Big Data

Deciphering the Data Deluge

You’ll find more than seating at a certain park bench outside a Durham, N.C., library. The solar-powered piece of outdoor furniture, part of the Village Green Project, also measures temperature, wind speed, and air quality. Traditional air monitors used for federal regulatory purposes cost tens of thousands of dollars, require experts to run them, andRead… Read more »

Stop Focusing on Vanity Metrics and Optimize the Government’s Data Centers

It has been almost five years since the federal government launched the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI). The initiative called for agencies to reduce the government’s 3,100 data centers by 40 percent. This effort was anticipated to save the federal government as much as $5 billion by 2015. However, instead of moving steadily towards achieving theseRead… Read more »

Analytics Need to Provide Business Value

As a part of my ongoing conversation with senior executive leaders, Conversations on Big Data, I recently sat down with Dean Silverman, Senior Advisor to the Commissioner, Office of Compliance Analytics, at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). These Big Data conversations tend to focus on best practices in using big data and analytics in creativeRead… Read more »

Making Data Real – Lessons From and For Federal Leaders

This article was originally posted by Dan Chenok on the IBM Center for the Business of Government blog. In a recent event, the IBM Center for The Business of Government and the Partnership for Public Service added to a significant body of knowledge about how government leaders can leverage the power of analytics and data toRead… Read more »

Big Data, Cloud & Mobile – How Emerging Technologies Can Help You

With more complex work and restricted budgets, government jobs have become increasingly challenging. One way to make government work easier and less costly is by taking advantage of the numerous emerging technologies, such as big data, cloud and mobile, that are being offered and developed today. Big data, cloud and mobile technologies enable users toRead… Read more »

FEMAStat: An Iterative Approach to Maturing Strategic Analytics

Last month, I sat down with Carter Hewgley, Director of Enterprise Analytics at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to discuss using big data and analytics in a number of creative and interesting ways to support real-world business goals. This conversation was a part of the ongoing IBM/Partnership for Public Service Podcast series, Conversations onRead… Read more »

3 Guiding Principles for Open Data in Government

I’m spending the day at Data Transparency 2014, an annual conference hosted by the Data Coalition that keeps the conversation on open data in government moving forward. This conversation is extremely multi-faceted. It’s barely 11am and we’ve already talked about budgeting, planning, IT, accessibility, security, and a slew of other topics that are related toRead… Read more »

DorobekINSIDER: Where change is happening in government

Have you ever attended a budget meeting hosted by your city council? You usually are shown PowerPoint presentations filled with pie charts detailing how funds are dispersed. And you have access to your city website’s complete budget breakdown, including the projected one for the next fiscal year. But it may seem as though local governmentRead… Read more »