Digital Government
Sammie Winners Rely on Tech
The Partnership for Public Service handed out its top honor to federal employees on Wednesday, awarding eight individuals with its Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals.
Digital Government
Turning to Interns
<em>Government Executive</em> <a href=http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=46112&dcn=todaysnews>reports</a> the Army is looking to hire hundreds of entry-level and midcareer contracting specialists and insource more than 4,000 acquisition-related jobs during the next five years.
Cybersecurity
What's the Future of Cyber Spending?
Tim Stevens, a blogger and researcher in the War Studies Department at King's College in London, pondered on Monday at risk the United Kingdom's cybersecurity budget may be in the future given the nation's tight budget and poor economic outlook. Writing for Forbes.com, Stevens says despite the promises to spend more on cybersecurity - "the Tories labeled the U.K. the <a href=http://ubiwar.com/2009/09/25/uk-cyber-strategy-overhaul-needed-say-tories/sick man of cybersecurity</a>," he wrote - the expected £2 billion earmarked for security may fall to financial realities.
Digital Government
Flu Shot Time, or Maybe Not
From the Cobbler's Children Have No Shoe File. Delawareonline <a href=http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100913/HEALTH/9130343/Patients-at-risk-as-caregivers-shun-shots>reported</a> on Monday that 25 percent of all health care workers in the state's seven acute-care hospitals did not receive a flu vaccinated in 2009. That's about 4,000 health care professionals. In one hospital, St. Francis in Wilmington, nearly 55 percent of workers said they didn't get a shot.
Ideas
Video Gaming 101
Here's something every teenager will just love: The <a href=http://www.cihe-uk.com/>Council for Industry and Higher Education</a> in London released a report on Friday that concluded children should take classes on computer games as a way to improve the United Kingdom's competitiveness in the information technology (or what the Brits call information communications and technology) field.
Digital Government
Techies Want Flexible Work Options
Technology jobs continue to be in high demand, which has fueled an increase in higher salaries and signing bonuses, according to <a href=http://www.dice.com/>Dice.com</a>, a website that posts technology and engineering jobs. But in its September jobs report, it notes another (surprising) demand from technology job seekers that the federal government may want to take note of: a request for more flexible work schedules, including telework.
Digital Government
Too Many Federal Workers?
Over the weekend, Amity Shlaes, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, <a href=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704206804575467642879738582.html?mod=googlenews_wsj>wrote</a> in <em>The Wall Street Journal</em> about the differences between private and public sector workers. She sketches out the history of unions in the federal government and what she concludes as a rather obvious point: If we just had fewer government workers, we would spend less on paying them.
Digital Government
Gaming Health Care Breakthroughs
Playing games to generate insights into a problem so you can create innovative solutions is nothing terribly new, but it has now reached into the health care community. The federal government has used gaming to develop ways to <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090826_9168.php>react to fictional cyberattacks</a>.
Ideas
When I Grow Up . . .
In a recent <a href=http://www.cio.com/article/603965/The_New_New_CIO_Role_Big_Changes_Ahead> article</a> on how chief information officers can become part of an organization's senior leadership team (rather than an order taker who makes sure the e-mail or data center doesn't go down), CIO.com quotes Tom Davenport, professor of management and information technology at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.:
Ideas
Sweet Cell Phone Dreams
In another sign of just how attached individuals have become to their cell phones, two thirds of adults say they have slept with their mobile device or placed it next to their bed at night, according to a survey released on Thursday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Digital Government
Finding Jobs for Space Shuttle Workers
Nextgov reported on Wednesday that NASA is launching a program to help those highly skilled - and highly paid - employees working on the soon-to-be-shuttered space shuttle program in Florida's "space coast" to find jobs, especially IT jobs. They may want to look just a bit of a ways south in Fort Pierce, Fla.
Ideas
It's All in How You Look at It
Virginia computers that support issuing new or updated drivers licenses in the commonwealth have been down for a week. Commonwealth officials issued a statement today trying to play down how much inconvenience this caused drivers:
Digital Government
More on Cloud and Job Loss
Nextgov has written before about how cloud computing means fewer jobs, but that isn't talked about much in the federal government. (Read <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100408_7652.php>here</a>.) Most of the savings in any organization comes from reducing labor - not equipment.
Cybersecurity
How Facebook Can Derail a Clearance
That saucy page on MySpace or YouTube could derail a future spook job, according to an inhouse study conducted for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- and <a href=http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/08/government-finds-uses-social-networking-sites>unearthed last week</a> by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Ideas
The Narrow-Banded Brain
Stephen Baker, author of the <em>Numerati</em>, <a href=http://thenumerati.net/index.cfm?postID=632>wrote in his blog</a> on Tuesday that there may very well come a day when eye witness accounts could be less of a factor in courts and replaced by the ever increasing deluge of data provided by security cameras, digital recorders and databases. He points to research that indicates humans typically focus on just 1 percent of their field of vision when observing their surroundings and fill everything else on the periphery from memory. That's not a good thing when recounting what you saw in a court of law.
Cybersecurity
Intel's Mobile Cyber Claim
<em>The Baltimore Sun</em>'s financial columnist, Jay Hancock, <a href=http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/hancock/blog/2010/08/intels_infineon_acquisition_a.html>wrote</a> on Monday that Intel's <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100830_9604.php?oref=topnews>announced purchase</a> of mobile chip maker Infineon is actually a smarter deal than Intel's acquisition of McAfee, which was made public on Aug. 19.
Digital Government
HHS Kicks Off EHR Certification
The Health and Human Services Department announced on Monday that it selected the first two organizations that will review whether electronic health record system meet the standards and certification criteria the federal government has set.
Ideas
Feds Bid Up Labor Costs?
For years, federal managers have complained they lose workers to the private sector mostly because they are not able to pay them as much as the private sector offers. The best and brightest go to companies for more money, as well as a faster track to upper-level management and a more entrepreneurial spirit. At least that's what most former feds have told me. Oh yeah, also because they face a huge college tuition bill for their teenage children, which is much harder to afford on a government salary.
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