CIO Council to make its activities more accessible
The CIO Council today announced the highlights of its strategic plan for fiscal 2000, including raising awareness among agencies of the council's activities, such as guidance on information technology management and reports.
WILLIAMSBURG, Va.—The CIO Council today announced the highlights of its strategic plan for fiscal 2000, including raising awareness among agencies of the council's activities, such as guidance on information technology management and reports.
Each of the six committees on the council has stated several objectives for the next year in the plan—due out at the end of September—but the overall goal of the council is to make its work accessible and applicable to the federal IT community, said Jim Flyzik today here at the Information Resources Management Conference '99. Flyzik is co-chair of the council and CIO at the Treasury Department.
"If there's one thing in government we don't do [well], it's promote the [work] we do," he said.
The council's disconnect from the rest of government was underlined today when 50 percent of the conference attendees, most of whom are GS-14 and GS-15 IT managers, responded in a survey that they did not know whether employees in their agency use CIO Council-generated information.
For example, the CIO Council in the past year has written a study on how to attract and retain federal IT workers. It has written government guidelines to avoid software piracy and has helped develop the CIO University, a set of courses for federal, state and local CIOs aimed at improving management skills.
Other initiatives for the next year are aimed at producing studies and guides that can help address specific issues within agencies, from researching emerging technologies to helping increase security and privacy awareness.
"The idea is to take some action," Flyzik said. "[The] Clinger-Cohen [Act of 1996] gave us this opportunity, and it's important that we step up and take that opportunity."