Archive for the ‘government 2.0’ category

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Idea for a Better Federal Workforce and a Stronger Military: A sensible benefit which helps our vets and our government..

March 17th, 2010

I came across a story which I am sure has been repeated many times.  An Army reservist who has been deployed not to long ago and now is back in his civilian job was offered a federal job which he wanted.  The problem? Not salary but a key benefit which will surprise you. His private sector employer has agreed to make up the  difference between his private sector pay and his Army Reserve pay if he is called up to active duty.   This saved him from financial disaster in recent deployments.    BUT if he were to leave the private sector job and work for the FEDERAL government, then be called up to active duty, he would take a significant pay cut by transitioning from his federal job’s salary to his Army full time pay.

By the way, his private sector job is being a contractor supporting a federal agency.  This is the irony, that the government is spending more on him as a contractor than they would as a fed doing almost the same job.  They can attract him based on the federal salary plus benefits but come short because he wants to remain in the military reserve and can’t because the federal government would significantly cut his salary if he is deployed. (What would he do is deployed? Almost the same job as he would be doing in his federal job.)

There have been many stories of Army Reservists and their families suffering financially because of long and unplanned  full time deployments since 911.  A lot of people have pointed out that Reservists take the part time pay and then need to be prepared for full time deployment if it comes up. Well here is a story of someone who has planned for that in his private sector job and a private sector employer who has stepped up to help the military retain a valued Reservist.

The surprise is that this person, who loves his country cannot transition to a federal job because the FEDERAL government will not compensate him the at the same rate if they need him more in active duty in the Army, than in his civilian job.

This means that federal employees have an incentive NOT to be in a military Reserve or guard unit.  Thus the federal government does not give Reservists whose military experience would often be a benefit to their civilian job and the military reserves could lose valuable people whose federal experience would be a value to the reserves.

It also means that the federal government is missing an opportunity to be a model employer for large companies to support their Reservists and National Guardsmen.

The advantages to changing this policy to guaranteeing the same salary to a federal employee who is also a Reservist regardless of if he or she is called up seems obvious and 3 fold:

  • More experienced federal employees.
  • More experienced Reservists and Guardsmen
  • Being a model for employers in the nation to support our Reservists and Guardsman.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know what you think…

(Yes I know this brings up the whole poaching issue. I am not taking a stand on poaching but just approaching this from whether adding the benefit of compensation for any loss of pay during a deployment would be a good benefit for the federal government to include for military reservists/guardsmen.)

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Posted in Federal workforce, government 2.0, innovation, open government

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Friends, Govies, Countrymen, Lend us your ideas for Open Government!

February 9th, 2010

Open Government planning is underway and a host of agencies ask soliciting ideas from the public to improve their ability to achieve their mission.  I collected the current list of Federal Department/Agency Open progress pages and the links to the idea solicitation websites below…  Also Data.gov is looking for suggestions for improvement at datagov.ideascale.com.

Open Progress Page

Public Input Site or Email
Agency for International Development Submit Ideas to USAID
Department of Agriculture Submit ideas to Department of Agriculture
Department of Energy Submit ideas to Department of Energy
Department of Education Submit ideas to Department of Education
Department of Commerce Submit ideas to Department of Commerce
Department of Defense Submit ideas to Department of Defense
Department of Health and Human Services Submit ideas to Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Homeland Security Submit ideas to Department of Homeland Security
Department of Housing and Urban Development Submit ideas to Department of Housing and Urban Development
Department of Interior Submit ideas to Department of Interior
Department of Justice Submit ideas to Department of Justice
Department of Labor Submit ideas to Department of Labor
Department of State Submit ideas to Department of State
Department of Transportation Submit ideas to Department of Transportation
Department of Treasury Submit ideas to Department of Treasury
Department of Veterans Affairs Submit ideas to Department of Veterans Affairs
Environmental Protection Agency Submit ideas to Environmental Protection Agency
General Services Administration Submit ideas to General Services Administration
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Submit ideas to National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Science Foundation Submit ideas to National Science Foundation
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Submit ideas to Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Office of Personnel Management Submit ideas to Office of Personnel Management
Small Business Administration Submit ideas to Small Business Administration
Social Security Administration Submit ideas to Social Security Administration
Council on Environmental Quality Email Council on Environmental Quality
Office of Management and Budget Email Office of Management and Budget
Office of National Drug Control Policy
Office of Science and Technology Policy Submit ideas to Office of Science and Technology Policy
Office of the United States Trade Representative Submit ideas to Office of the United States Trade Representative

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Posted in Uncategorized, government 2.0, innovation, open government, participation

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Linking Benefits to Federal Spending to drive Government Innovation.

August 4th, 2009

Opportunity: Spending of government  money should have a purpose and that purpose should be for the benefit of someone whether directly or indirectly.  The benefit might for an employee to work better and that employee might be working to benefit a group of citizens. The administration wishes to create a more transparent, effective and innovative government as well as to reduce the federal deficit. In order to do this, the administration must identify opportunities for innovation which can increase efficiency as well as decrease spending and make the case to the American people that it is making more effective use of taxpayer funds.  I want to make the case here that linking spending data to benefits of that spending in ways which are detailed,  clear and relevant to large numbers of citizens is the best way to find innovations to create a more effective government as well as to make transparency have meaning and value for the average citizen.

Challenge:

  • Linking Spending to Benefits: Federal spending is reported in ways which do not clearly connect it to the benefits that specific expenditures provide.  While certain dollar amounts may be reported as going toward ‘Defense’ that is not specific enough to understand whether a given expenditure is justifiable and doesn’t allow an expenditure of group expenditures to be compared to alternative solutions for the same specific benefit oriented goal.  Therefore we must find ways to better connect specific spending to specific benefits. » Read more: Linking Benefits to Federal Spending to drive Government Innovation.

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Posted in government 2.0, linked data

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Gov 2.o Spoofing is here. Reciprocal Link Authentication could prevent misunderstanding.

June 2nd, 2009

Postscript:  Another example of government spoofing was a prank cell phone call from India to the Pakistani Defense Minstry the day after the Mumbai terrorist attack.  The called claimed to be an Indian Defense Ministry Official and was claiming that India was going to retaliate. Planes went up in the air on both sides and the US had to intervene to prevent further escalation.  The call was taken seriously because normal authentication procedures were not followed or did not exist.

Hot off the press: Another spoofing incident which alleges civil damages involving Twitter the St. Louis Cardinals’ manager Tony La Russa.

While in general I dont think western Democracies have a lot to learn from the North Korean Government, I think in the case of Gov 2.0 spoofing there might be an exception.  The North Korean Central News Agency was recently impersonated on Twitter in a way which might have fooled a lot of people.  The twitter feed was made to look realistic because it used actual articles released by the Central News Agency. The prank was pulled off by a parody website called Stupidedia and they didn’t seem to intend to create any harm with it.

But this points out how easy it is to pretend you are an official government agency on twitter.  Recently I advocated for a simple reciprocal link authentication policy which would place a link on any official government web 2.0 account (twitter, facebook fan page etc) to a .gov or .mil page which would then give a link or list of links to the official social media account for that agency.  Then anyone could with 2 clicks verify that a social media account is authentically coming from an official government source.   As government presence becomes more common on social media, we will likely see more attempts to grab attention through this type of impersonation.  While it doesn’t seem like much could come of this, all it takes is one person believing one source is the voice of a government and acting on it to cause at the least embarassement and at the worse some harm.

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Posted in Identification, Policy, Social Media, Tools, authentication, government 2.0

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Online Authenticity: Should Feds carry a badge in cyberspace? Or at least a reciprocol link?

May 4th, 2009

The future of the internet will involve more authentication than it does today but here is a potential interim solution to provide some level of authentication for Gov 2.0 presence on online social networks such as facebook and twitter. standard policy of having a reciprocal link back to a facebook fan page or twitter account on a .Gov/.Mil website which the social network page points to could be a simple interim solution. I call it Reciprocal Link Authentication.

Government 2.0 includes a government presence on non-government websites such as online social networks (OSNs) (think facebook fan pages and twitter accounts) so that citizen’s can encounter government guidance and assistance where they ‘live’ in cyberspace.  But how can citizens be certain that the government account/representative is authentic?    If you run into someone in the street and they say they are working for the government, how do you know for certain?  They provide you will a badge or ID right at the beginning of the conversation.

If we encounter government workers as official government representatives in non-government cyberspace, should we also be able to see some sort of identification?   Since cyberidentity is more easily assumable in many cases than aliases in real life (especially on social networks), shouldn’t there be a way to verify the authenticity of someone claiming to represent a government? Often times government officials on OSNs such as agency fan pages on facebook or informational twitter accounts will have an official seal or emblem. The problem with this is that it is trivial and relatively low-risk to copy or create an image of a seal or official looking emblem and put it on an anonymous OSN account compared to duplicating a paper credential which someone might show you in person.

The commercial solution for authentication won’t work on social network pages. Here’s why.

Commercial websites sometimes provide SSL encrypted links to independent authentication websites (Verisign, Godaddy, among others) to prove their authenticity.  The problem with the government using this method is that it would add paperwork and costs to implement SSL badges or require changes in existing online social networks profile options.  Also I don’t think there are products which work with OSNs and the authenticators to verify anyone on social networks yet.  Perhaps more importantly, the government would be then depending on a commercial company to prove its authenticity.  Basically it’s a non-starter if you want to actually achieve a Government 2.0 presence online in the near future for several reasons ranging from practicality to policy to politics to costs.

But wait, there may be a much easier and better way. .Gov and .Mil web sites already are monitored and checked for authenticity unlike .com and .org sites.   So you don’t need an independent cyber authenticator such as Verisign because any .Gov or .Mil site can serve as that authenticator.

Reciprocal Link Authentication.

Why not have a simple policy that any online social network account or non-.Gov/.Mil online presence have a link to a .Gov/.Mil webpage which then links back to that same OSN account?   So if someone wanted to verify a government twitter account, they could simple click on the URL provided and easily find a linkback to that same twitter account on the .Gov/.Mil webpage they landed on.  If the account is hijacked then a notice of the problem could be put up until the account identity is secured again.  If this is done on all federal OSN accounts, the cybercommunity will become quickly accustomed to the authentication method and if a hijacker removed the authentication link, the visitors will know to dismiss the account.  And if they see something which sounds a bit off, then can instantly verify it by following the link back to the OSN account.     It would not mean much work since online government representatives at non .Gov/.Mil sites almost always have some .Gov/.Mil landscape under their control.

Reciprocal Link Authentication seems easy, low cost and instantly provides a universal method to authenticate any online government representation without much effort.  Sure its not perfect from a cybersecurity point of view, buts it goes a long way to addressing several important concerns about government representation on non-government websites.

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Posted in Policy, Security, Social Media, government 2.0

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