Mark Dixon

Wondering if folks have seen the latest diatribe from Oracle about open-source…
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/10/15/1828211/oracle-attacks-open-source-says-community-developed-code-is-inferior
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/middleware/cloud-app-foundation/weblogic/dod-and-open-source-software-2012277.pdf

Indeed…I’m working on this from the regional community cloud perspective…both inside and outside IBM. Much to do…=8-)

Check out the recent IBM PureSystems announcement. It frees up tech resources by integrating expertise at the IaaS and PaaS levels of cloud so that clients can focus on real, substantive change. Its a game changer.
http://www.ibm.com/ibm/puresystems
Governments will have to look at the capital vs operating expense equation…procuring technology…[Read more]

I’m doing a presentation/discussion next week on “Analytics in a Smarter City” which will highlight basic analytics, predictive analytics, streaming analytics on BigData and SmallData and everything in between…
I’d be interested in working together to come up with a good overall session…

You may find IBM’s Social Media Guidelines and Business Conduct Guidelines helpful as you craft your policy for councilmembers participation on social media… http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html

Cool…I look forward to the discussion. I have started to work on a business plan and funding for a hybrid organization to build software for local government. I have a number of colleagues and clients ready to help if we can get funded.
Also, California has passed a law that went into effect Jan 1 2012 that allows “flexible purpose”…[Read more]

Absolutely…no choice. The financial situation for cities/counties is only going to get worse with the Fed focus on deficit reduction. The real question is will local governments transform themselves…or just continue to cut services?

OK, here goes…but from the architectural perspective…
1. Are they the right principles?
Basically, yes. But there is a some fluff and fairly obvious things in there…
2. How should they evolve over time?
Remains to be seen…you have to crawl before you walk and walk before you run…show me measurable results…ROI.
3. How do they foster the…[Read more]

You’ll be hard pressed to find anything…but there is an emerging trend we can discuss.

Rebecca: Accept my friend request and send me a message. I’ve been working on this for almost 3 years now…the short answer is no, but there are some promising developments in this area. I’d be happy to discuss them with you.

Its simple economics…external cloud providers need to make a profit for their VCs and other investors…the cost curves of private and public clouds are interesting…
Much better to do a private cloud…which is essentially making IT more efficient. I suspect organizations would get a better ROI by increasing IT staff (with appropriate…[Read more]

It is nuts…and IBM is much less vertical than it once was…
This is the premise behind the Smarter Local Government concept…when you look at the 3000+ counties and 30K+ cities/municipalities across the US, they are all organized in similar fashion (vertical functionality with an administrative umbrella over them), which is, as you say, a 19th…[Read more]

Yes, you can. Its called innovation and transformation. You have to look at everything individually and in combination and re-engineering or eliminate redundant functions. Do not merely automate…that just institutionalizes outdated, sclerotic and defunct processes.
Unfortunately, government in general is not organized or incented to do so, so…[Read more]