Government Transparency and You

Simple and easy to understand video by OMB Watch.

CIO Drama

According to an article in Information Week, Vivek Kundra, recently appointed CIO for the Obama administration, is on leave because the FBI is investigating some of his co-workers from the DC government.

There has been so much speculation about the CIO/CTO position and hope for a radical transformation in government IT and information management that this new development really puts a damper on the federal information scene.

Lets hope this investigation gets cleared up quickly and Kundra can get to work on moving federal IT and information policy into the 21st century.

Especially since the CIO is already under deadline.

Federally Funded Research should be Free!

Dear Rep. Conyers,

U.S. taxpayers should have free access to the important scientific, technical, and medical information they fund. Why are you trying to take this access away? Did you get a kickback from an STM publisher?

Sincerely,

Concerned Citizen

I particularly enjoyed this author's take on the situation.

Twitter as a Real Time Search Engine

I've finally joined the masses writing about Twitter. I've known about the service for awhile now and even signed up for an account. I just sent my first "tweet" or short message this week. However, I had been doubting the hype surrounding this new service. Like alot of other people I thought this was just another way for people to announce all the little details of their daily lives to the world.

Now I am learning that Twitter can be used as a "real time" search engine to follow events (large and small) as they unfold. I decided to test out this search capability and was pleasantly surprised by the results. Apparently Google and Facebook are feeling the heat and are now looking at ways to incorporate real time search into their platforms. Unlike Google you can follow events rapidly because of the real time updates and chronological listing of tweets. Many of the tweets will include tinyrul links to published content. Unlike Facebook there does not have to be a reciprocal "friend" relationship to follow updates.

I did a variety of searches for Obama's new CIO Vivek Kundra and was linked to a variety of helpful resources and could help me to connect to other people interested and involved in the government's use of social media and technology. The real test would be to search on a "non-tech" topic.

Will Twitter become or is it already part of the researchers' arsenal? What about its use for competitive intelligence?