Rock Creek Roundup (August 6 Edition)

Posted by: Meagen Ryan, Director of Strategy Aug 06, 2010 0 Comments

The DOT launches a collaboration station, one federal agency approaches IT challenges with an innovative meeting strategy, USA.gov’s redesign mastermind gives details on what’s new, and Google’s cloud gets the nod from GSA, all in this week’s edition of the Rock Creek Roundup.

—Ready for some transportation collaboration? Earlier this week, the Transportation Department launched IdeaHub, an online portal designed to give the department’s 55,000 employees a secure place to share ideas, vote on others’ ideas, and give feedback to department leaders about specific challenges the agency faces. Department officials believe that the new online community will encourage greater collaboration and information exchange between employees who are spread across the nation. “With IdeaHub, a Federal Aviation Administration employee in Alaska can offer suggestions about an idea by a Federal Transit Administration worker in Atlanta or vote on an idea by a Federal Highways Administration employee in Arizona,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a blog post announcing the launch.

—One federal agency is taking an innovative approach to traditional meetings. The General Services Administration recently held an intense one-day meeting where all stakeholders were represented and each team member left with a specific task that needed to be completed by an agreed upon deadline. The meeting, or “slam” as GSA calls it, allowed the agency to make significant headway and complete projects on five major initiatives that will pave the way toward more advanced IT capabilities for the organization. According to slam organizers, the key to success for this type of meeting is to “have a well-defined challenge and project timeline ahead of the event” so that when the time for the slam arrives, participants can quickly work through all of the issues at hand. Organizers also anticipate virtual slams in the future.

—If you’ve been to USA.gov in the past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed that it looks quite a bit different than it used to—the site underwent some major revamping and the new version was released in early July. The site’s new functionality is the topic of a recent NPR interview with Mr. David McClure, Associate Administrator for the Office of Citizen Services and Communications at the General Services Administration. In the insightful interview, McClure, who was responsible for the site’s redesign, shares information on what resources are available on the site and talks about how he hopes citizens will interact with those and future resources.

—Also this week, Google became the first provider to receive federal certification for its suite of cloud-based computing applications, including its email and calendar tools. The General Services Administration, the agency responsible for certifying software and hosted solutions under the Federal Information Security Management Act, determined that Google’s current offerings meet moderate-level federal security requirements. Analysts admit that Google’s head start on the certification process potentially gives them an advantage in selling into government agencies, but they don’t discount the fact that Microsoft (who’s developing its own cloud-computing suite) enjoys the benefits of a long legacy with the government. Time will tell…

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Meagen Ryan

Director of Strategy

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