Mobile computing, primarily smartphones and tablets, is one of the most disruptive technologies today. Increasingly sophisticated portable personal computers are providing unprecedented opportunities to work from anywhere and access solutions wherever and whenever they are needed, leading to great productivity gains. Yet mobile computing in the enterprise also brings security risks by introducing many new attack vectors such as outside equipment, connections to unauthorized wireless networks, and platforms without mature antivirus systems in place. The federal government has lately been taking strides to capitalize on these new opportunities by incorporating mobile devices while mitigate those risks.

Michael McCarthy, who heads the Army’s Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications project, believes that Android devices will be approved for military networks within a year, and that they will also be approved for use on NSA Secret networks. DISA already approved Dell’s Streak 5 Android tablet and last month issued a request for information for market research on wireless service and hardware for soldiers in Europe. According to McCarthy, Apple products are currently behind due to military concerns over the security and control of their supply chain.

On the civilian side of things, the Census Bureau is looking to try again to implement tablets for the 2020 census after their 2010 efforts resulted in costly errors and a return to traditional paper forms.  In addition, FAA CIO Steve Cooper recently announced that a small number of Apple iPads can connect directly to the FAA network in a pilot program. While the FAA typically resttricts mobile access by employees, the controlled group is allowed to sync their tablets to their work desktops. At an AFCEA event, Cooper said that the FAA handles security by allowing their team to access on the tablets but didn’t go into detail. Their approach is protecting the data rather than the device: ”Nobody is after the device. You want the device? Here, I’ll give it to you. Steal that–but if you can’t get to the data, who cares?”

One of the largest efforts to embrace mobile has been by the VA, which plans to buy up to 100,000 tablets, likely iPads, primarily for medical clinicians. The VA’s acquisition strategy includes a Mobile Device Management (MDM) system to securely and efficiently manage and connect mobile devices to the enterprise network. According to a performance work statement, “the MDM solution allows VA to gain visibility to the devices as well as apply enforcement of VA security, management and other applicable policies to the devices from an enterprise perspective.”

Fortunately, solutions like this exist. One leader in mobile device management is Fixmo, which was born out of technology transfer from the NSA. Fixmo Sentinel can ensure that a device is always in a trusted state, maintain device policy and configuration across the infrastructure, verify, deploy and manage mobile applications, enforce policy, and monitor compliance. Hopefully, as such technology matures and becomes even more prevalent, mobile will cease being such a challenge and the federal government can take full advantage of this great new technology.

Related articles

• Fixmo And Mobile Risk Management For Enterprise and Government Agencies (ctovision.com)
• FAA embraces iPads more closely (ctolabs.com)
• Latest Tablet Fans: U.S. Census Bureau (ctolabs.com)
• Android is expected to soon win approval for use on military networks (bobgourley.com)

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The Office of Consular Systems and Technology (CST) leads the State Department‘s IT efforts.  This is an amazing organization that has been delivering high quality, high throughput systems and solutions for years. This group really is our first line of defense against threat actors so we should all be thankful the team here performs at this level.

Don’t just take our word for it.  Consider the incredible amount of recognition this small team has been generating. There is a huge list of awards for their innovative and effective service.

In 2009, CST won two Excellence.Gov Awards from the American Council for Technology/Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) for the Passport Card/Border Crossing Card project to create two enhanced, card-sized identification documents for American and Mexican nationals to improve border security, and for the the  Travel.State.Gov (TSG) website, which presents users with foreign  travel and safety information and provides several mobile,  interactive means to access consular information. The awards were for transparency, using IT to help the flow of information between the government and the public. Kirit Amin, CIO of the Bureau of Consular Affairs and Director for the Office of Consular Systems and Technology, also recieved two awards, an Outstanding Achievement Award for innovation from the AFCEA (Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association) and a Government Computer News award for innovation, excellence, and service in his work on the Passport Card/Border Crossing Card project.

In 2010, the Consular Consolidated Database (CCD), a unified database of all biometric and biographical information for passport and visa applicants that simplified access to critical national security information, was presented with the Excellence.Gov award. CST also recieved an award from the Government Information Technology Executive Council for the Consular Affairs Virtual Environment (CAVE). CAVE was selected for excellent project management, virtualization, and cloud computing.

In 2011, CST was lauded by numerous organizations across multiple categories. It won another GITEC award, this time for Project Management Excellence in the Department of State’s Green IT Initiative. CST recieved two nominations and one Excellence.Gov award, again for its Green IT Initiative, and also for it’s Biometric/Facial Recognition System, the largest and most successful facial recognition system deployed in the world with over 134 million searchable faces in its database, and the Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC), which allows users worldwide to complete and submit application forms, make payments, attach documents and photos, and check the status of their application online. CST once again won a Government Computer News award for “Outstanding Information Technology Achievement in Government” and another AFCEA Outstanding Achievement Award, this time for data sharing, for the Consular Consolidated Database. The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM)-compliant Enterprise Service Oriented Migration Program won a Best of NIEM award for dedication, commitment, and achievement in efficiency. This year, CST also won two awards from the Association For Federal Information Resources Management (AFFIRM), a Leadership Award in Service Excellence for the CEAC team and a Leadership Award in Service of the Country to Kirit Amin.

CST has earned these accolades by exemplifying the best of information technology’s potential, making our borders and nation more secure while at the same time increasing efficiency and transparency as well as driving innovation.

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I’m hoping to run into CTOvision.com readers at the upcoming AFCEA Fall Intelligence Symposium.  This conference is already sold out (they have a track record of always being standing room only events).  If you can’t be there perhaps you can track down someone who is going and get a debrief from them on how it goes.  It will be very hard for me to print info here from the conference because of the classification the event runs at.  But, if I find a speaker addressing a topic at an unclassified level and think it will be of interest to readers here I will approach that speaker and ask for a separate interview for posting here.

The text below is from the AFCEA site at: http://www.afcea.org/events/fallintel/10/welcome.asp

2010 marks the beginning of a year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the National Reconnaissance Office and 50 years of space intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).  In the past half-century, both the capabilities of the assets and the needs of the consumers have undergone dramatic change.

The AFCEA Fall Intelligence Symposium will explore this evolution to shed light on the future of space reconnaissance.  Speakers from a broad cross-section will highlight the space reconnaissance contributions of the NRO, other government agencies, commercial space, and non-U.S. space.  Helping to mark the importance of this special event, DNI James Clapper will make one of his first official appearances and provide his perspectives on his role as the DNI and the future of space ISR.  The agenda has been designed to help participants understand the changes in the strategic and operational environments in which space ISR will operate.  Experts will discuss the role of space superiority in the context of the U.S. national security imperative. Additionally, the program will address the needs and concerns of users, overseers, and producers of space assets and highlight where industry can help.

There is a very distinguished lineup of speakers including:

• The Honorable James Clapper
• General Bruce Carlson, USAF (ret)
• Dr. Lawrence Gershwin
• Dr. Andrew Palowitch
• Mr. Charles Allen
• LtGen John Campbell, USAF (ret)
• Ms. Lorraine Castro
• Mr. Tom Conroy
• Ms. Eve Douglas
• Maj Gen Richard O’Lear, USAF (ret)
• And many others.

Mission-focused topics being addressed include:

• What kinds of systems will the NRO be fielding in the next ten years and beyond?
• What will be the role of the NRO in the larger Space ISR picture in the future?
• What are and what will be the NRO’s greatest challenges in the future?
• How has the government/industry partnership been affected by acquisition reforms and how can it be made better?
• What are the future programmatic and budgetary prospects for the NRO?
• What can and is the NRO doing to bring transforming technologies to the reconnaissance mission?
• How would you characterize the demands for space support by combatant commanders and are they being satisfied?
• What are the shortcomings of the US Government’s current structures for the management of space and ISR issues?
• How do we ensure that critical “strategic” requirements (e.g., major new weapon systems that could strike the U.S. homeland, strategic “surprise” issues, or proliferation concerns) are being met in today’s environment where we have forces engaged in tactical combat operations?
• Is the current collection management system for integrating collection priorities for space and air assets the best approach to balance “strategic” and “tactical” ISR requirements?
• Have we struck the “proper” balance between collection systems and processing, exploitation, and dissemination (PED) systems?
• How would you evaluate the risk of foreign suppliers to U.S. systems?
• How important is a diversity of technology and expertise sources.
• What is the best security posture for the US space systems to maintain?
• Given increased military dependence on space assets of all kinds, what is the increased risk to national security presented by the ability of other nations to disrupt our space activities?
• What are the policy implications related to space protection, and how are we addressing them?
• What was the rationale and ultimate goal in establishing a Space Protection Office?
• What are successful examples of using of commercial capabilities for ISR from space?
• What changes in law, policy, and practice are necessary to encourage commercial investment in government-required space ISR capabilities?  Realistically, is there a champion for these changes?
• Should the U.S. continue to rely on foreign sources to fulfill some requirements, or should it enable U.S industry to develop these technologies?
• Have we got the right mix of space capabilities for the nation in the future?
• Who should acquire what piece of the space architecture?
• How is/can the Air Force contribute to space-based intelligence?
• How can the U.S. best mix size and capacity of payload to availability and cost of launch?
• How can we maintain a healthy domestic space industry?  Is outsourcing to foreign launchers an option?
• What are the studies recommending we do regarding space launch? What else should be done?

My recommendation: Since AFCEA holds conferences like this one twice a year (there is a spring and fall intelligence symposium) you will get lots of advanced notice of the dates of the next one.  Sign up for it as soon as it is announced.  It is always a great event.

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The Honorable John G. Grimes

On September 15th, 2010, The Honorable John G. Grimes was presented with the AFCEA David Sarnoff Award.

This award was established by AFCEA as the organization’s highest honor, to recognize individuals who have made lasting and significant contributions to global peace. Recipients have demonstrated a sustained and personal commitment to furthering communications, electronics, and information technologies toward achieving a more secure tomorrow.

More from AFCEA about the meaning of this award:

The Award’s namesake, David Sarnoff, exemplifies those great individuals whose work, sacrifice, enthusiasm and patriotism form the backbone of America. An early pioneer in the radio industry, Sarnoff quickly rose to prominence in the fledgling telecommunications business. During World War II, he experienced first-hand how open dialogue and strong relationships between government and industry in times of peace can help ensure effective communications during wartime. As the Founding Father of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association – AFCEA as it is known today – Sarnoff established the Association’s legacy of communication, dialogue, and an open and ethical information exchange between the Public and Private Sectors. These principles remain the pillars of AFCEA International today.

Previous Sarnoff recipients include Vice President Dick Cheney, General Colin Powell, Vice President Al Gore, Norm Augustine, Admiral Bobby Inman, Senator Barry Goldwater, Admiral Archie Clemins, The Honorable Duane Andrews, Dr. Ralph Shrader, General Richard Myers, Senator Daniel Inouye, Admiral Edmund Giambastiani, General Michael Hayden, General James Cartwright, and Senator John Warner.

I have had the great honor of knowing John Grimes for several years, and can say first-hand that he embodies all the qualities you would expect a Sarnoff award winner would have. He has a genus for connecting concepts and ideas, an incredible memory for facts, and deep insights into technology and how it really works.  Of more importance, he has a keen ability to understand organizations, missions and people and when you mix all that in with the fact that he is also a really polite, pleasant person to be around it means he is an incredible exemplar for all technologists to learn from and model. Like many others in the national security community he also cares greatly about society and his country and gives greatly of his time for activities of national importance.

Read more about The Honorable John G. Grimes and the Sarnoff Award here: AFCEA David Sarnoff Award

Read more about AFCEA here: Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association

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Good conferences can really help you get things done.  You connect with people you need to meet, learn new trends, gain insights into customer perspectives and keep improving your own abilities.  But you already know that.  You probably also know that you can go overboard with conferences. You can spend so much time in them it can detract from getting your job done.

So the trick is finding the right events/conferences/meetings to go to.  I list some below I would like to draw your attention to- for me they are the right events for the rest of 2009.  Please consider whether or not these are strategic fits for what you have going on:

SummerOfGov,  16 July.  This is not a conference, it is a social celebration of two key milestones in the history of government 2.0.  We will be celebrating the wrap up of Apps for Democracy “Community Edition” and the one year anniversary of GovLoop.   It would be good to see you there.

Open Government & Innovations Conference (OGI), July 21-22.   The agenda shows some incredible keynotes.  I know many of the people involved in organizing this and they are world class people looking to enhance concepts like open government, innovation, transparency, collaboration and support to the mission of government.

Gov2.0 Summit: The Platform for Change, September 9-10.   This gathering is a summit in every sense of the word.  Some of the most powerful mission and IT thinkers from government, the IT industry and academia are coming together in a venue designed to change the way the government serves.  One look at the agenda and you will see why this gathering is the must attend event of the year.

AFCEA IT Acquisition Solutions, September 9-10.   An incredibly important topic.  The dates coincide with the Gov2.0 summit.  That sort of conference collision is unavoidable, unfortunately.  But the good news is that AFCEA always does a remarkable job of capturing content for online use.

Adobe MAX 2009, October 4-7  Adobe’s annual come together for developers, designers and planners.  I won’t be able to make it, but will be tracking it online.  If you go please keep me in  the loop.

1st Annual Government IT Conference & Expo, October 6.  I’ll be giving the keynote at this first of Sys-con’s new federal series.  This one is focused on cloud computing, with a focus on private clouds and ways to best use clouds in support of the government mission.

Virtualization, Cloud Computing and Green IT Summit, October 6-7.   The intersection of green/virtualization/cloud can put us on a very virtuous spiral that continually builds on itself while inproving computer power and functionality.  This promises to be a good event that will give you real information you can use.

Fall Intelligence Symposium, October 14.  If you work in the national security space please review this agenda.  This conference always sells out.

I should also mention that if you can’t be at one of those conferences you should figure out who to follow on Twitter and what the hashtags for the conference are.  That will give you a sense of what is going on and it will also generate pointer for you to things like blogs people are writing during and after the conference.

If you and I are not already connected on Twitter, find me at http://twitter.com/bobgourley I’ll send out what I can from those events.

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I’ve just posted a draft paper on my site on the topic of Cloud Computing and DoD’s Net Centric Operations.   My intent with this paper is to keep beating it up till it is in condition to publish, and I would value your comments on the paper.  Please check it out at:

Cloud_Computing_and_Net_Centric_Operations-3

[late entry: for an updated version of that paper see: http://www.whitehouse.gov/cyberreview/documents/ ]

One of the things I learned while pulling together this info is that honest people disagree, sometimes vehemently, on exactly what the term Cloud Computing means.  For that reason I recommend anyone writing or briefing the topic start with a definition right up front.  For the purposes of the paper I’m working on for DoD I mention two ways to look at the term.  For most users, they view anything done elsewhere as “cloud” computing.  For most technologists and architects they view “cloud computing” as a much more elegant term which implies new ways of providing capability on demand by use of virtualized resources, pools of storage and other scalable computational resources.

Note, I’m very thankful to the dozens of friends and associates who have already commented on this paper.   Most initial dialog I had on the paper was via Twitter, which once again proved to me the value of that cloud based capability.

Bob

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I ran into so many friends at the AFCEA solutions conference this week.  One guy I have not seen in person for years is  Mike “Ziggy” Steinmetz.  Ziggy is a great leader and thinker at Northrop Grumman.  He is also a tremendous collector of wisdom and a teacher who helped prepare me for my position as CTO of DIA.  Seeing him made me think I should share some of these lessons with you.

The lessons come from the true story of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team. The guys that did the impossible by defeating the Soviets.  We all know the story.  And there is a GREAT movie titled  “Miracle” that captures it very very well.  From the Amazon description of the movie: “Kurt Russell gives a brilliant performance as the dynamic and determined coach Herb Brooks, who had an impossible dream — beat the seemingly unbeatable Soviets at their own game. Starting with a handpicked group of 26 undisciplined kids, Brooks coached them to play like they never played before, and turned 20 of them into a team that believed they could achieve the unachievable — and in the process, united a nation with a new feeling of hope.”

Think of the coach of that team, Herb Brooks, and his strategy for winning.  He took players who once played for competing teams with long standing rivalries and forged a new team unlike any team that had ever played before.  The way he did it has direct lessons for many areas of leadership, especially technology leadership.

Watch the movie and look for these lessons/thoughts:

• Coach Herb Brooks convinced everyone that something different had to occur than had been occurring in the past.   ”Only way to succeed is to change the way we play the game. “  Then he engineered a strategy.
• Herb picked his team, not based on who the best technicians were, but who the best team players were:  “Not looking for the best players I am looking for the right players.”   How does this translate to technologists?  CTOs want skilled technical experts, but just as important is getting skilled technical experts who can work as part of a team.
• Cheap shots however self justified, hurt the team “This is not about old rivalries.”   As enterprises transition from the old way of doing things to the new way of doing things they must forget about our own old rivalries.
• Orientation early is by region:  “I’m Ralph Cox and I’m from where ever won’t get me hit.”   Herb worked them till they realized—they are on a new team now.   Frequently technologists must have the same light bulb go off.   Enterprise technologists sometimes need to be reminded they play for a bigger team than they used to.
• This is the same point Herb drives home when he says “ The name on the front is a hell of a lot more important than the name on the back”
• The team’s identity crisis had to be fixed as it was the source of a lot of the early problems. “Think you can win on talent alone…you don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone!”  “Name on the front is a hell of a lot more important than the name on the back”  “Win loose tie…you are going to play like champions” “If you want to make this team you had better start playing at a level that forces me to keep you here”.   Herb understood the consequences of the identity crisis the team faced he also understood he could not tell the team what their identity was; they had to figure that out for themselves.
• Herb’s unexpected personal comments of concern towards Jimmy Craig…”I’ve got to know why you are here and where you are coming from”  “I’m here aren’t I?”  “Don’t forget to bring your game”.
• NHL all stars lost because they played as individual all stars and not as a team.
• “All Stars won’t change their game” No one has ever worked hard enough to skate with the Soviets for an entire game…. we will!
• Dedication to improvement and personal improvement were key.
• The Carter “Crisis in Confidence speech” is a metaphor for many old, legacy enterprise technology environments.  “More believe they will be less better off in the next 5 years”.  “Stop crying start sweating, stop talking start walking”.
• 1st face-off in Madison Sq garden.  Mark Johnson looks at the Soviet Captain and it is still evident he is thinking in terms of individual vs. team effort.  “Jimmy Craig’s comment “you gotta listen to me” is a metaphor for the communications breakdown that led to the performance on the ice”
• O’Callaghan injury and the decision to keep him.  Herb knew that once the team was set it was less disruptive to go down a man than to introduce a new member of a successful team.
• “Pulling the goalie”  “Jimmy I Know there is more”  “Coach It’s my net.” “Jimmy, They just scored 10 goals…right now its anybodies net”
• ”Lets not turn this game into something it is not.”  “I’m not sure we have any control over that”.
• ”You earn opportunity” Through hard work you make it “your time”.
• Face-off to the 3rd period.  Compare Mark Johnson’s face to that 1st face-off in Madison Sq garden.  Finally they meet as mental and physical equals.  The difference…attitude and a string of “small successes.”   I have seen technology teams like this.  I’ve seen engineering teams who have decided to be world class best and so they are.  I’ve seen technologists set goals for themselves that have them walking among the giants of computer science and enterprise operations.

A CTO needs to do more than watch a movie to be a great CTO.  But this movie sure gives you things to think about.  So, a big thumbs up from the CTOvision movie review team. For more see: Miracle

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If you are a technologist, please take a moment to download the PDF of the report by the U.S. Commission on Cybersecurity.  This report, titled Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency, is the best proclamation of the challenges of cyber I have read.  It is also a roadmap that will help any trying to navigate these very tough issues.

I’ve been involved in things cyber for a long time.  My deepest
involvement began in December 1998, almost 10 years ago to the day.  In all that time I’ve seen lots of studies and lots of papers and many treatments of the issues.  But I’ve never seen one that captures the complexities and the need for specific actions as well as this one.

I’d really recommend you read every word, if you want to be considered literate in this field.   But if it will be a little while till you get to it, here are some key points:

The three major findings are:  1) Cybersecurity is now a major national security problem for the U.S., 2) Decisions and actins must respect privacy and civil liberties, and 3) only a comprehensive national security strategy that embraces both the domestic and international  aspects of cybersecurity will make us more secure.

The report makes a few points about the Bush Administration’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI).  In general the give credit to that initiative, and call it good.  I agree, it is a great activity I’ve previously written about that is led by one of the most effective people in government today and has done great work.  But as the commission points out, the work of the CNCI is good but not sufficient.

The biggest shock for me in this study:  The amount of funding on R&D for cyber security.  I have been looking into the many activities underway, and maybe that look made me deceive myself into thinking it was a well funded effort.  According to the comission, however, they estimate that the total R&D funding in the federal government for cybersecurity is about $300million.  Less than two-tenths of one percent of the total federal R&D.

The report has a great section on identity manangement.

I am convinced the organizational approaches outlined in the study are the right ones as well.  There is only one place in our government where we can lead solutions to this challenge.  Where is that?  Hey read the report!

What else do I recommend CTOs do besides read the report?  I think one way we can all help the cybersecurity effort is to think through which standards bodies are the most important to engage with regarding security.   A few are here:
http://ctovision.com/2008/05/standards-organizations-ctos-should-track/

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FYI, in case your schedule will allow us to connect in person I wanted
to update you on a few events I plan on being at over the next few
weeks.

The Advanced Technical Intelligence Association TECHINT conference will
be held 9-11 Dec 2008.  This conference focuses on the technical
dimensions of intelligence, and has a theme of “integrated
performance.”  The theme refers to the need to integrate capabilities
from all the agencies engaged in national security to better perform in
meeting our national security challenges.   On 9 Dec I’ll be speaking
at a panel on the real and growing threat in cyber space.  There will
be no blogging or tweeting from the conference.  But if you are going
to be there please drop me a note and lets connect in person there.
For info see http://masint.org

The AFCEA Solutions conference on Cyberspace will be held 10-11 Dec
2008 at the Ronald Reagan Center in DC.  This conference will be
focusing on the challenges and solutions of cyberspace related to
national security.  Speakers include Secretary of Homeland Security the
Honorable Michael Chertoff, The Deputy Secretary of Defense the
Honorable Gordon England, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks
and Information Integration the Honorable John Grimes, Ms. Melissa
Hathaway, senior adviser and cyber coordination executive for the
Director of National Intelligence, LTG Keith Alexander, Director of the
National Security Agency, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Information and Identity Assurance Mr. Bob Lentz and Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Information Management Mr. David Wennergren.
I’ll be speaking on a panel on Wednesday at 1530 on formulating a
common response.

• This unclas conference follows a model that AFCEA has been using for
  several similar events.  They are actively seeking ways to enhance the
  value of these conferences by leveraging more Web2.0 capabilities
  before, during and after the formal presentations.  Blogging and
  tweeting from the conference is encouraged. You can visit the site at: www.afceasolutions.org/group
  For the event schedule and program details can be found online here: www.afceasolutions.org

The US Army Intelligence Warfighting Summit will be held 15-17 Dec
2008.  This one will also be a conference where blogging and use of
twitter is not appropriate due to the sensitivity of info discussed.
However, I would appreciate knowing if you will be going so we can
connect there in person.  Speakers will include the most senior Army
intelligence leadership, plus Vice Admiral Bob Murrett from NGA, LTG
Alexander from NSA, and Scott McNealy from Sun Microsystems.  For more
on the event see: http://www.ncsi.com/iws08/index.shtml

So, if you are going to any of these please let me know.

And please follow me on Twitter so I can send you a few bursts from the AFCEA conference.  I’m at http://www.twitter.com/bobgourley

Cheers.

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There are several megatrends sweeping the technology industry today.  Some of them are about to be accelerated.

I like to use five key topic areas to track megatrends in IT:

Over the past two months two major events have occurred which are impacting these trends.

The first was the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the resulting cascading effects on the financial industry.  The impact on IT spending and the movement of more enterprises to grid/cloud computing because of that are still being assessed, but for some thoughts see: Wall Street Crisis

The second was the Presidential election of Barack Obama.  President-Elect Obama has long articulated a technology strategy on his website.  It is most definitely worth a read by all enterprise technologists since it will form the basis of many of his policies and actions.  For some context, here is a paragraph that struck a cord with many enterprise technologists:

But perhaps more important than his stated technology platform is the energy behind the election and the new spirit that will be coming with him into government.   Part of that energy was discussed by Tim O’Reilly in a 29 Oct 2008 Endorsement.  A key slice of that endorsement read:

Based on the above and my views of enterprise technology today, the following is my analysis of the impact of the election on the key IT megatrends:

Convergence and trend towards unified communications and user empowerment

Consumerization and user empowerment has been the most important trend in IT for several years and is driving many other trends in the industry, including Cloud Computing.  This trend is almost a force unto itself and I don’t believe the Obama election or the excitement it generated will do anything to change this trend.   In fact, we could argue that this trend itself picked the next president.  The Obama team made the best use of the consumer technologies touching people everywhere, including social media, cell phones and of course the Internet.  So his team had people who understood the megatrend and took action to accelerate it into their campaign.   What if the critically beneficial trend of consumerization of IT had not been in place?  If consumerization had not been driving IT would this election have resulted this way?  Hard to tell, but to the point of my analysis, this trend is a force of nature of its own and I do not believe the exciting results of the election will change it other than to help move more social media into old government organizations.

But, we can assume that the senior team of the President Elect, the ones who will be leading the transition of the government, know the power of social media and consumer IT very well and will accelerate the use of Web2.0/Gov2.0/Social Media in government.

Globalization and increasing internationalization of IT and demographic shifts

There is a global competition for talent and for several years it has seemed like the US was on the loosing side of this trend.  There is a significant chance that this trend will continue, with Asia especially generating demand for technology talent.  But the energy of the US and the huge respect the country is gaining because of this election may be a mitigating factor in the competition for talent.

Increasing open development of software and hardware

This too is a trend all its own.  Open source software is clearly a force which is unstoppable already.  Here too, the Obama campaign appears to have leveraged open source sofware by extensive use of free and open software like MySQL.  (Sun Microsystem’s MySQL is the open source technology platform that powered BarakObama.com).

Power, Cooling and Space (PCS) impacting data centers and every place computing is done

Although this is another trend that is bigger than any one campaign, we have to assume that the energy savings, power savings and space savings of modernizing IT will be benefits that are highly regarded by the new administration and at least for the federal IT enterprise these trends will continue.

Increasing pace of technology development and probability of disruption.

I firmly believe that the speed of technology development will continue to accelerate.   At this time I don’t see the election as having a big impact on this trend on the short term.   It is clear that the new administration will be working hard to capture the energy and excitement of the populace to move the country forward on several issues, and in doing so that will hopefully improve the environment for startups and other technology generators.  But the bottom line here is that positive change and disruption of enterprise IT is going to be a fact of life and would be no matter who was elected.

The Significance of the Above

Now what is the meaning of these changes?  Here is a short list of assessments:

- Look for even more use of grid/cloud computing.  This will include more cloud computing in government.  Vivek Kundra is the model here.   His pioneering efforts in leveraging cloud computing have generated real benefits many of us knew were possible but few of had the courage to implement.

- Look for an enhancement to the current CNCI (Comprehensive National Cyber Initiative).   IT will be secured in government.  With a strong federal CTO we can expect some changes to the current approach to the CNCI. Most, if not all, unauthorized intrusions into federal systems could be prevented with a strong CTO in place.

- Expect to see much much more use of open source software and hardware in the federal enterprise, which will continue to drive more adoption by open source software in commercial sectors.   Expect to see a more widespread adoption of Open Office, Linux, Solaris, ZFS,  and MySQL.   This will be done for agility, flexibility, security and expense.

- Expect to see large pushes for automation of backend IT processes.

- Although federal IT budgets will be under significant downward pressure, good ideas regarding virtualization, automation and other high payoff disruptive technologies will be welcome and there will still be IT modernization efforts underway throughout the government.

Do you agree, disagree, or have other thoughts?  Please let me know.

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