The President Of Russia Posts His First Tweet
The Russian government has started a presence on Twitter in the form of two accounts under the name of the ‘President of Russia,’ one in Russian and one in English.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedevtweeted his first thoughts yesterday in the type of greeting message often seen by people starting out on Twitter:
San Francisco Uses Crowdsourcing To Reduce Budget Spending
Here is more on how the City of San Francisco in its quest to save money, increase revenues and spur innovation turned to its 26,000 employees for solutions. In a matter of weeks, nearly 600 ideas were submitted and more than 4,000 votes cast via its ImproveSF.org program. This program was created with a SF-based company Brightidea Inc. that I have covered before here (see Brightidea Innovation Management). From two of the winning ideas the city will save more than $90,000. These and two other revenue-producing ideas will be implemented.
Governments Begin Implementation Of Open Data Apps
Ever since the dawn of the Internet era, many web developers and tech companies have envisioned a world where people from all over the globe can communicate and be connected as one. Since then, a lot of innovations have happened. From the start-up social networking sites, blog sites, video upload and download sites, all the way up to what we have right now, the Internet has come a long way and is on the right direction to succeed on its earlier vision.
Australia Commits To Significant IT Spending
Government IT professionals all over the world may want to keep a close eye on Australia in the weeks and months ahead. Australia’s federal budget has allocated over $1 billion to public-sector technology projects, meaning it may be able to pioneer some advances, or at least set an example through trial and error.
An e-health records infrastructure and the tax system are supposed to be the two major focuses of this push, according to Fran Foo.
More specifically, she then reported, “Federal government chief information officer Ann Steward said most of the budget funds would be spent on applications development, as more than 15 agencies benefited.” And storage and security are going to be something that everyone involved will keep in mind.
It should be interesting to see what results from this push. So long as Australia’s policies and its size don’t prevent any of its solutions from being deployed elsewhere – and so long as its solutions aren’t extraordinarily expensive – this IT experiment should prove to be a learning experience.
Keep an eye out for employment opportunities if you live in Australia (or would be happy to move there), too, since many people may be hired as a result of all this excitement.
O’Reilly Discusses Security Clearances For The Military And Contractors
If you do not read O’Reilly Radar – you might want to subscribe. This morning O’Reilly Radar was bringing up the idea of how social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed and others are changing not just how we hire, but how we determine credibility and trustworthiness in the communities we interact with.
Library Of Congress Archiving Tweets Since 2006
You may have stumbled onto details of this on Twitter as this week at the Twitter Chirp event it was revealed that the entire archive of public Tweets posted to Twitter will be archived at the Library of Congress. Now, no doubt about 99% of these will be considered “junk”, however, the reasoning seems to be to preserve an archive of “important” tweets. Just a few examples of important tweets in the past few years include the first-ever tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, President Obama’s tweet about winning the 2008 election, and a set of two tweets from a photojournalist who was arrested in Egypt and then freed because of a series of events set into motion by his use of Twitter here and here.
From the Library of Congress blog… How Tweet It Is! Library Acquires Entire Twitter Archive… “Every public tweet, ever, since Twitter’s inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. That’s a LOT of tweets, by the way: Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets every day, with the total numbering in the billions… Expect to see an emphasis on the scholarly and research implications of the acquisition.” If interested, here’s the official Tweet from the Library of Congress announcing this!Of interest, they (The Library of C) also operate the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program www.digitalpreservation.gov, which is pursuing a national strategy to collect, preserve and make available significant digital content, especially information that is created in digital form only, for current and future generations.
UK Election Pushes Blogging To The Mainstream
Months of speculation ended yesterday with the news that the UK general election will take place on May 6, a month from now.
Get ready, everyone, for four weeks’ of intense message-pushing, stunts, posters (Photoshopped or not), door-knocking, leaflets, TV debates, party election broadcasts (TV ads by any other name), and more.
FCC Launches Spectrum Dashboard
The Federal Communications Commission has introduced a beta version of its Spectrum Dashboard.
The Spectrum Dashboard allows users to review how spectrum bands are allocated and used and also allows users to identify license holders in specific areas.
Read More…
Government Agencies Lagging In Tech Adoption
Government market research firm Market Connections, today released a new survey that calls government agencies continually behind the curve in technology adoption compared to the private sector.
The study, which examined the perceptions and adoption of new technologies among federal government decision makers, indicated the perception of technology adoption in government agencies as “ as slow and difficult to keep going.”
Market Connections conducted the survey in February on behalf of the Government Information Technology Council (GITEC). GITEC is a group of senior-level government executives organized to support the delivery of high-quality and cost-effective IT services to their customers.
“The findings show real progress in some emerging technology and application areas. But technology engines don’t seem to be revving to keep up with needs,” said Lisa Dezzutti, president of Market Connections.
“When asked if innovations have found their way into daily applications, more federal decision-makers compare their agencies to vintage cars rather than today’s hybrids.”
The majority of the 223 survey respondents serve in management, operations, or IT/MIS roles, with 39% of them employed in defense/military agencies and 61% employed in federal civilian or independent agencies.
Highlights from the survey include:
*Wireless/mobile solutions and cloud computing were cited most often as technologies that, while beneficial or promising, remain the most overlooked. In fact, nearly three-quarters of respondents were either unsure if their agency has a cloud deployment plan or very clear that it doesn’t have a plan.
*Forty-five percent (45%) of respondents said their agencies are perpetually behind the technology curve compared to the private sector, while another 39% say that old legislation negatively impacts their agencies’ adoption of new technologies.
*Budget limitations narrowly outpace security concerns as the top two challenges confronting the implementation of upcoming technology initiatives. In fact, 18% reported that general hardware and software updates were the most beneficial new or innovative technologies implemented in the last 12 months.
*Nearly three in ten respondents say their agencies are not actively engaging Gen Y in the workforce; however, more than a quarter are offering competitive salaries and benefits, providing flexible work environments and increased coaching and training, respectively.
FTC Warns Organizations Of Data Breaches
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced it has contacted nearly 100 organizations about personal information, including sensitive data about customers or employees that has been shared from the organizations’ computer networks and is available on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing sites which can lead to identity theft or fraud.
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