2010 will undoubtedly be a year of technology. In 2009, Twitter revolutionized the way we get news, it brought us closer to those who were a part of the news, almost making traditional media irrelevant. I don’t know who (or what) will be the Twitter of 2010, but below are a few predictions for...
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I’ve mentioned before that I run my small business, Crucial Point LLC, primarily by leveraging cloud computing capabilities. With this post I’ll mention a book that helped me do that: Google Apps: The Missing Manual. This book does a great job at capturing the core functionality of Google Apps. However, no book can keep...
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The importance of cloud computing was a significant theme at this week’s  Government 2.0 Summit Two of the most influential people in the cloud computing market — Amazon CTO Werner Vogels and General Services Administration CIO Casey Coleman — talked today at the Gov 2.0 Summit about cloud computing’s high potential as a cheaper,...
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One of my favorite examinations of the role of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is Tom Berray’s”Roles of the CTO: Four Models for Success. ” If you are an enterprise CTO or any technologist looking for career context I strongly recommend it to you for its situational awareness and context. Tom writes of CTOs...
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The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Information Technology Laboratory is working on a definition of cloud computing (version 14 of their working draft is on their site and is looking great).  Like other NIST efforts they have taken a collaborative/collegial approach in building this definition.  You can find the full definition at...
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INSA, the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, is a group of professionals from academia, industry and government who seek to enhance innovation, discussion, debate and progress on key national security issues.  I’ve been involved as a member for years and get the pleasure of interacting with folks from a wide swath of the community....
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Every CTO I know has heard of Vivek Kundra, CTO of the District of Columbia.  We have all been following his accomplishments in transforming the technology program in DC and have watched in excitement as more and more capabilities have been rolled out to serve the city and its citizens. We have followed reports...
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The idea of light-weight, low-cost, but very powerful laptops designed for a smaller feature set than traditional laptops has been around for a decade or so.  But all indications are that something has changed in the market place.   Due to a convergence of many factors, netbooks are growing in sales.  These factors include...
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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...
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