Defenestrated

UK government advocates open source

This is truly fantastic. The UK government has decided that, where there is little price difference between open source and commercial products, open source should be selected due to its inherent flexibility. The initiative is also promoting re-use of product evaluations, and has created an open forum where the public can view and contribute to the action plan. Great stuff!

UK government launches data mash-up

This is a fantastic idea: opening up government data to enable users to create new ways of using it that might be beneficial to the country as a whole. The government's admittance that its people are smarter than itself is the first step to recovery. <grin>

Walker leaves GAO to lead USA transformation non-profit

According to a press release issued by the GAO last week, David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, is leaving government to head up the newly-formed Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which is dedicated to "sensible policy solutions to a range of sustainability and transformation challenges" that face the USA today. This is really interesting because Walker has been very outspoken (for a government employee) about Congress's failures to take action on impending structural and economic problems facing the country.

I wrote about Walker a couple of times before: once regarding the Fiscal Wake Up Tour and another time about his appearance on The Colbert Report. He makes extremely compelling arguments about the need for policy makers to put aside their usual squabbling and pay attention to fundamental problems occurring in the country's economy but, as he notes...

"As Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO, there are real limitations on what I can do and say in connection with key public policy issues, especially issues that directly relate to GAO's client -- the Congress. My new position will provide me with the ability and resources to more aggressively address a range of current and emerging challenges facing our country, including advocating specific policy solutions and courses of action. This move will enable me to sharpen my messages and bring focus and attention to the fiscal and other key sustainability challenges that I and others have been discussing during the past several years."

He's clearly been chomping at the bit to speak out more, and this position in the Foundation may well give him that opportunity -- especially with a $1 BILLION endowment.

Through the prism of TCG's aim to save taxpayers $1 billion by 2011, this is an exciting development!

Reminder: Excellence.Gov Awards nominations due November 16th

I'm co-chairing the 2008 Excellence.Gov Awards, with Andy Lieber of Grant Thornton, and last Friday we extended the nomination deadline to Friday November 16. So get your nominations in, at www.actgov.org/excellencegovawards. For all the info you need, click to continue reading.

OMB GMLOB guidance released for Q1 FY08

Thanks to Jerry Ashworth at Thompson Publishing, editor of the Federal Grants Management Handbook (disclosure: I'm a member of the Handbook Advisory Board), for pointing me toward the GrantSolutions.gov site where OMB's latest guidance has been posted. This is the guidance that agencies need to meet the Q1 FY08 milestone to sign an MOU with a GMLOB consortia lead or file an appeal. The files are also available here:

1. Consortium+Selection+Appeals+Guidance+Final-4.doc
2. Consortium+Selection+Appeals+Request+Form+Final-1.doc
3. FitGap+and+Appeals+Guidance+FAQs+10.12.2007.doc

I intend to review these a little later, and post some additional thoughts about the kinds of information agencies will need to make a full determination of fit/gaps.

Free training on neuroimaging tools clearinghouse tomorrow

If you have an interest in neuroimaging informatics tools and resources, you should attend the free, online training being held tomorrow on the Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse. NITRC, as the site is known, is being built by NIH as part of the Blueprint for Neuroscience to improve collaboration in tools and data across the neuroimaging community. (TCG is the contractor building and maintaining the site on the NIH's behalf.)

So come along to the training session and learn how you can benefit from and participate in the NITRC!

GSA changes tack on FederalSpending.gov solicitation. Again

FCW reports that GSA issued another modification to its solicitation for the data and system to power FederalSpending.gov by January 1st; now they just want data and no software. This is all rather inscrutable to me. From the article:

"GSA ... didn’t say why they changed the RFP. GSA did say in its answers that it didn’t want groomed software, only groomed data that will run in the government’s software."

So what's this software that the government has? Where's it come from? Could it possibly be the system that GCE (who supports FPDS-NG) released yesterday?

FFATA.org launched

You wait ages for an easy way to search federal awards data and then two come along at once! Well, almost. The folks who currently support the Federal Procurement Data System - Next Generation (known as FPDS-NG) have launched a competitor site to OMB Watch's FedSpending.org, and they're calling it FFATA.org (cheeky!).

As FCW reports, Global Computer Enterprises (GCE) has launched FFATA.org based on the data already in FPDS-NG, with additions of grant awards data. I've just done a couple of quick searches and the results seem fine but somewhat less user-friendly than at FedSpending.org. Your mileage may vary, though, so give it a whirl!

We're still awaiting word, of course, on who will get the contract to build FederalSpending.gov, the government's own site that will meet the FFATA requirements. Maybe it'll be GCE, maybe it'll be the folks supporting OMB Watch. GCE has definitely shown that they can produce a viable site, though -- and demonstrating that very thing was a pre-requisite in the RFP for FederalSpending.gov.

Our company is trying to save $1 billion

I work for TCG, a small government IT consulting company in Washington, DC. We just announced our new company goal today -- to save taxpayers $1 billion by 2011. This is quite an ambitious goal, to be sure, but we're already $75 million there. You can read more about it on the TCG blog.

FDP: Grants.gov Update

Terry Nicolosi provided an update on the Grants.gov system. She was joined by Harsha Rao, Gary Alfano (both from General Dynamics), Doug Privelege (from Adobe), and Vince Sprouls. Lots of interesting information here, including the fact that IBM Workplace Forms (aka PureEdge) and Adobe systems will run in parallel through FY2008. [Pradon any typos... I'm getting these notes out ASAP and have to run to an appointment at my kid's school!]