Issue 1: January 24, 2006

• The Buzz Expands its Horizons: A Letter from our Executive Editor



• Hot News: FirstGov.gov launches a new and improved Search capability.



• CIO Council News: At its January 18 meeting, the CIO Council elected David M. Wennergren, CIO of the Navy, as its new Vice Chair.



• CIO Spotlight: Lisa Schlosser, Department of Housing and Urban Development



• E-gov Initiatives: OMB Report to Congress details benefits of the 25 E-Gov Initiatives and 5 Lines of Business.



• Policy News: The long-awaited Data Reference Model Version 2.0 was released by the Federal Enterprise Architecture Project Management Office and OMB is strongly encouraging agencies to start using it to manage data.



• Issue Alert: Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) OMB has issued guidelines for agencies to transition to the new Internet Protocol by June 2008, an effort that is sometimes compared to the Y2K conversion at the turn of the Millennium.



• News from around the World: A New IT Strategy for the UK Ian Watmore, recently promoted from the United Kingdom's CIO and Head of the E-Government Unit to be Head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit, has issued a new IT Strategy that calls for an "irreversible" transformation of government by 2011 using information technology.



• State and Local: NASCIO makes its annual awards for Best Practices in the Use of Information Technology in State Government



• Kudos: United Nations report praises FirstGov.gov and other U.S. E-gov portals



• Transitions: Turnover in Federal, State, local, international CIO Ranks



• Upcoming Events Calendar



• Comments: We welcome your feedback.

Three years ago, we in the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications published the first issue of the FirstGov Buzz. This online newsletter was designed "to keep opinion leaders, policy makers, IT professionals and others interested in FirstGov aware of the latest developments and achievements relating to the federal government's award-winning Web portal."

As we built the USA Services e-gov initiative -- of which FirstGov.gov is a centerpiece and includes call centers, Internet service and publications -- to provide answers to citizen inquiries for the entire federal government, and networked with e-gov officials from across the country and around the world, we have grown to serve a broader community that shares a commitment to use technology to improve the delivery of citizen services. In recognition of this community and its growing use of the "dot-gov" Internet domain, (e.g., gsa.gov, whitehouse.gov, fairfaxcounty.gov), we have renamed our online newsletter The DotGov Buzz.

The DotGov Buzz will be published on the fourth Tuesday of every month to bring timely information to the e-gov community from a variety of sources.

Our aim is to provide highlights of recent developments in the DotGov world during the month, with links to important documents and information about emerging e-gov issues. As before, our regular "CIO Spotlight" will feature CIOs and other individuals who keep the DotGov world turning, and we will continue to compile a calendar of upcoming conferences, meetings and other events of interest.

The DotGov Buzz will provide regular news about the CIO Council, with timely updates on the issues discussed at the Council's bi-monthly meetings and in its committees. We will also highlight important policy directives from OMB and significant news about the various national e-gov initiatives.

We will provide "issue alerts" on emerging issues of importance to the e-gov community, and e-gov news from state and local governments and from other countries.

Consider The DotGov Buzz a companion to the many exceptional newsletters and magazines that provide excellent news coverage of the government information technology community. We will try to hit the high spots, and bring together in one place the e-gov issues and events that people will be talking about for months to come.

And remember, here in the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications, we're in the customer service business. We value the views of our audience and we'd love to hear your feedback. If you see something in the Buzz that inspires you to comment, please drop an e-mail to darlene.meskell@gsa.gov.

M. J. Pizzella
Associate Administrator, GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Citizen access to official government information, forms, frequently asked questions - even Podcasts - took a historic leap forward today with the launch of new search capabilities added to the U.S. government's official Web portal - FirstGov.gov.

FirstGov.gov, in concert with private sector partners Vivísimo, Inc., and the Microsoft Corp., has launched the government's most powerful search engine, one that:

• Vastly expands the search to include federal, state, local tribal and territorial documents;
• Increases the universe of government documents from 8 million to 40 million;
• Searches more efficiently and effectively by leveraging the powerful Microsoft MSN search index which returns relevant results through sophisticated algorithms;
• Leverages Vivisimo's metasearching technology which is unique in government;
• Uses clustering technology to organize thousands of search results into categories to help citizens locate government information;
• Gives citizens search results they can trust by providing only official U.S. government information;
• Costs taxpayers $1.8 million, about half of current search services, generating savings that can be reinvested into further enhancements;
• Allows user to determine the relevancy of an individual result before leaving the search page through the preview function;
• Provides enhanced search on kids.gov, espanol.gov and consumeraction.gov;
• Creates a more citizen-centric government, fulfilling President Bush's pledge.

"The new FirstGov.gov search delivers a much richer, more productive search experience for citizens and government employees," said M.J. Pizzella, Associate Administrator of GSA's Office of Citizen Services and Communications (OCSC). "The new search moves us closer to our objective -- a customer service center for the government that delivers official, quality information."

As one example, a person who typed "Social Security" in the old search engine would get a link to the Social Security Administration and some related websites. The new search delivers several ways to quickly zero in on the information the user really wants, like:

• Most frequently asked Social Security questions by citizens who have called 1-800-FED-INFO, the U.S. Government's telephone hotline. (1-800-FED-INFO answered 8.5 million calls last year about federal programs and services.)
• Recommended Web sites from the editors at MyMoney.gov;
• Social Security forms;
• Podcasts from official government sources discussing Social Security issues; and (more)
• A new "clustering" feature that takes thousands of search results and categorizes them by topic.

Searches on the new FirstGov.gov pull results from the USAJOBS database of federal job listings, Forms.gov's database of federal forms, MyMoney.gov's database of recommended personal finance Web sites, and automobile rankings from Fueleconomy.gov and the National Highway Traffic Highway Administration (NHTSA.gov). Over time, other data sources will be added to further improve citizen services.

"As the gateway to government and winner of the Innovations in American Government Award, Firstgov must be anchored by a state of the art search engine," said Patricia McGinnis, President and CEO of The Council for Excellence in Government. "I applaud this significant leap ahead, which will benefit all citizens, who are both the customers and owners of government."

FirstGov.gov, the award-winning federal portal, provides government information and services to citizens, businesses and other governments, and is an integral part of USA Services, one of the Presidential E-Gov initiatives created in 2003. USA Services delivers information and services to citizens through multiple channels. This includes the Internet, email, telephone, and publication distribution. Last year, USA Services reported 230 million public contacts, of which 8.6 million were through 1-800 FED INFO (for telephone and email), 8.2 million publications were distributed through the Federal Citizen Information Center (FCIC) in Pueblo, Colorado, and 179 million were FirstGov.gov.

GSA is a centralized, federal procurement, property management, policy development and information provision agency, created by Congress to improve government efficiency and help federal agencies better serve the public. In this role, GSA acquires products and services on behalf of federal agencies; plays a key role in developing and implementing government-wide policies; provides services and solutions for the office operations of more than one million federal workers; and encourages a citizen-centric relationship with government by providing a single "point of entry" to the information and services citizens need in a timeframe they can appreciate. This allows citizens to receive accurate, timely and consistent answers and information, and helps federal agencies better respond to citizen inquiries.

He replaces Dan Matthews, former Transportation Department CIO, who has returned to Lockheed Martin as Vice President for Government Relations, Civil Programs.

The Council also elected Lisa Schlosser and Charles Havekost co-chairs of its Architecture and Infrastructure Committee. She is the CIO of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; he is CIO of the Department of Health and Human Services.

As Vice Chair, Wennergren, CIO of the Department of the Navy since 2002, will lead many of the Council's activities. He previously served as co-chair of the Council's Best Practices Committee. Volunteers are being sought to replace him in that position.

In other business, the Council heard from the following individuals:

Scott Cameron, Chief Human Capital Officer at the Department of the Interior, described the effort of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council to better market the Presidential Management Fellows Program to attract applicants interested in management positions in the acquisition, finance, human capital and IT areas.

Donald Winstead, Deputy Associate Director for Pay and Compensation Policy at the Office of Personnel Management, spoke to the Council about OPM's research effort to develop special pay rates for IT specialties.

Marty Wagner, Acting Commissioner for the GSA Federal Acquisition Service, described the proposed FAS realignment and his desire to support the work of the IT community.

The Council was reminded of two upcoming events:

The May CIO Council meeting will be held on Tuesday May 2 in Austin, TX. Attendance is voluntary. CIOs from other countries will be invited to attend the meeting for broad discussions on issues affecting the international IT community. Many foreign CIOs will be in Austin that week attending the World Congress on Information Technology.

Council members were reminded to register for and participate in the IRMCO Conference April 23-26 at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, VA. IRMCO is sponsored by GSA.

It is no surprise that Lisa Schlosser, who has been a CIO for less than a year, is now taking on a government-wide leadership role as the newly elected co-chair of the CIO Council's important Architecture and Infrastructure Committee.

Her career has encompassed a series of challenging leadership roles, from U.S. Army platoon leader in Korea to National Operations Officer for the Ernst & Young eSecurity Solutions practice to associate CIO at the Department of Transportation. "Every position in my career has taught me leadership, managerial and technical skills," she said. "I capitalize on these skills every day."

She hit the ground running when she became the CIO at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in February 2005. Within two months under her leadership, HUD had modernized several legacy mainframe systems, transitioned critical business applications to a new data center, migrated to a new human resource system and accelerated several key security initiatives.

Less than a year later, she is concentrating on using modernized technology to meet HUD's core business goals: increasing home-ownership opportunities, promoting decent affordable housing and strengthening community development, while ensuring equal opportunity in housing.

"HUD is incorporating the use of state-of-the-art technology in every aspect of our business-from providing more efficient and timely mortgage loan programs, to streamlining the grant application process, to creating more efficient internal processes," she said.

"In addition, we are investing in programs that allow us to conduct inspections of housing units across the country more rapidly, to ensure that citizens have continued access to safe and affordable housing, free from discrimination."

One step forward was to add a state-of-the-art search engine to the HUD Website that permits citizens, businesses and local governments to quickly find specific HUD information.

She pointed to two HUD programs that have obtained extraordinary results by using modernized technology in fiscal 2005.

The Federal Housing Administration's Electronic Case Binder System that cuts mortgage processing time by 30% and cuts costs by 20%, thus reducing the costs for lenders offering FHA mortgages to needy citizens.

An Enterprise Income Verification system that helps Public Housing Authorities make more accurate income determinations when setting tenant subsidy levels for public housing voucher programs and has contributed to reducing improper payments by over 50%. As a result, HUD has earned the first "green" on the OMB scorecard for eliminating improper payment.

Looking farther into the future, she has outlined a plan for updating all HUD systems and applications to open technology that better supports its business needs. Key long-term focus areas are housing locator programs, grant performance measurement systems and housing inspection systems.

"I am having a lot of fun working to improve the way the government in general, and HUD specifically, capitalizes on technology to improve our services to key stakeholders such as businesses and state and local governments, and to the citizen," she said.

In a January 6 report to Congress entitled Report to Congress on the Benefits of the President's E-Government Initiatives, OMB outlined the ways in which the Federal government is delivering results through the expansion and adoption of e-gov principles and best practices in managing IT, and is increasingly providing timely and accurate information to the citizens and government decision makers while ensuring security and privacy. The report concluded:

As the President's Management Agenda explained in 2001, the E-Government initiatives serve citizens, businesses, and federal employees by delivering high quality services more efficiently a lower price. Instead of expensive "stove-piped" operations, agencies work together to develop common solutions which achieve mission requirements at reduced cost, thereby making resources available for higher priority needs. For example, the E-Rulemaking initiative is replacing the 20 existing individual agency electronic regulatory systems and over 150 paper-based docket systems with a common system which results in lowered costs, modernized technology and improved service to agencies and citizens. Thus, there are no agency activities which will not be implemented or partially implemented as a result of the transfers or reimbursements to the E-Government initiatives.

The report provides a summary of agency funding contributions to e-government, stating the purpose of each e-gov initiative and individual agency reports describing the relevance of the e-gov initiatives they fund.

For fiscal year 2006 agencies will spend almost $193 million on the 30 initiatives. Attached tables show the funding for e-government by agency; the funding for e-government by initiative; and a breakout of e-gov funding sources by bureau within each agency.

The report was submitted to comply with the Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act of 2006 (PL 109-115), which was signed into law November 30, 2005.

The Data Reference Model (DRM) will help build the common language that will improve data and information-sharing by Federal, state, and local jurisdictions. Released on November 17, it was developed over a six-month period by a cross-government collaborative working group led by the CIO Council's Architecture and Infrastructure Subcommittee, OMB's Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office, and the Department of Homeland Security.

The Data Reference Model makes it possible to describe, categorize and share agency data so it can be exchanged and re-used across the government. Clay Johnson, OMB's Deputy Director for Management, issued a policy memorandum December 16, requiring executive departments and agencies to use the Data Reference Model in organizing and categorizing government information and making it searchable across agencies. Agencies must implement a plan by September 1, 2006 for taking these steps to improve public access to and dissemination of government information.

This OMB policy was issued to fulfill the E-Government Act of 2002.

The GSA Office of Intergovernmental Solutions provides the Federal/State Issues Alert series on emerging issues for quick reference by busy managers.

Background: The Federal government is beginning the transition to the newest Internet Protocol version, IPv6 with a goal to complete the migration of all agencies by June 2008. IPv6 will be more secure and will deliver better services to citizens than the present system, Internet Protocol version 4. It is intended to address the concerns of address exhaustion and security that come with IPv4.

IPv6 exploits the power and capabilities of the next generation of the Internet, takes advantage of the speed of broadband networks and allows applications such as Voice over IP to become a reality.

• IPv6 increases address space and enhances configuration, mobility, security features, and quality of service.
• Recent reports from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and from the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration reveal the benefits, as well as the complexity, costs, and risks organizations may encounter during the transition to IPv6.
• The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memorandum dated August 2, 2005, provided agencies transition planning guidance on migration to IPv6 by June 2008.
• IPv6 has been widely embraced globally by regions with limited address space under IPv4, e.g., Asia, Europe and India.

• GSA and the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council will develop a suitable FAR amendment for use by agencies to ensure all new purchases of network software and equipment are IPv6 compliant.
• The National Institute for Standards and Technology will develop a standard to address IPv6 compliance for the Federal government.
• The August 2, 2005 OMB memorandum and its attachments provide guidance to the agencies to ensure an orderly and secure transition from IPv4 to IPv6.
• Federal agencies have begun an impact analysis on transition to IPv6 and report on progress as part of the February 2006 agency enterprise architecture submission to OMB. The results of this impact analysis must be reported to OMB no later than June 30, 2006, and must include both cost and risk elements as described in OMB Circular A-11.
• The Department of Homeland Security's US-CERT has recently issued an advisory on security issues concerning IPv6. Some firewalls and network intrusion detection systems do not provide detection or filtering capability and malicious users might tunnel IPv6 traffic through these security devices undetected unless agencies take appropriate actions.

• Transitioning to IPv6 should result in significant improvements in service delivery to citizens. However, transitioning will present challenges and agencies should begin developing risk assessments, business cases, policies, cost estimates, timelines, and methods for the gradual transition.
• State and local governments are hard-pressed to justify a major technology infrastructure change when competing with public health, homeless and other human service issues.

1. "Transition Planning for Internet Protocol Version 6," OMB memo dated August 2, 2005 http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/fy2005/m05-22.pdf
2. "Internet Protocol Version 6: Federal Agencies Need to Plan for Transition and Manage Security Risks," GAO Report, GAO-05-471 (May 2005) http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-471
3. Internet Engineering Task Force: Internet Standards Process http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2026.txt
4. North American IPv6 Task Force http://www.nav6tf.org/.
5. The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, A/R 2-3, at 30 (Feb. 2003) http://www.whitehouse.gov/pcipb/cyberspace_strategy.pdf
6. Jason Miller, "OMB Tells Agencies to Assess Impact," Government Computer News, 12-12-05 http://www.gcn.com/24_34/IPv6/37736-1.html?topic=IPv6
7. Jim Thompson, "Internet2 Gurus Deploy New Protocol; VoIPv6", ISP Planet, 10-04-02 http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Internet/INTERNETII/Internet_II_Guru.html.

Ian Watmore, recently promoted from the United Kingdom's CIO and Head of the E-Government Unit to be Head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit, has issued a new IT Strategy that calls for an "irreversible" transformation of government by 2011 using information technology.

The United Kingdom has adopted a new strategy for IT in government that will use technology and customer-focus to substantially and "irreversibly" transform the delivery of public services by 2011. Announced in late November, the new strategy was commissioned by Prime Minister Tony Blair and developed under the leadership of Ian Watmore, Head of e-Government and Government CIO, in the Cabinet Office.

Entitled Transformational Government: Enabled by Technology, the strategy is founded on three key priorities:

(1) Citizen and Business Centered Services. Citizens and businesses must have choice and personalization in their interactions with government, and increasing self-service.

(2) Shared Services For maximum efficiency, government must move to a shared-services culture-in the front-office, in the back-office, in information and in infrastructure.

(3) Professionalism There must be broadening and deepening of government's professionalism in terms of the planning, delivery, management and governance of IT-enabled change. This calls for:

• Coherent, joined-up leadership and a full governance model; an open and transparent approach to plans and performance.
• Portfolio management of the 14 billion annual spending on IT projects.
• Building up the capacity, culture, skills and identity of the IT profession in government.
• Reliable project delivery and the confidence and controls to ensure the reliability of successful delivery.
• Supplier management.

The strategy will avail of specific opportunities to improve transactional services, to help frontline public servants be more effective, to support effective policy outcomes, to reform corporate services and infrastructure, and to take swifter advantage of the latest technologies developed for the wider market.

Ian Watmore was promoted to Head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit effective January 9th. Previously, he was the UK's first CIO and Head of the eGovernment Unit of the Cabinet Office. He was appointed to the post in 2004, after serving as chief of operations for Accenture UK.

In his new role, Watmore will focus on the delivery of the prime minister's key public service priorities and the implementation of the transformational government strategy. He will continue to have responsibility for the eGovernment Unit. The CIO will report to him.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) awarded its 2005 Recognition Awards to State IT programs that demonstrate best practices in eight different areas:

• Communications infrastructure Winner: North Carolina Taxpayer Assistance and Collection Center
• Digital government: government to business Winner: Michigan Motor Fuel Automation Project
• Digital government: government to citizen Winner: Michigan Talent Bank
• Digital government: government to government Winner: Utah CommuterLink Program
• Enterprise information architecture Winner: North Carolina Statewide Technical Architecture
• Innovative use of technology Winner: Washington AMBER Alert 911 Web Portal
• Security and business continuity North Carolina Statewide Security Initiatives Program
• State IT management initiatives Michigan implementation of consolidated IT services

The awards are given annually to those programs and systems that have created cost effective, innovative solutions in the operation of State government.

The United States' ranked first in the annual U.N. Global E-government Survey 2005, published in December, largely because of the effectiveness of FirstGov.gov and other E-gov portals. The survey, published in December in the Global E-Government Readiness Report 2005: From E-Government to E-Inclusion, ranked the 191 U.N. member nations on e-readiness, based on their websites, telecommunications infrastructure and human resource endowment.

"The United States is far in advance of the rest of the world in use and application" of information and communication technology, the report says. Further,

The United States remains the world leader in e-government readiness … The strength of America's online presence is essentially twofold. First, it provides the enormously useful web portal http://www.firstgov.gov, which provides enormous amounts of information in one place. The second strength and the cornerstone of the United States' approach to e-government is the reliance on integrated portals, which collect and consolidate information in one place thereby increasing the effectiveness of finding topic-specific information for citizens in an efficient manner.

Noteworthy examples include the portal for federal government forms, http://www.forms.gov, payments to the government, http://www.pay.gov, and commenting on federal regulations, http://www.regulations.gov. The FirstGov site provides a convenient listing of cross-agency portals "that bring together federal information and services from multiple agencies about a particular topic or for a particular customer group" at http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Cross_Agency_Portals.shtml. Added to all this is the incredible amount of information available all of which lends itself to making United States the undisputed world leader in e-government.

The report also designates FirstGov.gov a "Best Practice" for being a "Truly Universal Portal" and highlighted its contribution to the United States' top ranking in the U.N. survey:

The United States FirstGov http://www.firstgov.gov is a true universal portal. Its strength lies in the manner in its ease of use. It accomplishes this through a search engine that covers [millions of] government pages, an incredibly useful frequently asked questions (FAQ) tool that allows users to ask questions not already in the searchable database, as well as targeting users by group. The convenience of organizing and providing information architecture by audience through a user-friendly "tab" design system enables the U.S. to efficiently target certain features to those who would be most interested in them. A listing of the "Especially for Specific Audiences" portals and sections is available at http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Audiences.shtml.

Moreover, demonstrating its commitment to continuous refinement the U.S. General Services Administration recently announced that new web search and news capabilities will be added to the site in an effort to make the site an even more efficient source for Americans to locate offerings at all levels of government.

Overall, therefore, it is the ability to organize this large magnitude of information and services effectively for the convenience of the user that is the key to United States' success. Also of note is that while English is the apparent lingua franca of global egovernment, the U.S. promotes language accessibility for Spanish speakers by providing a fairly comprehensive Spanish version: http://www.firstgov.gov/Espanol/index.shtml. Finally, reflecting the commercial podcast interest, another, more recent, cutting-edge initiative is the government's adaptability to venture into the realm quickly to reach new audiences. FirstGov provides a list of all available government podcasts at http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf/Libraries/Podcasts.shtml

There has been a lot of turnover in CIO ranks of government at all levels over the past few months. Here are some of the transitions:

Also available in pdf 354 kb

Operation Jumpstart II (to support returning soldiers)
Army Navy Country Club
Arlington, VA
January 31

Wireless/RFID Conference and Exhibition (Federal Computer Week)
Ronald Reagan Building
Washington, DC
February 27 - March 1

National Association of Counties 2006 Legislative Conference
Washington Hilton
Washington, DC
March 4 - 8

FOSE
Washington, DC
March 7-9

Fed 100 Gala (Federal Computer Week)
Washington, DC
March 20

IRMCO
Williamsburg, VA
April 23-26

World Congress on Information Technology (International Technology Association of America)
Austin, TX
May 1-5

NASCIO Mid-year Conference (National Association of State CIOs)
The Capitol Hilton
Washington, DC
May 31-June 2

Management of Change Conference (American Council for Technology)
Hilton Head, SC
June 5-7

Comments: We welcome your feedback

Please send your comments, concerns, complaints and questions to darlene.meskell@gsa.gov.