FY 2007.
• Completion of several deliverables supporting the Federal Enterprise Architecture framework, including the Federal Transition Framework, the single information source for cross-agency IT initiatives, IT policy objectives and government-wide solutions such as the presidential e-government and lines-of-business initiatives.
• Progress on expanding e-government, with 25 of 28 agencies having an acceptable E-Gov Implementation Plan; meeting 87% of implementation milestones scheduled for completion.

The report also detailed e-government goals that were not met, including:

• Only 81% of agencies had acceptable FY 2007 business cases, short of the 90% goal.
• Only 88% of agency information systems are secured and accredited--an increase over 85% in FY 2005, but short of the 90% goal.
• Only 46% of agencies had fully implemented Earned Value Management Systems; the goal was 50%.

The annual report is among a host of information that can be found on OMB's e-government website.

Citizen satisfaction with the federal government rose in 2006 to 72.3 on a 100-point scale on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the highest score for the federal government since the annual study was first conducted in 1999. Continuing an eight-year trend, the federal score remained 2.1 points below the corresponding combined public/private score.

ACSI's research report, released December 15, cites increased "ease of access to and use of programs" and service timeliness as the main factors contributing to the higher satisfaction ratings. These improvements offset a 1% dip in "courtesy" and "professionalism," which fell to 86 and 85, respectively.

The ACSI e-Government Satisfaction Index, which measures satisfaction with nearly 100 federal websites, at 73.9, was the same as in 2005, remaining virtually flat for the past four quarters. Four websites of the National Institutes of Health had the highest scores for portals and agency main sites (80 to 83). FirstGov.gov, the U.S. government's official Web portal, rose one point for the year to 73 and FirstGov en Espanol remained steady at 79.

Although overall satisfaction with federal government websites is higher, not all agencies have improved customer satisfaction. Among the two-dozen agency segments measured both this year and last, 50% show improved satisfaction, while 42% have seen their satisfaction decline and 8% are unchanged. With a score of 87, the U.S. Mint topped the list, on par with Amazon.com. The IRS measure of Individual Paper Tax Filers came in last, with a score of 51.

More than two-thirds of emergency response agencies in the U.S. use some degree of interoperable communications, allowing them to speak directly with other agencies, according to a new report by the Department of Homeland Security's SAFECOM E-Government initiative.

The report is based on the results of the National Interoperability Baseline Survey of 22,400 emergency-response agencies nationwide that were issued in May. Responses were received from 6,819 agencies.

The agencies rated themselves on a detailed 23-point interoperability continuum that measured development on a range from "early--little or no activity" to "advanced--efforts to sustain and assure continuous improvement of interoperability into the future."

About a third of the respondents said they used interoperable communications in day-to-day operations as well as extraordinary events. Another third said they used interoperable communications only for extraordinary events.

The survey also found that large agencies were more advanced in interoperable communications than small agencies, and police, fire and medical agencies rank about the same in interoperability.

The survey is the first of its type to assess national interoperability based on a comprehensive, detailed definition. The scale was developed by SAFECOM.

Communications interoperability became a high priority for emergency response agencies following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Interoperability allows police, fire and medical units from various jurisdictions to talk with one another by radio and to work together more efficiently and effectively.

The President's Identity Theft Task Force, chaired by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and co-chaired by Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras, is seeking public comments on identity theft issues before submitting an ID theft strategy to the president in February.

The Task Force issued interim recommendations to the president in September. While not required to solicit public input, the Task Force is inviting comments on a summary of issues:

• Maintaining security of consumer data
• Preventing the misuse of consumer data
• Victim recovery
• Law enforcement: prosecuting and punishing identity thieves.

Comments will be accepted by e-mail, mail, express or hand delivery on or before Friday, January 19, 2007.

Surveying its members after its 2006 annual conference, the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) found that security and identity management issues topped the list of key priorities for state CIOs this year.

Asked to rank their top priorities among 35 in the category of Strategies, Management Processes and Solutions, 40 responding CIOs chose, in order:

• Security: tightening security safeguards, enterprise policies, employee education (20 votes)
• Consolidation: centralizing, consolidating services, operations, resources, infrastructure (17 votes)
• Shared Services: sharing resources, services infrastructure, independent of organizational structure (14 votes)
• Cross-boundary: establishment of cross-boundary relationships, joined-up government, local government collaboration/cooperative initiatives (13 votes)
• Disaster Recovery: Improving disaster recovery, business continuity planning and readiness.

In the category of Priority Technologies, Applications and Tools, 37 CIOs chose the following from 23 areas listed:

• Identity and access management (18 votes)
• Legacy application modernization and upgrade (ERP) (17 votes)
• Networking, voice and data communications (14 votes)
• Security enhancement tools (14 votes)
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) (11 votes)
• Web services-internal integration (11 votes).

The following items received no votes as state CIO priorities:

• Knowledge worker: supporting, developing knowledge worker, workplace
• Risk management: focus on enterprise risk management
• Consumer technologies: adopting advancing consumer technologies, social computing
• Location aware applications and services, GPS
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).

The company that recently purchased Federal Computer Week has signed an agreement to acquire the Post/Newsweek Tech Media holdings of The Washington Post Company. The Post announced December 12 that Washington Technology, Government Computer News, Defense Systems, Government Leader magazines, FOSE events, and their associated websites were all being sold to 1105 Media.

The FCW Media Group's name will be changed to 1105 Government Information Group. It will be led by Anne Armstrong, the current publisher of FCW Media Group. Thomas R. Temin, executive vice president and editor-in-chief of the PostNewsweek Tech Media unit, and of GCN for 15 years, will not be joining 1105 Media.

The deal is expected to close at the end of December.

New Zealand's fourth national e-government strategy centers on the use of social networking and other innovative technology to "transform the way government works with and for New Zealanders."

Enabling Transformation: A Strategy for E-government 2006, issued in November, "establishes a greater emphasis on enabling participation, reflecting recent changes in technology, particularly the growth in social networking on the World Wide Web," Annette King, Minister of State Services, said in a foreword.

"Technological innovation is transforming our world and New Zealanders expect government to interact with them in new ways," the report says. "This means using network technologies that people are familiar with in other parts of their lives-social networking websites and tools like blogs, wikis and folksonomies-and the full range of digital channels-mobile phones, instant messaging, podcasts and digital TV, as well as internet pathways."

New Zealand's specific e-government goals are:

• By 2007, information and communication technologies will be integral to the delivery of government information, services and processes.
• By 2010, the operation of government will be transformed as government agencies and their partners use technology to provide user-centered information and services and achieve joint outcomes.
• By 2020, people's engagement with the government will have been transformed, as increasing and innovative use is made of the opportunities offered by network technologies.

Virtually all U.S. passports in the near future will include a chip to enable border officials to read electronically stored passport data and digital photographs of the holders. The Government Printing Office (GPO) produced its millionth e-passport in December and expects to reach full production run rates over the next several months.

GPO has completed successful prototypes and pilots for the new e-passport, has qualified its first vendor to supply electronically embedded covers, and is now ramping up the tourist e-passport to full production. Diplomatic and official government passports were shifted to the e-passport format earlier in 2006.

The e-passport combines top-security printing in a traditionally produced passport book with an embedded microprocessor and an antenna for wireless access. Federal agents can read that data at U.S. entry points by sight or by using a contact-less electronic reader.

According to the Department of State, the personal information contained in the chip is the information on the data page of the passport-the name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth, and digitized photograph of the passport holder. The chip also contains information about the passport itself-the passport number, issue date, expiration date, and type of passport. Coding in the form of a high-strength digital signature will prevent any digital data from being altered or removed as well as the chip's unique ID number. The chip will not contain home addresses, social security numbers, or other information that might facilitate identity theft.

GPO is building highly secure facilities, developing trusted vendors, establishing a secure supply chain, and developing a product road map to improve data assurance levels, to prevent identity theft or other abuse of the e-passport's data or electronic features.

The E-Government Trend Report, recently issued by the National Policy Research Council, found the state of Michigan had the best official website in the U.S. in 2006. The report was based on individual analyses of 25 key e-government features and practices on more than 11,000 state and local government websites.

The features that were evaluated include:

• website navigation aids
• homepage content and links
• accessibility options for the disabled
• website outreach via foreign language translations, e-surveys or comment forms
• legislative, mapping and socio-economic statistical information
• online payment options for taxes and services
• online business and/or construction permit options
• online procurement information and transactions
• government job listings and online job applications.

Michigan's website achieved a perfect score. Runners-up among the states include Idaho and Indiana. Earlier in 2006, Michigan was ranked the Most Digitally Advanced State Government in the U.S. by the Center for Digital Government's Digital States Survey.

The report found the best websites of counties and cities with populations over 250,000 to be those of Montgomery County, MD, Fresno, CA, Tampa, FL and New Orleans.

Also available in pdf 745 kb

Scholarship for Service Job Fair
Washington, DC
January 9-10

IT For Defending the Homeland Conference
San Diego, CA
January 16-17, 2007

CIO Council IT Workforce Committee's IT Quarterly Forum
Washington, DC
January 17, 2007

IAC Growing Business Conference
Washington, DC
January 23, 2007

Department of the Navy Information Management & Information Technology Conference
San Diego, CA
January 30-February 2, 2007

U.S. Naval Institute/AFCEA International West 2007 Conference
San Diego, CA
January 31-February 2, 2007

IT Job Shadow Day
Washington, DC area
February 1, 2007

Braintrust International 2007 Knowledge Sharing Summit
Cambridge, MD
February 26-28, 2007

IPIC 2007
Orlando, FL
March 4-8, 2007

Community 2.0
Las Vegas, NV
March 12-14

IRMCO 2007
Williamsburg, VA
April 29 - May 1, 2007

Comments: We welcome your feedback.

Please send your comments, concerns, complaints and questions to dotgovbuzz@gsa.gov.

Check out our previous editions at www.firstgov.gov/dotgovbuzz.

The DotGov Buzz is produced by the following individuals in the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications:

Darlene Meskell
Ted Cogdell
Bryant Jones
Ernestine Ramsay.