Given the complexities and challenges we all face, it is sometimes easy to forget how this all got started. I went back and read the Declaration of Independence this week. The National Archives has a copy -- well, they have the copy -- and a transcript, of course.
The video below has some history -- and then a reading from the likes of Mel Gibson and other Hollywood personalities.
Again, if you haven't heard the words in awhile, it is only 15 minutes long... and worth a reminder about how all of this got started.
After the tech bust of 2001, incomes in Silicon Valley and New York City drifted closer to the national average, and inequality between American counties declined. But then with the advent of the Global War on Terror, the District of Columbia and surrounding counties began to enjoy outsized gains in average incomes.
So far, the "military-industrial complex" is the one clear winner in what has been a $1 trillion war. But it's not only security and defense contractors, and the lobbyists who love them, who've been pulling ahead on the taxpayer dime.
According to the U.S. government, compensation for the average federal civilian worker in 2005 stood at over $106,000. That's double the average for private workers. That's top 5 percent of the personal income distribution. And average wages for a federal worker rose 5.8 percent that year, compared to a 3.3 wage hike in the private sector.
But who knows? Maybe all these new federal office buildings really are hives of extraordinary productivity. In San Jose, they make software, in Detroit, they make cars, and here in D.C., we make memos about meetings about regulations -- very efficiently. Maybe we Washingtonians deserve our good fortune.
Alas, according to a recent Pew Research poll, the federal government's favorability rating has plummeted to a 10-year low. If taxpayers are getting what we're paying for, we don't seem to know it.
But, hey, you just wait until the next guy gets into the White House. He's really gonna clean this place up.
There are two items this week involving the military and IT. The first is the release of the Army's "history" on the war in Iraq, which has garnered a lot of attention since the New York Times broke the story on Sunday. More on that in a moment, because first...
The Wall Street Journal's Lee Gomes this morning has a fascinating interview with Former Marine Tyler Boudreau headlined, "A Former Marine Discusses IT in Iraq." The WSJ piece is interesting to read in and of itself, but, like so many things online, it quickly sent me flying through a number of other links. Here is the top of the WSJ article:
The U.S. military has been as enthusiastic about information technology as U.S. businesses have been, making computers, e-mail and instant messaging part of everyday life for troops in Iraq.
But the question of whether IT makes people better at what they do seems just as mixed a picture in combat as it is in the office.
Former Marine Tyler E. Boudreau wrote an account for the Industry Standard Web site of his experience with IT as a captain in Iraq. The article attracted a lot of attention for its portrayal of senior officers spending lots of time reading subordinates' e-mails and second-guessing the officers under them.
Mr. Boudreau, who writes a blog called "Deeper Than War" and whose book on Iraq, "Packing Inferno," is due out in September, talked about his experiences.
From the WSJ piece, I quickly jumped to Boudreau's Industry Standard article, IT vs. initiative: The Internet age comes to the battlefield. It is very well-written and a fascinating read, even for you non-DOD people who think that IT in Iraq has nothing to do with you.
Coming from an older generation of infantrymen, I was astonished to see my unit suddenly being outfitted with every variety of electronic equipment, from "ruggedized" laptop computers with Internet access and instant messaging, to man-packed tracking systems, to a plethora of cameras, videos and other imagery devices. These innovations were introduced to the battlefield in hopes of increasing situational awareness, rapidly gathering data, analyzing it, organizing it, then pushing it back out to operators as actionable intelligence. They also provide commanders with the freshest possible information and aid them in their moment-to-moment decision-making.
But with the diffuse and often dynamic nature of today's battlefield, the military discovered it needed not only a new line of electronic gadgets, but a new breed of soldier as well — a thinking soldier.
Suffice it to say that Boudreau is not a big fan of military IT. It is an interesting perspective worth hearing.
Another perspective... In case you missed it in April, FCW spoke to Lisa Schlosser, the Housing and Urban Development Department CIO and Army reservist who was in Iraq for a year. She shared some of her insights about military IT, having now seen the world from a CIO's seat and out in the all too real world.
The military is important to watch because it has been way ahead of the rest of government on many issues. After all, the buzz around Web 2.0 and collaboration is essentially what the military has for years referred to as "network-centric operations" — making the right information available at the right time to the right people to make the right decisions. And remarkable programs such as Virtual Alabama are essentially what the military calls "situational awareness." There are real implications for all of us. We are all fighting a "war" in one way or another, aren't we?
That being said, I'm going to jump back to the Army's Iraq self-assessment. Right upfront, I have to say that I have not read the report yet — it is more than 700 pages. I'm curious to see if the self-assessment talks about technology and/or about transformation and the Rumsfeldian concept of the smaller, leaner, more lethal fighting force. (Background reading:Slate.com's Today's Papers summary of Sunday's NYT piece can be seen here; PBS' NewsHour Monday had an interview with the author of the report and spoke to Douglas Macgregor, a defense and foreign policy consultant and author of the book Transformation Under Fire: Revolutionizing How America Fights.)
In the meantime, it is interesting to see how government organizations make these kinds of popular documents available to Joe Citizen. For those interested in getting a copy of the report, go to usacac.army.mil/CAC2/CSI/OP2.asp. Of course, that isn't an easy Web site to remember. I found that link through a link on PBS' NewsHour Web site, although it wasn't on the page that contained Monday's interview, so if you missed it, you were out of luck. But the Army and the Defense Department didn't make it very easy either. There is no mention of the report on the Army's main Web site, army.mil, or on DOD's DefenseLink. The USA.gov Web portal also doesn't mention the report on its main page. I don't know if there were links there earlier, but it seems like a missed opportunity to make information easily accessible, but I just did a fairly cursory review of sites. If I missed it, I am happy to be corrected and have somebody tell me how Joe Citizen would have found this report.
Meanwhile, I have some reading to do this Fourth of July weekend.
There continue to be what-if discussions over at the General Services Administration given last week's announcements that David Bibb, deputy administrator and current acting administrator, will be retiring on Sept. 1 and that Jim Williams, commissioner of GSA's Federal Technology Service, has been nominated to the GSA administrator job. And there is a little bit of musical chairs that might be going on.
So with Bibb retiring, who might become deputy administrator? One assumes that Williams would name that person. There are a few names being circulated around GSA HQ and over in Crystal City. One name that keeps coming up is Barney Brasseux, who is currently Williams' deputy at the Federal Acquisition Service. The other name I keep hearing: Kathleen Turco, GSA's chief financial officer who, it should be noted, served as GSA deputy administrator back when former GSA Administrator Steve Perry left.
And, of course, if Williams ends up in the corner office, that would also leave the important GSA FAS commissioner job open. Again, I have hear Brasseux's name mentioned for that post.
The big question that people keep pondering: Will the Senate actually get the nomination done by Sept. 1? The Senate calendar has them out of town until July 7 (the Senate's calendar online says "July 6"— a Sunday, as if all the lawmakers will be back in town ready to go at 9 a.m. Monday, July 7.) Lawmakers are in town for five weeks because the August recess starts in early August. (Again, the Senate calendar says Aug. 9 — a Saturday — as if it won't be a ghost town on Capitol Hill starting on the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 7.) In addition, the Democratic National Convention is in Denver Aug. 25-28, and the Republican National Convention is Sept. 1-4. So it is going to be a busy few weeks if this nomination is going to get processed on time.
None of us are good at change, are we? And given that there is a lot of change going on at GSA right now, one would expect some concern. I even mentioned it on Friday -- while there have been some answers, there are many questions.
So GSA Acting Administrator David Bibb sent out the following memo to GSA employees on Friday:
MEMORANDUM TO ALL GSA EMPLOYEES
FROM: David L. Bibb Acting Administrator
SUBJECT: Charting a Careful Course
Since times of change can be unsettling, I wanted to take a moment to assure you that we have charted a careful course and will have a smooth transition to a proven, experienced leader as I prepare to leave GSA.
The mechanics are as follows: I will serve as Acting Administrator until my retirement on September 1, or until the U.S. Senate confirms Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Jim Williams as the new Administrator. As you know, President Bush this week announced Commissioner Williams as his choice for GSA Administrator.
If the Senate does not act by September 1, the President has the option of naming an Acting Administrator.
In the meantime, I would simply say continue as usual. Focus on your work and our mission as all of us strive to bring excellence to the business of government.
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