It’s a mobile world – and there better be an app for that – Plus the 7 Gov Stories

On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER:

• Growing up in the 90s, School House Rock taught me how a bill becomes a law and how the US is a melting pot of cultures. But there is no School House Rock video tell me what civic technology is. And I need one. We get the inside scoop on this emerging phenomenon with the Knight Foundation’s Jon Sotsky.

You can find all of our programs online: DorobekINSIDER.com and GovLoop Insights at http://insights.govloop.com.

But up front: It’s a mobile world – and there better be an app for that

We have all heard — and lived the fact — that it is increasingly a mobile world. And the data show that. But new analysis says that increasingly equates to apps. We mentioned the research from Flurry when it first came out:

The average U.S. consumer increased the amount of time spent on a mobile device to 2 hours and 42 minutes a day, up from 2 hours and 38 minutes in March 2013, according to a report from Flurry. And apps were by far the biggest part of that, commanding 86% of the average mobile user’s time, compared to just 14% on the mobile Web.

But there have been a number of assessments about what it all means:

• The decline of the mobile web. Tech investor Chris Dixon spurred conversation this week by posting two simple charts: one showed mobile users surpassing desktop users, the other, from Flurry, illustrated how mobile users spend 86% of their time on apps and just 14% on the mobile Web. “This is a worrisome trend for the web. Mobile is the future. What wins mobile, wins the Internet. Right now, apps are winning and the web is losing,” he writes. Dixon fears that a cable TV-like future where a handful of app store owners control what gets built and promoted. [H/T WSJ’s CIO Journal]

• How Apps Won The Mobile Web: [Tech writer Thomas Claburn writing in InformationWeek] The web might be the dominant platform of our time, but more people than ever prefer to experience it through Google and iOS mobile apps.

The implications for government: Do you have an app for that? It seems merely having a mobile website just isn’t enough.

The SEVEN stories that impact your life

1. The Hill: GAO: Government overlap costing billions – “The Government Accountability Office highlighted more than two dozen areas where the federal initiatives have too much overlap or other inefficiencies in the report, its fourth in as many years on the subject. Those findings add on to the more than 160 parts of the bureaucracy the GAO urged changes to in the previous reports.”

   1. The GAO report: 2014 Annual Report Additional Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits

2. Washington Post: Exclusive | DHS officials broke hiring rules, watchdog alleges – “Top hiring officials at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency broke federal civil service laws when they tried to hire three politically connected but unqualified candidates who were favored by the agency’s then-commissioner, a government watchdog charged Tuesday.”

3. Washington Post: Secret Service removing supervisor, tightening rules after drinking incidents – “Secret Service Director Julia Pierson has demoted the supervisor of one of the agency’s largest divisions and reassigned nearly two dozen members of its staff, part of a broader cleanup effort in the wake of embarrassing drinking incidents on two recent presidential trips, according to three people familiar with the moves, reports Carol Leonnig.”

4. GovExec: Republicans, White House Finally Agree on Something: Postal Reform – “A key proponent of overhauling the U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday vowed to introduce a new reform bill in the coming weeks, promising to work more closely with the White House in hopes of encouraging more bipartisan support.”

5. Federal Times: GSA inspector general leaves for private sector – “The General Services Administration’s Inspector General Brian Miller is stepping down to join investigation advisory firm Navigant, according to an April 7 letter Miller wrote to President Obama.”

6. Washington Post: Windows XP support ends today. But it’s still used by everywhere from governments to ATMs – “After 12 long years, today is D-Day for Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system. Starting today, free support and updates for the software will stop. “

   1. Related: UK’s ComputerWeekly: Government signs £5.5m Microsoft deal to extend Windows XP support – “The government has signed a deal with Microsoft to provide Windows XP support and security updates across the whole UK public sector for 12 months after regular support for the operating system ends on 8 April.”

7. Federal News Radio: DoD plots third chapter in Better Buying Power initiative – “Nothing is on paper yet, but the Defense Department says it is in the very early stages of creating a “3.0” version of its ongoing Better Buying Power initiative. The newest edition will focus on making sure the military doesn’t fall behind in technological superiority.”

DorobekINSIDER water-cooler fodder… yes, we’re trying to help you make your water-cooler time better too…

• As Obama Spotlights Gender Gap in Wages, His Own Payroll Draws Scrutiny [The New York Times]: Even as Mr. Obama seeks to make an issue of the gender gap in compensation across the country, however, his own hiring is facing some scrutiny. The recent study, by the conservative American Enterprise Institute, showed that the median annual salary for women in the White House last year was $65,000, while the median annual salary for men was $73,729. The study was based on White House salary data. The pay in the White House most likely mirrors the situation across the federal government, Ms. Hartmann said. “Women still tend to have lower pay grades than men do, because the men, on average, have more years of experience.”

• ‘Good government starts with good people’ [Oped by Ted Kaufman, a former U.S. senator from Delaware, in the Delaware News Journal; Kaufman discusses the new assessment of the federal civil service system, Building the Enterprise; the New Civil Service Framework. Hear GovLoop’s DorobekINSIDER interview with Ron Sanders, Vice President and Fellow with Booz Allen Hamilton, is one of the report’s authors. Sanders also previously served as the intelligence community’s Associate Director of National Intelligence and the first Chief Human Capital Officer.]

• Former NASA Web Manager Is Crowdfunding Her Discrimination Suit Against the Agency [NextGov]: As a Web manager and open government lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Megan Eskey used social media and other innovative approaches to publicize NASA activities. Now she’s using those same tools to publicize a discrimination complaint against her former employer and to crowdsource funds to support her suit and those of other federal employees who claim they were fired because of their age, gender or for other discriminatory reasons.

• A Symbolic Victory for Open Office Setups [GovExec]: The General Services Administration has won at least a symbolic victory that should help its push for the “Total Workplace.” That’s the office design—now in place at GSA’s F Street headquarters and recommended to other agencies—aimed at achieving savings and collaboration through desk sharing, telecommuting and mobile devices… Debate over such issues even entered into the 2013 New York mayoral election, the one that resulted in the swearing in of Democrat Bill de Blasio this January. After multiple inquiries to City Hall from Government Executive, de Blasio’s busy press team on Tuesday finally reported the new mayor’s plans for his office arrangement: Mayor de Blasio is keeping the bullpen.

• Related: GovLoop’s DorobekINSIDER: Ending the tyranny of the open office