Noel Dickover

Elizabeth stated, “I think most people, wherever they live, think their country is #1“. I’ve had the opportunity to travel to like 15 different countries in the last few years, most of them developing, and at least from my experience, this statement is absolutely not the case. People in many countries – most I’ve visited, have serious concerns…[Read more]

While I’m all for the Health Care mandate that appears to be on its way out if today’s court proceedings are any indication, I’m not sure I feel the same way about an internet mandate. I think we should work hard to give people access to the internet, but I put this in the same category as refrigerators – yes, everyone should have one, but those…[Read more]

I think the memorandum the President released the day after he got in office was a seminal event for the open government community in DC. This definitely kicked the train into high gear in way that had ripple effects both at the local level around the country and internationally. The memo was an organizing event that Sunlight pointed to in…[Read more]

In reply to Elliot whether the USG has control over how contractors dispurse their funds, the answer in most cases is, “Yes, most definitely.” In cost plus contracts, there is actually a percentage amount for pay increases over the life of the award. This is usually the case for Time and Materials as well. However, this is not the case in Firm…[Read more]

Bill, I definitely agree that consumer tech leading the charge makes sense for a variety of reasons. It goes right in line with the peer to peer discussions we see dominating social media, and their displacement of traditional public affairs outfits in large scale organizations. Its not surprising that this would occur in the tech area as well,…[Read more]

I do agree that Dion Hinchcliffe usually has a spot on view of where technology is taking us at any moment in time. But “CoIT” as a term seems like a wonder way of ofuscating whatever message was trying to be conveyed. Did they really need a new, not-very-catchy acronym to get this notion across?

That’s a big stretch to assume all wikis and blogs could be used as a decision making vehicle for the prospective expenditure of funds. Perhaps one of the acquisition/FAR folks could weigh in here to comment on whether the FAR already has rules in place that address this point – meaning, regardless of the medium of decision making used in…[Read more]

Hi Rick, you’re right, I used the wrong verbiage. According to the document you linked, the 1986 reauthorization lasted until 1989, at which time I guess the term would be that it was sunsetted. So from 1989 to 1995, it was not in force. Regarding the Contract with America reference, this is an easy thing to find. Here’s an example of many links…[Read more]

From my perspective this is clearly “just a stopgap measure to ensure that OMB has met its requirement for addressing an issue” as you state above. Regarding your second point, are you asking whether citizens should be able to FOIA the actual names of people participating on wikis and blogs?

Dennis, I couldn’t agree with you more about the creation of silly incentives – Agencies now have a very strong incentive to forgoe sound assessments and surveys in gathering information for policy making. This is certainly my the biggest concern with the latest PRA guidance.

Hi Faye, as silly as this sounds, the Paperwork Reduction Act has absolutely nothing to do with reducing the amount of paper. Its about about reducing the burden on the citizen. In 1980, this was a reasonable thing in that many agencies sent out lots of forms of information to citizens, often overlapping information. The idea was that govt was…[Read more]

Sure, the PRA was canceled some time in the late 80s. Newt got this re-instituted in 1995, as one of the few things from the Contract with America that got through Clinton’s Vetos . It was pretty much the same language as the initial version, although it added some absurd things like the Dewy Decimal system for the internet, known as the…[Read more]

Hi Chris, just for context, I spent more a couple of months studying the PRA (based on need, and more specifically, looking for loopholes to get around it) and came out with a number of recommendations to OMB that I submitted in a number of ways to them. You can see my comments here if…[Read more]

Agreed – a cursory reading of the document from those unfamiliar with memo-speak – and this document exhibits horrid memo-speak – will look very positively at it, and assume the problem is solved. While I agree its a step in the right direction, clearly OMB has put off a larger effort to really think through the PRA and its implications in a…[Read more]

Steve,

Just to be clear, there is a very wide chasm between making something slightly better and starting from scratch. The big objection from the Web Content Managers, for instance, was that we couldn’t do a simple “What did you come here to find?” and “Did you find it?” question on the website without going through an insanely ridiculous…[Read more]

Hi Steve,

I’m afraid I disagree with you – this is fairly far from awesome. I’d actually label it fairly disappointing. Not only are both documents written to be as vague as possible (the PRA primer, for instance, spends most of its text simply repeating statute), this doesn’t really get us where we need to be. Basic web usability questionnaires…[Read more]

Regarding the Records Mgmt issue, as long as the wiki tracks all comments and changes (most all wikis do this), you already have the technical part answered. You obviously still need to do the dance with whatever Agency Records Mgmt POC is sponsoring the wiki though. The other obvious question from a policy hassle standpoint is whether this…[Read more]

Mary,

Based on the DefenseSolutions.gov experience, I think the two ways you can go are to receive all the comments and ideas confidentially (this is what DefenseSolutions.gov does, along with protecting intellectual property for 5 years), or make the process open and transparent. The Wiki approach implies the open and transparent…[Read more]

Regarding the account approval, the question I would ask is who do you turn down and why? If you don’t have strict enforcement standards, there probably isn’t much of a point in doing this. It might result in a faux feeling “safeness” but isn’t really stopping those from viewing content that we’d rather not view it.

Again, unless there is some…[Read more]