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Volume 4 Issue 8: August 25, 2009
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The DotGov Buzz is an e-mail newsletter published by the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications to reach opinion leaders, policy makers, IT professionals, and others with the latest developments in e-government. Pass it along to your colleagues, and let us know if you want to subscribe on your home e-mail. To subscribe, submit a new e-mail to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GSA.GOV, with SUBSCRIBE THEBUZZ in the body of the message, followed by your first and last name. To UNSUBSCRIBE to this mailing list, submit a new e-mail message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GSA.GOV and enter in the body of the message: SIGNOFF THEBUZZ. This and previous issues of The DotGov Buzz are available at http://www.usa.gov/dotgovbuzz.html. |
 DotGov Spotlight: Bajinder Paul, CIO, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
Drawing on his own experience growing up in northern India, Bajinder Paul offers a straightforward recipe for success: work hard, persevere, and give back to your community. After 12 years in the private sector, it was the chance to do public service and give back to his community that brought him to the federal government, and inspired his cousin, Kshemendra Paul, the government's chief enterprise architect, to do likewise. Bajinder Paul grew up speaking Hindi and Punjabi and immigrated to New York State with his family in the early 1970s. He appreciates the ability to be fluent in two cultures because it allows an individual to take the best from both. "In India the emphasis is on education and in America the emphasis is on hard work and equal opportunity," he says. He still remembers carrying a slip of paper with his address on it as a middle school student in Syracuse, NY, in case he got lost on his way home but couldn't communicate well enough to get help. Around the same time, one of his teachers, Mrs. Mann, gave him an award for "enthusiasm and dependability in mathematics" and often stayed after school to help him with his English. He keeps the award in a frame in his office to this day, as a reminder of how much difference a dedicated public servant can make. Bajinder Paul has been CIO at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) since October 2007. As a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, OCC ensures fair and equal access to financial services for all Americans and the safety and soundness of the national banking system, and fosters competition by allowing banks to offer new products and services. The OCC's workforce is largely comprised of bank examiners who spend most of their time on the road, shuttling from one bank to another. To serve their needs and those of the rest of the OCC, Paul's agenda includes:
Moving forward, Paul sees cloud computing as the most exciting trend in e-government. "It can be a secure and very cost-efficient solution," he says, noting that OCC is already leveraging the cloud for its own security purposes. Paul received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University and a masters in computer science from Johns Hopkins University. He has amassed almost three decades of experience managing IT projects in both the public and private sectors. Before his appointment to OCC, he served as deputy CIO at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and held management positions at the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Before joining the government, Paul had stints at Mobil Oil, GE, and Lockheed Martin. Paul has grappled with some of Washington's biggest challenges during his time in government. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, he facilitated the division of ATF between Treasury and the Department of Justice and maintained continuity of operations in the process. He was at ATF during the DC sniper investigation as well, when IT played a critical role in tracking down suspects. In 2005, he supported HUD's critical role assuring that housing would be available to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Now at OCC, he is dedicated to empowering 2,000 bank examiners working on the front lines of the economic crisis. In 2002 he received the ATF Director's Maestro Award and two years later was ranked among the top 10 candidates for the Senior Executive Service. In 2008, he received the prestigious Fed 100 award for leadership in government IT for his work as Deputy CIO at HUD to create a one-stop web portal for housing disaster assistance and on behalf of the National Housing Locator initiative. When he isn't serving the public, Paul enjoys riding his new motorcycle, spending time with family and playing tennis with his son, who will be a high school senior this fall. |
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Cyber Security: NIST releases unified information security framework The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released Special Publication (SP) 800-53, Revision 3, a groundbreaking document that provides the blueprint for the U.S. Government's first unified information security framework. According to a NIST press release, "When complete, the unified framework will result in the defense, intelligence and civil communities using a common strategy to protect critical federal information systems and associated infrastructure." |
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Recovery Act: Registration begins for initial recipient reporting
The Recovery Act reporting process has begun in earnest as FederalReporting.gov opened for registration August 17. This new government website is designed to collect spending reports from recipients of the $787 billion in American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funds and to funnel that data to Recovery.gov. In order to register with FederalReporting.gov, recipients must have a DUNS number and register with the Central Contractor Registration database. Under the Recovery Act, state and local governments, non-profit institutions, universities and contractors that receive $25,000 or more in grants or other outlays from federal agencies must file their first quarterly reports online by October 10. The reports, to be filed at FederalReporting.gov, must include the amount of money received and spent by the recipient, the scope of the project and timetable, and the number of jobs created. Federal agencies should also register with FederalReporting.gov to review reports submitted by the recipients and to suggest corrections. Guidance for recipient reporting was published by OMB and delivered in a series of webinars, recordings of which are posted on www.whitehouse.gov. The recovery reporting process is directed by the Recovery, Accountability and Transparency Board, which was created by the Recovery Act, consists of 13 government Inspectors General, and reports to the Vice President. |
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Social Media: Defense Department mulls ban
Citing concern that using social media sites might make it easier for hackers to access its networks, the U.S. Defense Department and several of its components, including U.S. Strategic Command (StratCom) and the Marine Corps, are reconsidering their use of social media. The Pentagon's Office of the CIO has launched a study of social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in hopes of establishing a policy by October and StratCom has requested internal feedback on the idea of a social media ban. Meanwhile, on August 9 the Marine Corps kicked off a one-year ban against accessing social networking sites through its network. In recent months, military services and high-ranking defense officials, such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have begun to embrace many social media tools. The about-face comes close on the heels of a reorganization of Defense Department cyber security efforts. A new office, U.S. Cyber Command, is slated to reside within StratCom and will consolidate responsibility for protecting the .mil domain. |
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GSA: Federal spending in 2008 rose 18% to 515.3 billion
Federal agency purchases totaled $515.3 billion in FY 2008, 18% more than in FY 2007, according to an analysis of GSA procurement data for Government Executive Magazine. The Army alone accounted for more than half the $79 billion increase in spending but civilian agencies also increased their contract awards by 13% from $121 billion in FY 2007 to $137 billion in FY 2008. Federal IT spending increased by 9% to $63 billion for the year, according to the study by Eagle Eye Publishers. The study also compiled a list of the top 200 federal contractors in terms of contract awards for FY 2008. Each company on the list received at least $200 million in prime federal contracts, and 58 of them received over $1 billion each. Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co., and Northrop Grumman Corp. topped the list of prime contractors. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics Corp. (number one) were the top IT contractors. The analysis was published in the August 15 issue of Government Executive. |
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International: U.K. study shows improvements in public service amid recession
The U.K. Government's Strategy Unit has released Power in People's Hands: Learning from the World's Best Public Services. The report features case studies from around the world centered on five subjects:
The report's case studies "demonstrate that it is possible to further improve the effectiveness and efficiency of many services in the current period of global recession," the authors concluded. |
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OMB: FISMA reporting instructions feature new automated reporting tool
OMB issued a memorandum August 20 with FY 2009 reporting instructions for privacy management and the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). Whereas spreadsheets were used to collect FISMA data in the past, an automated reporting tool will now be used that can accommodate manual data entry as well as automatic upload. |
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Buzz: Twitter is the most popular social medium among Fortune 100
The microblogging platform Twitter has eclipsed blogging as the most popular tool among the 100 largest companies in Fortune Magazine's Fortune 500 according to a survey by Burson-Marsteller and Proof Digital Media. The study found that 54% of the Fortune 100 were using Twitter to reach out directly to stakeholders, while 32% were using blogs and 29% were actively using Facebook Fan Pages to engage. Ninety-four percent of Fortune 100 Twitter accounts are used for company announcements and 67% are for customer service, the study revealed. |
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Word Processing: Federal judge rules against Microsoft Word in patent infringement case
Microsoft is banned from selling software that is capable of opening certain XML files-including the 2003 an 2007 versions of Microsoft Word-under a federal court patent-infringement ruling. U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas upheld a May 20 jury verdict in favor of Toronto-based i4i, Inc. and awarded $290 million in damages to the company. Among other prohibitions, the court's ruling prevents Microsoft from "selling, offering to sell, and/or importing in or into the United States any Infringing and Future Word Products that have the capability of opening a .XML,.DOCX, or .DOCM file ("an XML file") containing custom XML." Although the ruling will not interfere with government purchases of Microsoft products in the near future it could open the door for competitors such as Corel WordPerfect to increase their share in the federal market. Microsoft has 60 days to comply and has formally appealed the ruling with the court. |
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Kudos: Dot Gov domain is "The Most Interesting New Tech Startup of 2009"; Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism; NASCIO Recognition Award Finalists.
The Most Interesting New Tech Startup of 2009. Influential blogger Anil Dash has named the executive branch of the federal government The Most Interesting New Tech Startup of 2009. In choosing the federal .gov domain ahead of commercial startups, Dash highlighted consistent branding, attention to design, and new APIs and data sources provided by sites such as Data.gov, USAspending.gov, Recovery.gov, and WhiteHouse.gov. Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism. The Institute for Interactive Journalism at American University awarded the New York Times the $10,000 Grand Prize for producing "a dynamic body of work" in excellent, innovative journalism, news and information. The Times was honored for six projects in the past year:
Printcasting, Apture, Change Tracker, and Patchwork Nation, won $1,000 Special Distinction Awards. The $1,000 Citizen Media Award went to MyReporter.com and the Special Distinction Award for Nonprofit Journalism went to The Center for Public Integrity for its explorations of Broken Government, Tobacco Underground, and Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown. NASCIO Recognition Award Finalists for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Information Technology in State Government. With the goals of promoting innovation, fostering better government, and engaging citizens, NASCIO chooses the best information technology initiatives from state government each year. This year's finalists are as follows:
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Transitions: Changes in the IT Community Also available in pdf 390 kb |
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Upcoming Events Calendar
IT Quarterly Forum Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase: Government as a Platform TechWeb/O'Reilly Media: Gov 2.0 Summit Web Manager University: Introduction to Social Voting Tools Web Manager University: Managing Government Websites 101 National Defense University Information Leader Symposium: Web 2.0 Solutions Web Manager University: Best Practices for Multilingual Websites NIEM National Training Event Web Manager University: Building Online Communities for Citizen Engagement Excellence in Government Series: Driving Federal Performance IDEAS 2009 Conference (INTERAGENCY DISABILITY EDUCATIONAL AWARENESS SHOWCASE) Web Manager University: Creating Web Metric Reports That Rock Lowering the Cost of Government with Technology Web Manager University: Video Bootcamp Web Manager University: Hands-On Card Sorting TechAmerica Vision Conference NASCIO Annual Conference Web Manager University: Building 508-Accessible Websites ACT/IAC Executive Leadership Conference Web Manager University: Web Design Prototyping: Practical Tools & Techniques Web Manager University: Best Practices of Search Web Manager University: Proven Strategies for Getting Readable Content Web Manager University: Finding Your Social Media Voice International Knowledge Management Conference Web Manager University: Latest Usability Trends: Bringing Research into Practice Web Manager University: Introduction to Podcasting IRMCO |
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Please send your comments, concerns, complaints and questions to dotgovbuzz@gsa.gov. Check out our previous editions at www.usa.gov/dotgovbuzz.html. The DotGov Buzz is produced by the following individuals in the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications: |
