Top 10 signs you have a Rising Star on staff

Like Labor Day, back-to-school advertisements and Brett Favre's unretirement announcements, the annual Rising Star awards are upon us.

The awards program, which honors up-and-coming information technology professionals who work for government agencies and contractors, always provides an enlightening peek at the future of the federal IT community — a future filled with sleek technology that most of us would never dream of. A future in which today’s perplexing problems are long forgotten, and as for the newest problem…there’s an app for that.

But where are these architects of the future to be found? Could a Rising Star be walking among us? Sitting in our break area? Surfing the Web in our cubicles? Short of an obvious nose ring or Justin Bieber ringtone, how would we know?

The following offers a brief list of clues that a Rising Star might, indeed, be in your midst.

10. His suit coat matches his cargo shorts.

9. He asks what the current high score is in systems integration.

8. She delivers all white papers in 140 characters or less.

7. He sleeps in the office to ensure that the coffee maker goes on at the correct time.

6. When running a meeting, she presents all attendees with an iPod "meeting mix" playlist.

5. She creates a Facebook group called "People who want to be in a Facebook group with a Rising Star."

4. He single-handedly ports the agency's financial management system to a Wii format.

3. He expresses a desire that the first Bush administration had "taken out PowerPoint when they had the chance."

2. She shares her fantasy of becoming Secretary of State in a Jon Stewart administration.

1. She wants to know why they can't text the award to her.

Check out all this year's Rising Stars.