The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) released their list of best practices at their annual conference in Austin, Texas last week. I think the entire list of submissions deserves more attention by federal, state and…

The Advocate, the daily newspaper in Stamford, Conn., had a thought-provoking piece the other day that raises an interesting question. Many cities and counties are scrambling to roll out applications for mobile phones. Many of these "apps" are…

The Federal CIO Council's Information Security and Identity Management Committee (ISIMC), Web 2.0 Security Working Group just released a document that will come as a boon to government security folks struggling to develop social media policy. …

Gary Robinson has been named the new chief financial officer for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS).  Word of the appointment came in an e-mail announcement on Friday.The move reunites Robinson with his former…

The lack of communications and planning amongst public/private agencies within our States that are applying for broadband stimulus funding is of concern to many State…

Climate change is the cause of our time but it is often hard to convince a whole lot of people including many politicians, business people and even ordinary citizens of the urgency of responding proactively to the overheating of the planet. So along…

Listen to the podcast    Follow me on Twitter It was way back in 590 AD that Pope Gregory the First made the list of human frailties we know today as the Seven Deadly Sins.  These are not the big sins covered by the Talmud's Ten…

As I continue to discuss government 2.0 with peers across the globe, I am happy to report that progress is being made! Specifically, I have noticed that the content of the dialog is changing.  For most of the past year, when I was…

In 1940 the French declared Paris an "open" city so the invading Nazi Army would not destroy it while capturing it. Today modern cities are starting to declare themselves "open" in slightly more trusting ways, by exposing their data and information…

Internet access is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity. In fact more of a necessity than automobile fuel some would believe. But it appears that despite the year long brouhaha over the need for ubiquitous broadband access in USA, over a third of…

Every day we read about organizations that have succumbed to the malicious intent of scrupulous coders and hackers.  As IT professionals we view the constant onslaught of scans, probes, penetration attempts,etc. as the unfortunate reality of…

Who would have thought that America's biggest and in some ways most traditional administrations would be one of the first megalopolis' to have a Facebook site for its Office of Emergency Management (OEM)?Earlier this year, Mayor Blumberg encouraged…

According to a recent report by Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communication, Finland has now, starting in July 2010, made 1-megabit broadband Internet access a legal right, for every citizen. And not only that, an earlier law specifies that by…