Advice to reinstated CIO: Lead by example

The New York Times reports that Vivek Kundra has been reinstated to his post as the federal government’s Chief Information Officer. From the article:

It seems that Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who is also chairman of the Democratic National Committee, had pleaded Mr. Kundra’s case to the White House to get him reinstated. After the FBI raid on Mr. Kundra’s old office, the White House wanted to distance itself from him and placed him on leave, according to someone familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for anyone. Mr. Kundra felt his reputation had come under a cloud, this person said, and over the last few days, as his friends began to rally support for him, he called Governor Kaine, for whom he once worked.

The governor called the White House and pleaded Mr. Kundra’s case, according to the person familiar with the matter although a spokesman for Mr. Kaine said he was unaware of any contact. It is not clear who he spoke with. But the person familiar with the situation said that Mr. Kaine said that since Mr. Kundra was not under investigation, he should be reinstated. Otherwise, he said, Mr. Kundra’s reputation would be ruined and the administration would miss out on having someone with valuable skills help with its important task of making the government more transparent.

I am glad to see Kundra back on the job. I hope this means he’ll start updating his Twitter feed and shed some light into these recent events. This is the perfect opportunity to lead by example.

What I’m reading

Just a few tech articles I found interesting this morning…

Cisco’s virtualization push could benefit consumers

Number of People Using Mobile Devices Doubles

E-prescribing to soar with new spending

How to Launch a Business Presence on Twitter

Future shock: The PC of 2019

Obama’s iffy picks

Is it just me, or does it seem that Obama is having an especially difficult time getting people to serve on his team? Here’s a list of appointees who have withdrawn or been somehow attached to scandal. This list is compiled largely from a Wikipedia page laying out the timeline of Obama’s presidency so far, as well as other news sources, like Bloomberg, Reuters and others.

• February 3 – Obama nominates Senator Judd Gregg to be Secretary of Commerce, after Bill Richardson withdrew his nomination.^[30] Tom Daschle withdraws his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services,^[31][32] and Nancy Killefer withdraws her nomination as Chief Performance Officer, both citing tax problems.^[33]
• February 12 -  Judd Gregg, Obama’s nominee for the office of Commerce Secretary withdraws his nomination for that office.^[66][67][68]
• February 25 – Obama nominates former Governor of Washington Gary Locke to become United States Secretary of Commerce.^[92][93]
• March 5 – Sanjay Gupta withdraws his name for Surgeon General.^[104] Vivek Kundra is selected by Obama as first Federal Chief Information Officer.^[105] Former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission member Annette Nazareth drops out of the running to be deputy Treasury secretary.
• March 10 -  Chas Freeman withdraws from his appointment as chairman of the National Intelligence Council.^[111]
• March 12 - Vivek Kundra takes leave of absence after FBI raids DC Office of the CTO and arrests two of Kundra’s former staffers on bribery charges. Wall Street lawyer H. Rodgin Cohen withdraws from consideration to become deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary.
• March 13 – Rod Beckstrom, the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, resigns.

Am I missing anyone? Let me know and I’ll update.

Also, for some deeper insight on what’s going on with Vivek Kundra, check this out.

So much for transparency

Just days after Obama appointed Vivek Kundra to the lofty title of “America’s CIO,” the 34-year-old tech czar has taken a leave of absence. The reason? On Thursday, FBI officials raided Kundra’s former office (Kundra was chief technology officer for the District of Columbia, responsible for overseeing technology operations of 86 agencies) and arrested two staffers–Yusuf Acar, chief security officer for the DC CTO’s office, and Sushil Bansal–on bribery charges.

Kundra has not yet been linked directly with the investigation, but his quick disappearance certainly does not instill confidence.

White House names first federal CIO

Tech writers were all abuzz yesterday with the new appointment of Vivek Kundra as America’s new tech czar. I’ll be posting my thoughts soon on what his top priorities should be, but for now here are quick snippets from various sources:

Computerworld: “The U.S. government’s first CIO, Vivek Kundra, introduced himself today as someone who will act aggressively to change the federal government’s use of IT by adopting consumer technology and ensuring that government data is open and accessible.

Kundra also wants to use technology such as cloud computing to attack the government’s culture of big-contract boondoggles and its hiring of contractors who end up “on the payroll indefinitely.”

Kundra, in conference call today with reporters shortly after President Barack Obama named him as federal CIO said one of his first projects is to create a data.gov Web site to “democratize” the federal government’s vast information treasures by making them accessible in open formats and in feeds that can be used by application developers.”

New York Times: “He will have wide powers over federal technology spending, over information sharing between agencies, over greater public access to government information and over questions of security and privacy.

But he will also – as Mr. Obama mentioned twice in the space of a six-line comment distributed by the White House – look for ways to “lower the cost of government operations” through technology.

Mr. Kundra’s background seems to suit him well for both aspects of the job. Born in India, he lived in Tanzania until the age of 11, when he moved to the Maryland suburb of Gaithersburg. One of his first memories there, according to a profile last month in The Washington Post, was of seeing a dog-food commercial on television. “I was shocked,” he said. “I was used to seeing people starve in Africa. It was mind-boggling to me that people could afford to feed their dogs!”

He appears to bring a similar tight-fisted mentality to his oversight of technology in 86 District agencies.

In just 19 months with the District, Mr. Kundra has moved to post city contracts on YouTube and to make Twitter use common in his office and others. He hopes to allow drivers to pay parking tickets or renew their driver’s licenses on Facebook.”

Washington Post: “Obama also plans to appoint a chief technology officer who will work closely with Kundra, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcements are not yet official. The exact job description for that position has not yet been announced, but the chief technology officer might focus more on overall technology policy while the chief information officer will handle day-to-day spending and operations within agency projects.”

Creating Innovation Hubs

The Economist Intelligence Unit released a report earlier this week that explains how physical location is a key driver of innovation. Here are some key findings of the study (taken directly from the paper), based on an online survey of 200 senior executives from around the world:

* The most innovative locations are those with the healthiest supplies of talent. Ninety percent of executives surveyed consider access to skilled people to be critical for innovation. Nurturing talent requires top-notch education, which in turn plays a role in the tendency for likeminded organisations to “cluster”, or locate near each other. Organisations are willing to pay a premium for access to talent, and proximity to a cluster contributes to their ability to innovate.

* Policymakers can help to stimulate innovation in cities and regions, but they must take a long-term perspective. Legal, regulatory and financial measures have been widely used to create a more fertile environment for innovation, but some regions have been more successful than others in reaching this goal. In part, this is a cultural issue: respondents rank business culture (such as a tolerance of risk) an important factor contributing to their ability to innovate, second only to access to skills. The local climate for venture capital is also deemed very important. Building these stimulating qualities can take decades.

* Organisations are increasingly sourcing their innovations globally and externally. As large organisations have disaggregated and globalised, they have realised that they need to go far afield for innovation. A particularly creative process is “open innovation”, where intellectual property flows in and out of organisations to where it can be most useful in developing new products and services. Fifty-four per cent of survey respondents say that, through 2013, most of their innovative capacity will be provided by open innovation and by Internet-enabled techniques.
* While virtual collaboration is growing, face-to-face interaction is also becoming more important. In spite of major advances in networked information technology, innovation still requires face-to-face contact to be successful, especially in the early stages. Brainstorming is the most popular innovation technique, according to survey respondents, while interviewees emphasise the value of physical contact to build trust between potential collaborators. Nevertheless, the Internet is already vital in one area of innovation – that of “co-creation”, the practice of involving customers in the development of new products and services through feedback and suggestions. Sixty per cent of survey respondents say they are co-creating with customers on-line.
* US still attracts investments in innovation, but China and India gain ground. Asked where they are making the biggest investment to boost their capacity to innovate, survey respondents rank the US their number-one destination. India, China and the UK form a second tier, followed by Canada, Australia and Brazil.

Here are a few more links to recent articles on innovation:

Innovations of the Future (Business Week)

In Innovation, U.S. Said to Be Losing Competitive Edge (NYT)

U.S. Tumbles to Sixth in Innovation (Red Herring)

Universities aim to create ‘cluster of innovation’ (Detroit News)

Book review: Grown Up Digital

Even as someone who sits at the tail end of Generation X, embraced computers at an early age and covers business technology for a living, I often marvel at the Net Generation (or the “Millennials” — those born between 1977 and 1997) and its ability and willingness to publish its neverending stream of consciousness. Where do they get the time? Where do they get the energy? And what effect will this new generation have on the working world?

In Grown Up Digital, Don Tapscott offers some thought-provoking answers. First, he addresses the standard gripes and assumptions about today’s 20-somethings–that they’re dumber as a result of mindless Internet overload, lack critical thinking skills, are adrift in the world and afraid to choose a path, are devoid of solid working ethics and are completely self-obsessed–with solid counter-arguments. Millennials, for example, are actually more connected with their peers than previous generations, as evidenced in the explosion of social media. They are willing to volunteer their time and effort for worthy causes (President Obama’s campaign) and brands they believe in, and are true “prosumers” (a phrase first coined by Alvin Toffler to represent those who add value to a company’s product or service for free, as seen with EBay’s seller ranking system, or a book review, like this one, for Amazon.com). And because of the breadth of information and resources made readily available to them over the Internet, they are more likely to question conventional reasoning than their parents and older co-workers.

All of these traits will have sweeping ramifications for the way companies operate over the next decade: Among other things, Tapscott predicts that firms will focus more on corporate social responsibility, sharing information that may have once been considered too sensitive, and allowing workers more flexibility in how they perform their duties.

To test these theories, Tapscott’s research team interviewed nearly 10,000 people, produced 40 reports and convened a number of conferences to discuss issues surrounding how net-gens operate in the working world. And to further support his earlier theories of the open, networked enterprise, Tapscott pre-published portions of his book online and asked readers to comment. The result is a very detailed study that will surely be valuable to any manager.

A few minor criticisms: At times, Grown Up Digital seems to focus more on the general topics of social media and open collaboration, which are certainly just as relevant to those outside this age group, than on issues related to the net-gens specifically. While Tapscott does devote one full chapter to “The Net Generation Brain,” I would have liked to see more data and analysis on how specifically technology has changed the way younger generations think, ideate and socialize with others. And while Tapscott rightly predicts that companies will have to change their management approach to meet the needs of younger workers, the book was published just before the economic downturn and so does not address the difficulties younger workers will face as companies retrench.

As a side note, I would also like to see more information about the book’s methodology on Tapscott’s web site, While readers can post comments and corrections, why not also post the survey questions, and even some raw data?

These small issues aside, Grown Up Digital provides an excellent window into the mind of the next generation of business leaders. Don Tapscott has produced an impressive piece of research that is worthy reading not just for those who wish to gain a deeper understanding of the Millennials, but for anyone seeking insight into social media and the future of collaboration.

The “Voodoo” in (Scientific) Review

Came across this article in Seed this morning, about how scientific research is being affected by the power of the Internet and information sharing.

The article refers to a paper that was “prereleased” on the website of one of its authors. From the article:

“The paper argues that the way many social neuroimaging researchers are analyzing their data is so deeply flawed that it calls into question much of their methodology. Specifically, Vul and his coauthors claim that many, if not most, social neuroscientists commit a nonindependence error in their research in which the final measure (say, a correlation between behavior and brain activity in a certain region) is not independent of the selection criteria (how the researchers chose which brain region to study), thus allowing noise to inflate their correlation estimates. Further, the researchers found that the methods sections that were clearing peer review boards were woefully inadequate, often lacking basic information about how data was analyzed so that others could evaluate their methods.”

Naturally, the media soon caught hold of the paper (which will not “officially” be published until May), and reported on it. Because the paper questions the methodology of other scientific reports related to neuroscience, heated online debate quickly ensued:

“Suddenly, a number of researchers found themselves under attack. The paper began filling neuroscientists’ inboxes. Two groups of neuroimaging scientists, shocked by the speed with which this paper was being publicly disseminated, wrote rebuttals and posted them in the comments section of several blogs, including Begley’s. Vul followed up in kind, linking to a rebuttal of the rebuttals in the comment sections of several blogs. This kind of scientific discourse — which typically takes place in the front matter of scholarly journals or over the course of several conferences — developed at a breakneck pace, months before the findings were officially published, and among the usual chaos of blog comments: inane banter, tangents, and valid opinions from the greater public.”

True, releasing such findings before a report is actually considered “published” creates risks: the data could be is flawed, or might be somehow manipulated. And perhaps the scientists in question were a bit too eager for a little media coverage.

But to me, the key takeaway  this is that it’s time to rethink how scientific research is conducted. The Internet creates a new platform where scientific research no longer has to happen in a vacuum. It is time to open up the traditional peer review process and create an easier and more thorough way for scientists to weigh in. Of course, this means a considerable shift from the old way of thinking, in which researchers had to race to beat each other to the printed page. But won’t the end result be a much greater contribution to the global development of science?

A more open New York Times?

Is this the new way forward for print media? The New York Times has announced it will make its content available to third-party developers. The goal is to turn the newspaper into a content platform, allowing web sites to pull headlines and data into their sites through a new API called TimesNewswire.

NYT has launched a blog about its open-source initiatives. I am really looking forward to watching how this develops.

Biggest tech issues in 2009?

A few weeks ago I spoke on a panel of business technology editors. The roster included editors from Harvard Business Review, CIO, Business Week, the Wall Street Journal and others. We concluded that the biggest issues for IT executives in 2009 would be:
* Business intelligence and analytics
* Cloud computing/SaaS
* Social Media
* Virtualisation
Personally, I think the downturn is an excellent time for IT to shine, and for CIOs to lead. As one of my colleagues put it, “in the last recession, IT was the victim. This time, it can be the savior.”
Thoughts?