Performance Based Budgeting – Is It Just Another Buzzword?

By Derry Goberdhansingh, Program Development Manager Recently the US Chief Information Officer (CIO) Steven Van Roekel (@stevenvdc) has been discussing the Federal Information Technology FY 2014 Budget Priorities on social media such as Twitter and elsewhere. In his budget priorities presentation, he discusses the shift towards Performance Based Budgeting (PBB). So what exactly is PBB?Read… Read more »

Coding Law

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post reflecting on the intersection of law, code and architecture, prompted by Richard Heaton and John Sheridan speaking about the Goodlaw project. That was an unapologetically abstract post, so here’s a concrete bit of legislative detail which encapsulates some of the wider issues. And since John is speakingRead… Read more »

Managed Mobility Myth-Busters

In my last blog, we talked about FSSI Wireless. Today, let’s take a closer look at GSA’s other new complementary program: Managed Mobility. How does Managed Mobility complement your wireless plans and devices? What are the benefits of Managed Mobility? Think baseball and sunshine. All your resources are gathered (bats, balls, uniforms, players, coaches, stadium,Read… Read more »

Understanding portfolio thinking to improve your organization

Categorize information into meaningful “buckets” I think one of the things that I see more often than anything else is organizations struggling with getting information in the right places to make the right decisions. There’s a sense that they’re not sure how they’re performing or it’s hard for the organization to understand how it’s doing.Read… Read more »

OMB Clarifies Travel and Conference Attendance Policies

by Allan Rubin, Vice President, Marketing The GSA conference scandal has crept back into the news as the IRS has encountered its own high-profile spending scrutiny. So I found it noteworthy when this item crossed my desk today. The Office of Management and Budget just issued a “Controller Alert” to all Federal agencies, acknowledging theRead… Read more »

DSB Report on Cyber Security and Reliability in a Digital Cloud

By Bob Gourley Note: we previous summarized and pointed you to a closely related DSB report on Resilient Military Systems and the Cyber Threat. These two studies are related and the study teams held some joint meetings to help ensure the best possible recommendations for the department. The DSB Report on Cyber Security and ReliabilityRead… Read more »

On Writing

I have an interesting relationship with writing. I actually frequently feel unqualified, unsuited, or presumptuous in writing anything. In my head, every sentence I write starts with “I think,” or “I believe,” or “It appears to be the case that.” My fingers edit those parts out, for two reasons. One is that you, reader, canRead… Read more »

TSP Investment Timing and the Retiree’s Dilemma

The stock market is up and the DOW stock market index has recovered from its low of 6629 in March of 2009 to over 15,000 recently. Interest rates and yields on CDs, treasuries, and savings have remained historically low. The government has artificially maintaining interest rates well below norm to stimulate the economy and toRead… Read more »

IRS Scandal

Ever since this scandal broke, on or about the 14th of May, I have struggled to see what the beef is, other than some effort by some to gain political traction for their agenda. The first problem I have: I don’t believe that any organization which engages in political activity should be granted tax exemptRead… Read more »

What The Walking Dead can teach us about Economic Development

Today’s economy is a challenging environment for economic development, but it’s no zombie apocalypse. With The Walking Dead setting ratings records, it’s safe to say plenty of economic development professionals watch every episode. But does this nerve-wracking saga of desperate survivors battling flesh-eating zombies offer anything worth pondering from an economic development standpoint? Of courseRead… Read more »