The Growing Importance of Online Awareness Networks

After writing from From Briefing Notes to Govblogging, I got an email from Richard Akerman that contained the following nugget (internal link, contents reproduced with permission): “Another [worldview] is that every employee needs to construct and maintain an “awareness network” to monitor the rapidly-changing environment. Individualised, curated streams of google alerts, RSS feeds, news apps,Read… Read more »

Broadening Public Discussion

Today I attended a meeting at the Moot Court at the Australian National University in Canberra from 12:30pm to 4pm. Fourteen people from academia, government and industry were discussing the creation of the “Australia Forum”, a project for enabling public policy discussion. I attended for the School of Computer Science at ANU which researches theRead… Read more »

Call for Papers: Workshop on Applying Human Language Technology to the Law

A call for papers — with submission deadline of 31 March 2011 — has been issued for AHLTL 2011: Applying Human Language Technology to the Law, a workshop to be held 10 June 2011, at ICAIL 2011: The Thirteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. [If the call for papersRead… Read more »

Is Web 2.0 Always the Way to Go?

Just because government is further behind the private sector when it comes to jumping on the Web 2.0 train doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of chatter about getting on board. I’ve heard things like “We need an app where citizens can take pictures of potholes or graffiti with their camera phone, geotag the location,Read… Read more »

Top Ten Gotchas of Cloud Computing in Government

As part of my Grumpy Old Man series, today I’m taking a look at the challenges that lie ahead of todays most widely hyped technology — cloud computing. Before government agencies can realize the benefits of cloud computing, a number of challenges must be overcome. Government information technology must conform to rules and regulations thatRead… Read more »

With Regards To Financing A Company, Think Vanilla

When it comes to sales and marketing initiatives the name of the game is to stand out. Typically the goal is to be unique and different from the crowd of competitors. But with finance the opposite is true. It does not pay to do things like carve your own path if you expect to getRead… Read more »

The Opportunity to Ask is Now: Cloud and Cybersecurity

As part of the Virtual Executive Roundtable series that we started at GovWin.com, we have put together two outstanding panels of experts – one to cover the government’s cloud initiatives (February 16) and another to address the new programs and efforts to enhance cybersecurity (March 9). But going beyond forming a panel of leading cloudRead… Read more »

E-waste management solution: The break-apart laptop

GreenerDesign recently published an article that could provide some insight into how manufacturers and consumers will help divert e-waste from landfills in the future. Students at Stanford and Aalto University in Finland are currently developing a laptop that owners can easily disassemble at the end of it’s useful life. Pieces can then be put inRead… Read more »

This Valentine’s Day, love your heart. Quit smoking.

CDC uses the heartfelt holiday, as well as the fact that February is American Heart Month, to drive home the importance of smoking cessation to cardiovascular health. CDC is also promoting an animated Valentine’s Day e-card that friends and family of smokers can send to encourage them to quit. A graphical button with the sameRead… Read more »