GovHack presentations and judging liveblog

Hi, I’ll be liveblogging the presentations and judging from GovHack in Canberra below as it happens. All the tears and all the cheers as 42 entrants go head for head for around $40,000 in prizes and the street cred of being a GovHack winner. You can view all the entrants on the GovHack website. VoteRead… Read more »

Saving Money Is Now A Good Thing: The Great Paradigm Shift

I always have to scratch my head at the curiosity of how the federal government operates in regards to budgetary matters. Although commercial best practices are all the rage in government, such as trying to leverage technologies and become more efficient, innovative, and agile, the one area that always seemed to be polar-opposite was theRead… Read more »

TSP Talk – 6/02/12

Last week was a holiday shortened week and we went into Friday with just minor losses in the stock market, but as you may have heard, the May jobs report came in well below expectation and stocks sold off sharply. If you missed it, estimates were looking for an increase of 150,000 jobs and weRead… Read more »

Publishing Government Data That Developers Will Actually Use

Despite increasing public support (as well as a number of executive mandates) publishing public data in a machine-readable format is not as simple as pressing the “publish” button. Why? Equally important as exposing the information itself is fostering a vibrant developer ecosystem around it. By making the publishing agency, not the public, responsible for makingRead… Read more »

Facebook’s new roles for pages

Facebook has introduced new roles for pages (see graphic). The manager of a page can assign the following roles: Content Creator Moderator Advertiser Insight Analyst What is unclear to me is that the manager of the page does not have the same rights as the other roles and is not able to create content, editsRead… Read more »

The Future

Read a blog that referred me to this YouTube Video… The only downside is that I have gone through most of my life without the opportunity to view this video! Caution a 1 hour plus video/lecture! Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the universityRead… Read more »

GovHack attracts 42 teams with projects

There’s been a massive response to GovHack, with 42 teams registered to compete and their projects already well underway (note there are 45 groups listed which included a few which are not competing). If you want to follow the event online, check out the GovHack website, or follow the action on Twitter using the #GovhackRead… Read more »

The US and Israel Tied to Stuxnet, The Navy Seeks to Tame Big Data, and More

Here is today’s federal cybersecurity and information technology news: President Obama ordered to accelerate a campaign of cyberattacks against started by President Bush and code-named Olympic Games including the U.S. and Israeli developed Stuxnet. More here. The Department of Energy missed 500 data centers managed by contractors when it took inventory in July, 2011. MoreRead… Read more »

Geeks’ GovTech Gripes

As a Code for America Fellow, as an open data advocate, and as a civic hacker, I was thrilled to read the new Digital Government Strategy that was released by the White House last week. This plan sets out practical steps and milestones that will ensure every federal agency embraces the “government as a platform”Read… Read more »