Defenestrated

GSA buying OMB Watch's FedSpending.org solution for FFATA

Well it looks like GSA is going to base FederalSpending.gov, the Web site intended to meet the requirements of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA), on OMB Watch's FedSpending.org site, which was created by a contractor called Eagle Eye. At least, that's what this FedBizOpps posting [PDF version] suggests!

According to the posting, "The launch of the Government Web site for search of contracts and grants is scheduled for August 2007," which is exciting news indeed! This seems like an excellent approach to meeting the legislative requirement. Combined with the news from four days ago about the DOD-sourced "net-centric" approach for the site's long-term future, I think GSA may just have a winning strategy on its hands.

FFATA update from FCW

Jason Miller at FCW has just published an article providing some very interesting details about progress towards fulfilling the requirements of FFATA, such as:

By July 31, DOD expects to begin testing the technology behind what OMB officials hope will be a foundation for a permanent federal spending database. Using lessons learned and technology from DOD’s Maritime Domain Awareness Community of Interest, DOD will apply Web services to create a portal for integrating the General Services Administration’s Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG) and various DOD spending databases.

There are also short-term measures being taken, syphoning data from FAADS into a new system that will meet the January legislative requirements.

Grants.gov Webcast 7/19/2007

I missed the first 30 minutes of the webcast due to a conflicting meeting. Here are the notes I took from 30 minutes in.
[UPDATE: The slide presentation, including the bits that I missed, is available here.]

Cayuse launches Grantopedia blog

Grantopedia is a new grants management blog being fully launched tomorrow, sponsored by Cayuse. From the press release:

“Through our work with Grants.gov, universities and federal funding agencies we have met and engaged with many well-informed people with exceptional insights into the opportunities that Grants.gov presents,” said Dr. Christian Harker, president and founder of Cayuse. “Grantopedia is our way of providing a forum for those people to share their thoughts with the larger grant community.”

Christian and I talked about TCG's blog, Behind the Curtain at TCG, which also focuses on grants management, and the objectives we have for it. One of those objectives is to inspire debate and discussion in the broader community, so I'm delighted that Grantopedia is now on the map.

To date, our blog has featured posts by TCG employees. Grantopedia takes a different tack, with guest authors such as Jennifer Flach, formerly system-to-system coordinator at the National Institutes of Health, Dan Nordquist, director of the Office of Grant and Research Development for Washington State University, and Bob Beattie, University of Michigan’s liaison to Grants.gov. This is a great idea and I'm ashamed we didn't think of it first! Cayuse has promised to refrain from advertising their own products through the blog, to keep the discussion as vendor neutral as possible.

Check it out. There's already an interesting post from Bob to enjoy!

Government blogging and use of LinkedIn

Chris Dorobek, the editor of FCW, had two posts last week about blogging and the use of LinkedIn, which are both worth a look. I'm an advocate of both blogging (duh) and LinkedIn (see?) because there's distinct value in them.

I started Defenestrated four years ago as a way to experiment with the technology and see what percolated up from the miasma of what I mockingly call my brain. Over time the blog became a useful tool through which I recorded snippets of information and thoughts to refer back to over time. (The blog's name also changed from "The Fella" (a woeful stab at humor based on my Britishness) to its current name because I realized that I was really just chucking information out a virtual window, letting it pile up on the ground outside.) It's proven incredibly useful as a way to quickly store information, which is why I've continued with it over the years. It turned out that other people have shared my interest in certain posts, and have sifted through that pile beneath the window, and we've developed friendships as a result. All in all, Defenestrated has been a very successful experiment.

Our company started the Behind the Curtain at TCG blog to repeat this model, and focus on our areas of domain expertise (grants management, support of scientific communities, e-government, systems integration) to record for ourselves and others information that we feel is important. A happy side-effect of that is the community of interest that's developed around the blog. We have people from all sides of our community reading and contributing comments to the blog -- government agencies, competitors, users, and so on. We'll be continuing with the blog for as long as it's useful.

As for LinkedIn: My job is to find, qualify, and pursue business opportunities with the federal government. The Beltway is an enormous place but also close-knit, and one's ability to operate in this environment is dependent on connections with others with the same or complimentary interests. In other words, the power of a the social network is incredibly important in government IT -- just as it is in most other spheres. This is where LinkedIn excels, by making the network more transparent and useful. For example, if I'm looking for someone with a particular skill, I will naturally go to LinkedIn and search my network for people who can help me. By accessing the knowledge of the people I already know, I help myself (and those people) get more business, know more people, and hence improve the collective power of the network almost exponentially.

In his posts, Chris Dorobek wonders whether people really read his blogs, or if they use LinkedIn. While I may not necessarily be an average user (I readily profess to being firmly on the geek side of executive), I am certainly engaged in these tools as a part of my everyday life. Twitter and MySpace, though, are completely lost on me.

iPhone: Will it bend?

This is just wrong.

Intellipedia - how Intelligence agencies use blogs, wikis, and social software

This is a really interesting presentation about how intelligence agencies use social software (blogs, wikis, tagging, etc.) to get their work done better. It's really quite fascinating about how they've cut facetime and improved productivity. The presenter, Chris Rasmussen (Knowledge Management Officer, Intellipedia, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency), has even taken the approach of banning e-mail and meetings in DC on some projects so that the best people can be involved from across the world asynchronously.

Grants.gov Webcast, July 19th

I thought some of you may be interested in this upcoming event!

Please join us for the next Grants.gov Stakeholder Webcast on Thursday, July 19, 2007, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. This meeting will be a webcast only; registration is NOT required.

Before July 19:
1. Go to http://www.hud.gov/webcasts/index.cfm
2. Click on an archived webcast link to ensure your connection is working properly.
3. If you do not have the appropriate viewer, you will be redirected to a free download.

If you require technical webcast assistance, call 202-708-6067 or check out the Help and Troubleshooting section on the HUD webcast webpage.

On July 19:
1. Go to http://www.hud.gov
2. Go to the bottom right hand corner of the page under the title “Now Playing.” At 12:30 Eastern Time on July 19th the Grants.gov Stakeholder Webcast will be visible.
3. Click on this link and you will be connected. (Please note that this link for Grants.gov will not be available prior to July 19th at 12:30.)

Essential US e-gov reading

This is a quote from Tim Young of OMB about the push behind the e-gov initiatives, taken from an AFFIRM round-table discussion documented on FCW:

We have a saying in the office — OMB Deputy Director for Management] Clay Johnson penned this one. “With transparency, you get clarity. With clarity, you get accountability. And only through accountability do you get enduring results.” What we’re trying to do when we talk to [people on] the Hill and [officials at] agencies is be very transparent and be very clear about what we’re trying to accomplish and talk about the outcomes, not the outputs.

The round-table featured an alarmingly diverse cast of characters, such as Tim, Jack Jones of the NIH, Puvvada Venkatapathi of Unisys, Mark Krzysko of DOD, and Chas Phillips of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. So the rest of the discussion is a very interesting read, too, with topics that will be of interest to anyone involved in e-gov or improving government through technology, such as:

• Opening up government to enable anyone to build government Web 2.0 sites
• How to sell e-gov to Congress
• The traits of successful programs (and unsuccessful programs)

GPC Webcast now available (and send your feedback!)

Just got this through the NGP:

Did you say goodbye too early?

On June 19, 2007, the Grants Policy Committee held a successful Webcast. The subject of the Webcast was grant life cycle changes: data and reporting requirements and impacts on awardee and federal communities, policies, and planning.

The production crew inadvertently informed the viewers that the webcast had ended prematurely before the QUESTION & ANSWER period. Examples of questions you missed:

• With respect to the new proposed standard reporting formats, what is the approximate timeframe that is expected for final roll out of these forms? And, is there a target date that grantees should anticipate the requirement to use these new forms?
• How can my institution participate in the subaward pilot
• Regarding FFATA, I was informed that the intent is to pull acquisition data from FPDS-NG. Is the same intent to pull grants data from FAADS? When will FAAS be web-based?

If you missed the webcast or the Q&A period that followed, all you have to do is click here: http://www.hud.gov/webcasts/archives/grantees.cfm

We need your feedback!!

While the production team has estimated over a thousand viewers, we only had 7 feedback forms completed. We desperately need more forms in order for our work to be based on statistically relevant data. Please please take a moment to click here to fill out the form: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/surveyform.cfm

Or, if you prefer you can print out the attached form and fax it to me (Charisse Carney-Nunes) at 703.292.9255