July 2, 2008

Klossner: Don't CIO, don't tell

I'm afraid to clean my closet. This is not meant as a euphemism. My closet is a cluttered mess. There are t-shirts strewn about, and a pile of shoes, some of which even match. But if I have time to clean my closet, that means I'll be making it a priority to clean my closet. And what does it say about me if I think it important to clean a room no one else sees? I'm busy, darn it, and it's hard enough to keep the kitchen floor swept, without worrying about hidden rooms. Besides, I've learned to stop putting things in my closet -- I've found other locations for my shoes and sneakers, and I've been able to cram a bit more clothing into drawer spaces.

This seems to be the same train of thought that the federal government is taking regarding the creation of a federal CIO position. The famed Clinger-Cohen act created CIO positions throughout federal agencies, but stopped short of requiring a governmentwide CIO. The Bush administration didn't see the need for it, opting instead to install a CIO-like post in the Office of Management and Budget.

As data technology has emerged to take a central role in all of our lives, the position of the CIO has emerged, slowly, as a force within agencies. It hasn't been an easy transition for those in the position. Despite direction from Clinger-Cohen to give CIOs direct access to management, the CIOs initially had as much access as the agency janitors, except that the janitors actually got into the agency head's offices once in a while. This has gradually changed, as agencies have come to understand the need to have someone with IT experience at the table, contributing to policy and budget decisions. I believe this change occurred shortly after they discovered all those Internet tubes.

But the lack of a Fed CIO, the grand poobah, the techie of techies, sends a mixed message. The creators of Clinger-Cohen considered the emerging IT and data collection culture to be important enough to have someone in charge of policy and, hopefully, budget decisions in the individual agencies, but not important enough to create a similar role at the top.

And the lack of such a person leaves some potential holes. A fed CIO is all about support, though they won't be able to help you figure out why your computer always freezes if you try to open a Word document while you have a YouTube page open. No, the support would be for other agency CIOs. A fed CIO would -- it is to be hoped -- be able to partake in policy and budget decisions, freeing up the various agency CIOs who individually have to fight these same battles. These decisions would help lead to some standardization - at this point the possibility exists for a quilt of standards and practices, as each agency makes its own choices concerning technology. Think the Government Accountability Office being PC, the Treasury Department being Mac.

It isn't as if these skills and decision-making abilities aren't being delegated. It is pretty well acknowledged that OMB's Admin for E-gov and IT has become the de facto federal CIO. But this person has many more responsibilities, and can't focus solely on IT. Some proposals offer a compromise -- folks can live without an official CIO position in exchange for the OMB position becoming more focused on IT needs, and having budget authority. While this may solve the day to day challenges of IT, I find it the equivalent of keeping my socks in my glove compartment.

Oh, and here's a cartoon.

John Klossner
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June 25, 2008

Work in Progress: Upcoming FCW features

June 30: Enterprise Architecture Special Report

A key goal of enterprise architecture is to enable a more transparent connection between ever-changing business processes and the supporting technology infrastructure. Yet for many agencies that link exists only in obscure EA models and reports because of inadequate communication between the two camps. Learn about the innovative techniques that some agencies are using to make EA a more collaborative effort between business and IT managers, and how that is increasing the benefits for both.

Writer: Michael Hardy (mhardy AT 1105govinfo DOT com)

June 30: DOD Spotlight

This feature looks into the Navy's effort to create an Architecture Center of Excellence to drive the development and adoption of the the Department of Defense Architectural Framework--the DoD's overarching enterprise architecture. 

Writer: David Carr (david AT carrcommunications DOT com)

July 7 Homeland Security Special Report

Soon after the 9-11 attacks, security experts identified maritime and port operations as possible avenues for future terrorist attacks against the U.S., yet nearly seven years later most of the vulnerabilities associated with those areas remain. The stories in this report will look at two key pillars of maritime and port security – cargo screening and information sharing systems -- and the seminal projects now underway to address each. The stories will highlight technologies for secure data sharing, information assimilation, real-time tracking and risk assessment, and new approaches to overcome the challenges inherent in cross-jurisdiction and public-private collaboration.

Cargo screening story:
Writer: Ben Bain (bbain AT 1105govinfo DOT com)

Information sharing story:
Writer: John Moore (jmwriter AT twcny DOT rr DOT com)

July 7: Exec-Tech – Web 2.0 toolbox: Making video stars

Online, on-demand video has become an effective and inexpensive way for agencies to communicate with citizens and government workers using the power of sounds and images. Learn what you need to create, distribute and share high quality video content that works to meet your communication and social networking objectives.

Writer: Wade-Hahn Chan (wchan AT 1105govinfo AT com)

July 14: CXO Lessons Learned – 7 laws of secure teleworking

Cheap broadband, home-based wireless, smart phones, high-capacity portable storage devices – these technologies and others are blurring the line between home and workplace computing and communications – and raising serious security challenges for government telework programs. This story will lay out seven safe telework security rules that must never be broken if your telework program is to succeed in today’s technology-drenched world.

Writer: Larry Stevens (larry480 AT comcast DOT net)

July 21: Exec-Tech – Ready for storage as a service?

From EMC to Amazon (yes, that Amazon), a varied bunch of industry players are lining up to offer fee-based storage services that promise to be cheaper and easier than owning your own. When does it make sense for government to use such storage services and when should they never even be considered? 

Writer: Alan Joch, ajoch AT worldpath DOT net)

July 21: Health IT 

Learn how the Office of Personnel Management, through its role overseeing the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, is serving as a focal point for policies that advance health IT systems for federal employee programs. Such measures are expected to help contain costs and improve quality of health care for feds, but must adequately address sensitive security and privacy issues.

Writer: Mary Mosquera (mmosquera AT 1105govinfo DOT com)

Need more info? Send a note to jmonroe AT 1105govinfo DOT com (subject line: Feature info).

John Monroe
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June 23, 2008

Klossner: If a CIO blogs in the forest, is it policy?

When I was a kid, I had a great-grandmother who used to regale us with stories from her childhood in the late 1800s. Her tales of life before cars and telephones, not to mention television, fascinated me and my brothers, but it might as well have been life in the Paleolithic era for all we could comprehend. This will be the feeling my grandchildren will probably have when I gather them on my 50-year-old futon to tell them tales of the untamed world I grew up in, a world without YouTube, the Internet or 11 flavors of Cheez-Its.

I wish my great-grandmother were around today (for starters, she made killer half-moon cookies). I'd ask her about the transitions our country experienced when the automobile was introduced to our culture. I'd specifically ask her how the new technology affected the generation gap, even though they didn't acknowledge anything like a generation gap back then. Heck, teenagers hadn't been invented yet.

And how did this technology affect the workplace? Were older workers complaining about the impatience of these faster moving younger workers? Did agency management consider prohibiting the use of cars in federal work? Did officials pretend cars didn't exist until one day they noticed the employees' parking lot outside the Capitol building?

This week's editorial feels like an extension of last week's entry. We have another case of new technology -- one that younger workers are very comfortable using -- contributing to fears about a generation gap.

In this case, the fear concerns the technology itself, rather than younger workers' attention spans. (To be honest, the only places that short attention spans concern me are in food preparation, machinery operation and reading of my blog posts.) Governments are trying to figure out whether Web 2.0 technologies -- blogging, social networking, wikis, etc. -- have a role in government communications. The main concern is that while these technologies allow for interaction and, one would hope, more involvement from citizens, how will participating officials draw a line between official policy and personal opinion?

I continue to be surprised at how new technologies consistently cause management to hit the panic button. Are these new communication tools that different from the ones now used, the ones that we've created and grown comfortable with and figured out appropriate and inappropriate uses for? Do we have to create an entirely new set of standards and rules for official communication? Is it a case of going from no speed limit for horses and carriages to implementing a speed limit for cars? Or can existing standards be customized for new technologies?

I look forward to the day when -- and you know it will happen -- someone makes a policy statement blunder and tries to pass it off as a misplaced blog post -- "The directive cutting all agency administration work days to 45 minutes was mistakenly included in our recent press release. It was intended to go in our CIO's blog, under the 'Just Thinking' section. We regret any confusion this may have caused."

The issue here isn't whether Web 2.0 should be used. It will be, and is. The issue is how to best take advantage of these technologies. Unfortunately, it seems that some are trying the blinders approach and pretending it's not there. An early sketch I did dealt with this. (sketch below) This will only lead to lost time -- time spent avoiding Web 2.0 instead of finding the personal applications that work best -- and inevitable embarrassments, when the effort to deny the use of these technologies clashes with the many employees who are using them without official approval.

The final cartoon was a little more obvious than I would have liked it to be, but this is such a multi-layered issue that I thought I'd have to make a direct joke for it. With subject matter like this -- change, generation gap issues -- there will be plenty of future opportunities to make more subtle statements.

John Klossner
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June 16, 2008

Klossner: That Presley kid is wiggling his hips again

My friend Robert and I have an expression for whenever anyone is critical of a younger generation's styles or tastes: "That Presley kid is wiggling his hips again." This, of course, refers to the cultural reaction to Elvis Presley, who, when he first performed on television, was not allowed to be shown below the waist for fear that his dancing would lead to truancy, increased drug use, loosening of sexual morals and the creation of PBS.

Are the complaints that the newest generation to enter the workforce have short attention spans nothing but the newest form of "that Presley kid is wiggling his hips?" I haven't yet heard the phrase "younger workers have short attention spans and their work suffers because of it leaving us with shoddy, half-finished projects." Heck, I know enough workers of all ages who could fit that description.

No, the complaint seems to be that the short attention spans of younger employees makes them less motivated to sit through boring presentations, or make them impatient in dealing with bureaucratic agency processes. Why do older workers find this problematic? If tortured at Guantanamo Bay, I'm sure most of them would admit the same sentiments. To paraphrase, this seems to be a case of "It may be a glacial bureaucratic system, but it's OUR glacial bureaucratic system." Any new, different voice would be complained about – if younger employees were meticulous and spent extra time on projects, I'm sure the older employees would complain about them being too slow.

This is an editorial issue that is universal, and as old as the first wooly mammoth hunt, where some 12-year-old asked why they didn't use the sharp end of the stick. As that famous gay wizard, Albus Dumbledore, once said, "Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young. ..." 

I have met federal employees of all ages, and have always been impressed by their focus and motivation. This is not a conflict of age. This is a conflict of communication, and empathy. (It is also a conflict that leaves me with plenty of opportunities for humor.)

Oh, in this week's cartoon, the character on the left is wiggling her hips, but the editors made me leave it out of the frame.

John Klossner
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June 2, 2008

Klossner: Don't ask, don't tell

You know what I love about the Homeland Security Department? (Now there's a phrase you don't hear very often.) It has become a national Rorshach test: No one has the same reaction to the agency, but everyone has a response.

While thinking about this blog entry, I contacted my small personal research group, asking for their thoughts about DHS. It was a weekend, so I only received two responses, and one was from my wife, who couldn't avoid me. The other was from my friend Jack who, when I asked him if he could recommend anything to read that would give me insight into the DHS, responded "1984."

My wife, who couldn't avoid me but who works for a federal agency (which will remain unnamed -- we like our health benefits, thank you very much) was much more descriptive. She has had a series of adventures in her office that have been based on DHS directives, and she hopes to get back to her regular work sometime next month, after finally completing said directives. But that's material for a future blog entry.

As someone who lives well outside of the Beltway, it seems to me that DHS discussions seem to break into inside-the-beltway and outside-the-beltway concerns. Inside the Beltway, the conversations and topics I hear and read about are management-related: the construction and operation of the DHS, employees' issues, procurement concerns, etc. Outside the Beltway, it's all about how this newly constructed, third-largest federal agency is affecting our lives. Arguably, the creation of the department could be considered one of the major happenings of this administration, and you'd think there'd be some discussion of this in the current presidential campaign. You'd be disappointed.

There's a famous quote attributed to the basketball god, Michael Jordan. During his playing career, he was asked why he didn't offer any support to the 1990 senatorial campaign of Harvey Gantt, a Democratic candidate who was attempting to become the South's first African-American senator since Reconstruction, running in Jordan's home state of North Carolina. Jordan's response was "Because Republicans buy sneakers, too." This sentiment, ironically, seems to have become a mantra for campaigns. A process in which candidates should be separating themselves from their opposition has become entangled with the candidates desire not to separate themselves from the oppositions' potentially vote-switching supporters.

Of course, the candidates' visions for DHS aren't the only major issues not being discussed on the campaign trail. This leaves us with the chicken-and-egg scenario (Oh my, a Rorschach reference and a chicken-and-egg reference in the same piece -- let me see if I can work in a "slippery slope" next.)
Do the candidates not address the issues because the public doesn't care about them or does the public not care about them because the candidates don't address them? That leads us to the slippery slope (yes!) of interview questions that seem as if they were culled from the letters to the editor section of Tiger Beat magazine. Which leads further down the slippery slope to this week's cartoon.

John Klossner
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