“GSA Administrator Appointed To Transform GSA Into The Big Engine”.

REPORTED BY OPEN GOVERNMENT TV

For those who may not have had the opportunity to attend this year’s FOSE conference here in Washington DC, and hear the new GSA Administrator Martha Johnson speak yesterday, you simply need to read this summary below to know that Administrator Johnson will indeed be an “engine of power behind Open Government”.

Martha Johnson coming from the private sector and having served in the GSA system previously has seen both sides of the aisle of the private and public sector. Accordingly, Administrator Johnson declared that “GSA will be the CHANGE AGENT, and that GSA must deliver innovative solutions, not the solutions and tools that may have worked in the past.”

As I listened to Administrator’s speech I began to reflect on the comprehensive, and diverse views and posts on the definition of web 2.0 and Gov 2.0 we have shared over the past month here at Gov Loop. Administrator Johnson simplified the definition for me when she said that “the White House is committed to harnessing technology to open and improve efficiency and effectiveness of government and to simplify and expand citizen access and engagement”. Wow! I said to myself, that was pretty straight forward, rather simple to understand, and for many, may be easy enough to apply when trying to define web 2.0 for Government. GSA, declared the Administrator, wants to WIN our trust, Win our confidence, Win our partnership and WIN our Business”.

When I heard how she described the Directive, I started to think of one of Steve Covey’s 7 Habits of Effective Leadership: “At the start of every project, keep the end in mind.” With a $200 Billion dollar budget,

“ I became very impressed with the expressed strategy to make GSA’s new mission doable and realistic.

Administrator Johnson from closely listening and watching her at the Press Conference yesterday, appeared to have a good command of implementing customer focused performance measures and continued to give me confidence that she understood that small business, minority owned business, not for profits, the Executive and Legislative branch, international, public buildings, and other federal agencies were all GSA’s customers. In fact, she is quoted as saying, “customers were the Agency’s lifeblood”. Then to hear her articulate her value for collaboration really helped me to become encouraged that we (the business community) may be in store for some great opportunities to recover from this historic recession of the last two years.

Finally, Administrator Johnson said that “thanks to the Obama Administration, we have the ARENA to demonstrate innovation. If NASA had the moon shot and DARPA had the internet, GSA has two arenas for innovation. Sustainability and Open Government. The Administrator closed her brief comments today by pronouncing collaboration (collective intelligence) as the transformational tool or the people talent that will learn to “reverse engineer processes that will enable GSA to deliver on our mission (the stakeholder’s mission). “ GSA will WIN through our new harmonics with we (the customer). GSA will WIN through innovation, through technology, through shared risk, and through cultural and process transformation.”

We hope that this report will help stimulate healthy Gov Loop community discussion.