Dan Chenok

The other day a highly respected colleague, Reynolds Cahoon (formerly CIO for the National Archives and Records Administration) called to ask an excellent question:  is anyone thinking about a strategic approach to coalescing the vast quantity of information that now permeates government and its many stakeholders and constituents more than ever before?  

The RSA Conference (http://www.rsaconference.com/2011/usa) hosts the leadership and a large swath of the membership of the cybersecurity world.  Key figures speak at plenary sessions, including White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt, Cyber Command Director Keith Alexander, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Lynn, DHS Deputy Under Secretary Phil Reitinger, and NIST Director Pat Gallagher.  A much larger number participate in panel sessions and informal discussions.  I moderated a panel around the challenges that security and pri

(Dan Blair, President of the National Academy of Public Administration, collaborated on this blog)

President Obama has made private sector innovation a centerpiece of the Administration’s agenda for growth and job creation.  This is a subject that has broad support across the spectrum:  citizens, businesses and governments all look to commercial activity as an economic engine; new technologies play a key role in this pursuit.  The Nation’s Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, has been a very visible leader of this activity, with frequent and recent blogs through the White House and media web sites (

Federal Chief Information Officers, like their private sector CIO counterparts, lead the integration of information technology and organizational strategy.  CIOs must balance the daily needs of operational IT across their enterprise with how IT can contribute to longer term mission goals – including how government can best serve citizens with modern technology platforms, and protecting the nation from physical and cyber threats – while at the same time overseeing policy and resources for IT in a challenging fiscal environment.  U.S.

The cyber world was intensely active this year.  To wit:

The Administration has recently built on two recent policy papers with a related action in stepping up the attention to privacy – all of which have energized privacy-minded leaders.  The first paper, a “Preliminary Staff Report” from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (http://www.ftc.gov/os/2010/12/101201privacyreport.pdf), raised questions about whether self-regulation of privacy and data protection is sufficient; despite several prominent laws intended to protect data in key parts of our economic, (including the Privacy A

The Center for The Business of Government continues to support reports by leading thinkers on key issues affecting government today.  We are pleased to announce our latest round of awards for new reports on key public sector challenges, which respond to priorities identified in the Center's research agenda. Our content is intended to stimulate and accelerate the production of practical research that benefits public sector leaders and managers.

Mark Fisk is the lead author for this article.  Mark is a Partner within IBM's Global Business Services division.

Citizen Engagement #CitizenCentricGov

I recently attended the Center for The Business of Government's CIO Leadership Forum and found myself coming out of the session trying to reconcile several different points of view presented on Citizen Engagement.

Federal Chief Information Officers, like their private sector CIO counterparts, lead the integration of information technology and organizational strategy.  CIOs must balance the daily needs of operational IT across their enterprise with how IT can contribute to longer term mission goals, while at the same time overseeing policy and resources for IT in a challenging fiscal environment.  U.S.