Tinker at the Mall

I guess if you go shopping in the mall right before the holidays, you're sure to run into some zany characters. 

This guy, Tinker, did a little dance and gave the elf thumbs up. 

I wonder if all this was to communicate to us that we need to spend more money and buy more things (we don't need) for the holidays?  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Tinker at the Mall

Destruction Site

If there's a construction site, then there can certainly be a destruction site. 

Most of the time, it seems like more destruction than construction really going on. 

It's amazing how a construction job on one corner can take more than a whole year, when they built the entire U.S. highway system in not such a long time. 

Now-a-days, money just goes down the sinkhole with the littlest jobs taking seemingly forever and the costs spiraling out of control. 

Hello, is anyone out there managing this stuff?  

Oh right, it's all funny money anyway.  

Let's just keep printing some more.  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Destruction Site

Key Federal Financial Management Terms

Below are some key Federal Financial Management Terms:

• Authorization: Act of Congress that permits Federal programs or activities to exist and recommends funding levels.

• Appropriation: Act of Congress to provide Federal agencies with budget authority to obligate government to future outlay of cash for a specific purposes and period of time. 

• Commitment: An administrative reservation of funds by the financial controller or resource manager triggered by a procurement or purchase request.

• Obligation: A legal reservation of funds that binds government to future expenditure and outlay of cash from the Treasury triggered by the signing of a contract, travel order, credit card transaction, etc. 

• Expenditure: Issuance of a payment disbursement by electronic funds transfer, check, etc. 

• Outlay: Payment of cash from Treasury to vendor to liquidate a financial obligation.

These should be helpful in understanding the Federal financial management processes. 

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Key Federal Financial Management Terms

Mars On A Dime

So no one can seem to believe that India made it into orbit around Mars for just $74M.  

According to the Wall Street Journal that compares with $671M that it cost NASA (which arrived just 3 days earlier than India's) and the European Space Agency's mission that cost $386M in 2003,

But aside from the Indian's being able to achieve a Mars mission at a tenth the cost of what we did, BBC reported that they also did it $26M cheaper than even the cost of the science fiction movie Gravity with Sandra Bullock about the International Space Station. 

While we clearly go the extra mile and are able to do great things--why does it always cost us so much to get there?

Perhaps, you can say that we are somehow more diligent or careful in our work (i.e. putting a premium on safety) or that it's just the higher cost of labor in this country or that we are early innovators and incur the costs of research and development that others than leverage. 

However, even though we are considered a very wealthy nation, it is fair to ask whether we are managing our wealth with discretion and an eye to the future or do we just take it for granted and are wasteful with it?

With a $3.9 trillion federal government budget (note, this is a full 21% of the entire U.S. economy/GDP), we are talking about some serious money, and we should be getting the most for it.

Unfortunately, the gravy train extends from certain "Beltway Bandit" contractors--e.g. remember the $640 toilet seats, $7,600 coffee makers, and $436 hammers uncovered by the Project on Government Oversight--and apparently all the way to mission Mars. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Mars On A Dime

10 Ways To Improve Federal Technology

While it's good to improve government services through advances in information technology, we also need to do better with what we have, which is our own valuable IT human capital. 

In the Wall Street Journal today, the "health-site woes" are spurring a push for changes to federal technology, including the possibility of a "federal unit dedicated to big tech projects." 

Whether or not we carve our a separate big tech project unit, we can do so much to improve success in all our agencies by valuing our people and motivating them to succeed.

As democracy and capitalism have taught us, we need people to be free to innovate and reward them appropriately.

While the grass may look greener in Silicon Valley, our challenge is to utilize all our resources in whatever part of the country they reside, whether they be government or private sector workers.

Ultimately, like most things, this is a human challenge, and not just a technology issue. 

Hence, I developed the above comic strip to demonstrate 10 Ways to Improve Federal Technology, so we can all succeed together. ;-)

(Source Cartoon [click here to enlarge]: Andy Blumenthal)

10 Ways To Improve Federal Technology

Government Shutdown - On The Street

Day #3 of the Federal Government Shutdown.

I am reminded on the streets of D.C. that there are many others hurting and in need. 

Pictured here are some hardworking folks striking against "unfair labor" practices.

They're up early and are standing there ready, presumably willing, and able to work. 

At the bottom it says, "Employer refuses to bargain in good faith."

With news coming again this morning about continued failure in talks on the government budget (and debt ceiling not far behind), we are left wondering when good faith and compromise will bring 800,000 federal workers back to their jobs. 

All these people have bills to pay, mouths to feed, and jobs to perform.

I read this morning how the Federal workers are feeling like "pawns" and "marginalized" like never before.

Perhaps, we can get more done by helping people feel a level of control, valued, and with purpose?

The world is still a big and scary place with lots of dangerous actors and challenging problems.

Rather then political polarlization and indecision, we need to stand firm by a definite set of sacred national values (while compromising on the implementation details), project the strength to defend them both domestically and abroad, and stay fair, faithful, and unwaveringly united to perform our vital role in this world. 

To solve large global problems, we need to be able to show that we can manage our own house in order first. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Government Shutdown - On The Street

Government Shutdown - Starbucks

So today is Day #2 of the Federal Government Shutdown. 

This is a picture from the local Starbucks that is typically billowing at lunch time--as you can see it's basically a morgue. 

Unfortunately, hard-working Federal employees, contractors, and local business are feeling the impact!

Even from those that are still working, there is word of "survivor's guilt"--like with a plane crash or other calamity, when those who survive the catastrophe question why they were so fortunate when the others weren't so lucky and perished. 

With both the budget shutdown and the impending debt ceiling showdown--we are facing the perfect storm, with real negotiation and compromise yet to emerge.

With this all, our significant national problems aren't going away--to the contrary, Iran and North Korea are still global nuclear threats, Syria still has chemical weapons, the economy remains on shaky ground (in the paper today, the once high-flying pharmaceutical company Merck is planning to lay off 20%!), the national debt continues to spiral out of control (albeit at a "slower pace"), cybersecurity remains a major national security risk (although Cyber Command continues to stand up its new headquarters and firepower), and so much more. 

Bubble stocks rose again yesterday after an almost 20% one-year return. Not only that, but the safety of gold took a beating again after an almost 40% one-year decline (full disclosure, I am a recent investor in the latter). One has to wonder how long it will take for sanity to prevail once again. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)  

Government Shutdown - Starbucks

Government Shutdown - Rush Hour

Today was Day #1 of the Federal Government Shutdown.

Pictured here is rush hour in Washington, D.C. 

In terms of raising revenue to pay down our national debt, solve challenging problems facing our nation, or increase our global competitiveness--I am not sure how this gets us there. 

With around 800,000 people sitting at home or in Starbucks waiting to be recalled to work, about the only good thing you can say about the furlough is that it was easy to get a seat on the Metro. 

Sad, but true. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Government Shutdown - Rush Hour

When Requirements Go Awry

You may have seen this before--it is a great comic strip on how requirements can go awry. 

When you look at how product or service requirements look from each person's vantage point, it is easy to see how they can be misunderstand, misinterpreted, or misrepresented. 

Getting clarity of the tire swing before we start can save a lot of wasted time, effort, and money on building contraptions that no one wanted or needs. 

Get the business and technical requirements spelled out in as much detail as possible from all parties; document, document, document; and have the customer approval and sign off on these. 

Build to specification, on time, and within budget and make sure it meets the operational mission needs and strategic vision of the organization. 

(Source Photo: here with attribution to tamingdata.com)

When Requirements Go Awry

Righting Our National Economy

We made it through he fiscal cliff--whew!  But the economic landscape remains a minefield. 

In terms of our national debt ceiling, we already passed the $16.4 trillion mark at the beginning of the year and are on borrowed time (no pun intended) until about mid-February when we exhaust accounting gimmicks and can no longer pay our national bills. 

Then there is the elusive government budget where we are on a "continuing resolution" that funds the government at the prior years spending levels until the beginning of March; there is no agreement on what the budget should be after that. 

Finally, there is the Sequestration that was delayed from the beginning of the year to March, which will produce across the board budget cuts to government--not surgically, but sweeping cuts that will hit almost all major government spending. 

All of these budgetary and debt issues are highly contentious and politicized and involve substantial policy decisions in terms of tax reform, spending cuts, and even income and wealth distribution. 

As difficult as it is to navigate a mine field, there is genuine fear that our national luck is running out and the sides are digging in such that even if we get over another one of these hurdles (likely by another delay) or even two of these, what are the odds that we get through all three unscathed economically and with our national image and strength intact?

Already in August 2011, S&P lowered the U.S. credit rating because of these unresolved issues and political stalemate around them, and Moody (in September 2012) and Fitch (this past week) threatened the same putting us at risk of higher borrowing costs, inflation, and even recession. 

Bloomberg BusinessWeek (3 August 2011) using game theory seemed to advocate for political compromise--that produces a "deal no one likes" but avoids pure political victory by one party over the other where one party gives in and the other holds out, and also avoids "financial Armageddon" where both sides hold out and can't get any deal done at all. 

In games of "chicken" both sides "entertain the option of killing everyone" until they finally realize this results in mutually assured destruction (MAD). 

In Washington "everyone, however, is playing a game called 'election'" and "the only possible goal in that game is to win the next one"--in this game, the real question--is there the leadership to rise above the politics, the short-term focus, and bring the two sides together in compromise to forge a path through a difficult economic road ahead. 

Truly, there is really only one way ahead and it is through national sacrifice that will spare no one, but may save the country and our ideals and make us stronger in the end. We are at a dead end for kicking the can further--next step must be to right the ship through cooperation and making the tough choices.

Just like the Washington Monument is one, we must become one. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Righting Our National Economy

Who Will Protect Those Who Protect Us?

This is a video that the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA) sent to Congress to appeal to them not to cut funding to all the activities that our law enforcement officers do for us.

While the functions of government can always be more efficient--and we should constantly work to achieve these--federal law enforcement is incredibly important.

From the FBI to the Secret Service and from Border Patrol to DEA, we need to support all our federal law enforcement efforts.

These agents and officers risk their lives every day for all of us, and it's time that we stand by them to protect their mission and jobs.

Who Will Protect Those Who Protect Us?

Will You Survive?

If you are interested in your chances of survival in the event of a nuclear blast, check out the website for Would I Survive a Nuke?

I ran the simulation as if was still living in my old neighborhood of Riverdale, New York and 50 megaton bombs were hitting 5 cities with populations over 1 million people.

On the map, you can see the horrible destruction--gone is Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.

The concentric circles around each blast shows 5 levels of devastation as follows (associated with the colors zones of red, pink, orange, yellow, and clear/outside the blast):

This is not a pretty picture and warrants our consideration of how critically important is missile defense and homeland security is.

This position was advocated by the late Dr. Fred Ikle the former Pentagon official who passed away this week on 10 November 2011--Ikle challenged the status quo policy of MAD asking "Why should mutually assured destruction be our policy?" -WSJ

I, for one, don't like any of the 5 scenarios above and would like to keep our society and way of life going with a strong national security posture that includes the gamut of diplomatic, defensive, and offensive capabilities for safeguarding our national security.

With this in mind, this coming week with the deadline for Super Committee to come up with recommendations for reducing our budget deficit or else the automatic $1.2 trillion cut goes into effect--half of which is to come from the Department of Defense is extremely concerning.

Moreover, with well-known hostile nations having achieved (North Korea) or very near to achieving (Iran) nuclear weapons capabilities, we must take the threats of nuclear attack to us and our allies very seriously or else we can end up with not just scary looking colored concentric circles on a map, but the very real deadly effects they represent.

Will You Survive?

From Pigging Out to Piggybanking

Recently there was some media interest in the government system of funding allocation, which essentially rests on one principle: “Use it or lose it.” Unlike in the private sector, where unused funds may be reserved for future use, money that is not spent in a given appropriation year is simply returned, for the most part.

In our own personal financial worlds, in fact, it is a primary lesson that we should not spend every dollar we earn. Rather, any financial adviser will tell you that money must be managed over many years, including saving money for the proverbial “rainy day” (the recent financial meltdown and recovery act not withstanding).

In business as well as in our personal lives, we are taught to do three things with our money:

·      Spend some—for business operating expenses or living expenses in our personal lives.

·      Save some—for unexpected needs like when a economic recession negatively impacts business cash flow or in our personal lives when a job is lost and we need savings to tide us over; or the saving could be for opportunities like to accumulate funds to get into a new business or to save up for a deposit on a home.

·      Invest some—for longer-term needs like research and development, potential business acquisitions, and so forth or in our personal lives for college education, weddings, retirement and more.

My question is why in government is there not an option #2 or #3—to save or invest funds for the future, like we have in our personal lives and in business?  Why can’t agencies and lawmakers plan longer-term and manage funds strategically instead of tactically—beyond the current year here and now?

The Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 called for the development and maintenance of an IT architecture, since interpreted more broadly as the mandate for enterprise architecture, where we plan and govern investments strategically (i.e. no longer based on short-term gut, intuition, politics, or subjective management whim).

Managing for enterprise architecture necessitates that we manage business and IT investments with the ability to spend, save, or invest as necessitated by agency mission and vision, customer requirements, and the overall investment climate (i.e. the return on spending versus the return on saving or longer-term investment).

Managing money by driving an end of year spend-down seems to negate the basic principles of finance and investing that we are taught from grade school and that we use in business and our personal lives.

By changing the government budget process to allow for spending, saving, and investing, we will open up more choices to our leaders and hold them responsible and accountable for the strategic long-term success of our vital mission.

From Pigging Out to Piggybanking

Scraping the Landlines and The Total CIO

It’s long overdue. It’s time to get rid of the landline telephones from the office (and also from our homes, if you still have them). Wireless phones are more than capable of doing the job and just think you already probably have at least one for business and one for personal use—so redundancy is built in!

Getting rid of the office phones will save the enterprise money, reduce a maintenance burden (like for office moves) and remove some extra telejunk clutter from your desk. More room for the wireless handheld charger. :-)

USA Today, 20 December 2008 reports that according to Forrester Research “Estimated 25% of businesses are phasing out desk phones in effort to save more money.”

Additionally, “more than 8% of employees nationwide who travel frequently have only cellphones.”

Robert Rosenberg, president of The Insight Research Corp., stated: U.S. businesses are lagging behind Europe and Asia in going wireless, because major cellular carriers…are also earning money by providing landlines to businesses—an $81.4 billion industry in 2008.”

“In Washington, D.C., the City Administrator’s office launched a pilot program in October in which 30 employees with government-issued cellphones gave up their desk phones, said deputy mayor Dan Tangherlini. Because the government has issued more than 11,000 cellphones to employees, the program could multiply into significant savings.”

A study by the National Center for Health Statistics between January and June found that more than 16% of families “have substituted a wireless telephone for a land line.”

So what’s stopping organizations from getting rid of the traditional telephones?

The usual culprits: resistance to change, fear of making a mistake, not wanting to give up something we already have—“old habits die hard” and people don’t like to let go of their little treasures—even a bulky old deskphone (with the annoying cord that keeps getting twisted).

Things are near and dear to people and they clutch on to them with their last breath—in their personal lives (think of all the attics, garages, and basements full of items people can’t let go off—yard sale anyone?) and in the professional lives (things equate to stature, tenure, turf—a bigger rice bowl sound familiar?).

Usually the best way to get rid of something is to replace it with something better, so the Total CIO needs to tie the rollout of new handheld devices with people turning in their old devices--land lines, pagers, and even older cell phones (the added benefit is more room and less weight pulling on your belt).

By the way, we need to do the same thing with new applications systems that we roll out. When the new one is fully operational than the old systems need to be retired. Now how often does that typically happen?

Folks, times are tough, global competition is not going away, and we are wasting too much money and time maintaining legacy stuff we no longer need. We need to let go of the old and progress with the new and improved.

Scraping the Landlines and The Total CIO

Weapons or Troops and The Total CIO

Should the CIO focus on day-to-day operational issues or on IT strategic planning and governance issues?

From my experience many are focused on firefighting the day-to-day and putting some new gadget in the hands of the field personnel without regard to what the bigger picture IT plan is or should be.

In many cases, I believe CIOs succumb to this near-term view on things, because they, like the overall corporate marketplace, is driven by short-term results, whether it is quarterly financial results or the annual performance appraisal.

The Wall Street Journal, 30 October 2008, had an article entitled,
“Boots on the Ground or Weapons in the Sky?”—which seemed to tie right into this issue.

The debate is to which kind of war we should be preparing to fight— the current (types of) insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan or the next big war, such as potentially that with Russia or China.

Why are we facing this issue now?

“With the economy slowing and the tab for the government’s bailout of the private sector spiraling higher…lawmakers are signaling that Pentagon officials will soon have to choose.”

And there are serious implications to this choice:

“The wrong decision now could imperil U.S. national security down the road.”

The two sides of the debate come down to this:

Secretary Gates “accused some military officials of “next-war-itis,” which shortchanges current needs in favor of advanced weapons that might never be needed.”

In turn, some military officials “chided Mr. Gates for “this-war-itis,” a short-sighted focus on the present that could leave the armed forces dangerously unprepared down the road.”

From war to technology:

Like the military, the CIO faces a similar dilemma. Should the CIO invest and focus on current operational needs, the firefight that is needed today (this-IT-itis) or should they turn their attention to planning and governing to meet the business-IT needs of the future (next-IT-itis).

But can’t the CIO do both?

Yes and no. Just like the defense budget is limited, so too is the time and resources of the CIO. Sure, we can do some of both, but unless we make a conscious decision about where to focus, something bad can happen.

My belief is operations must be stabilized--sound, reliable, and secure—today’s needs, but then the CIO must extricate himself from the day-to-day firefighting to build mission capabilities and meet the needs of the organization for tomorrow.

At some point (and the sooner, the better), this-IT-itis must yield to next-IT-itis!

Weapons or Troops and The Total CIO