October 6, 2010
A Flying Boat, Machine Gun Included
October 3, 2010
Policing, Armed And Data-Rich
Policing, Armed And Data-Rich
October 2, 2010
You Can Slow Them Down, But You Can’t Stop Them
What happens when someone does something and you don’t like it—I mean you really don’t like it (and that something is painful—physically, emotionally, or even financially)—you try to get them to stop.
You see it all starts when we are little and growing up and big brother Johnny pulls our hair or takes our toy and we go running to mommy, yelling to make Johnny stop. Mommy comes out standing straight and tall and pointing her sharpened finger at Johnny, and looking Johnny straight in the eyes says stop bothering you’re little sister. Johnny looks down, sulks, and says okay (maybe even expressing a barely audible, and hollow, sorry). But then what happens when mommy leaves the room for a few minutes, Johnny’s at it again.
And that’s what happens when Johnny is doing something wrong…imagine if he believes he is doing the right thing all along, of course, he continues on his merry way doing what he was doing.
Organizations, like people, seek to stop the pain as well and if they can’t compete in the markets, they take it elsewhere.
The Wall Street Journal, 2-3 October 2010, reports “Microsoft Lawsuit Seeks To Slow Google.”
Like Johnny, Google (although technically smaller than Microsoft revenue-wise) is doing something that Microsoft really doesn’t like; Google is walloping Microsoft in smartphones: “Microsoft’s share of the worldwide smartphone market this year is expected to fall to 6.8% from 13% in 2008, while Google is forecast to jump to 16% from less than 1% two years ago, according to IDC.”
Microsoft like the kid, who wants the hair pulling to stop, and they can’t make it stop themselves through a competitive product at this time, is running to “Mommy,” in this case the courts, and seeking relief by suing Motorola, the handset maker for the Android.
As one patent lawyer put it: “My gut feeling is Microsoft is losing the hand-held wars and they’re using their patent portfolio to get some of it back.”
Certainly, Microsoft isn’t alone is using this slowing tactic, for example, recently HP filed to sue Oracle for hiring their ex-CEO Mark Hurd, even though as 24-7 press release notes California tends to favor the free movement of employees and do not enforce non-competition agreements.
While Microsoft believes their new Windows Phone 7 (i.e. the Windows Mobile replacement) is the answer to their smartphone operating system prayers, and will help them to compete against the Google Android (and the Apple iPhone), the market results remain to be seen.
If Microsoft continues with an inferior product, then like a Johnny in the right, Google will continue to go right on beating Microsoft at their own game (unless of course, the courts say otherwise).
You Can Slow Them Down, But You Can’t Stop Them
October 1, 2010
Awesome Emergency Management Technologies
So to me, defense systems (a topic for another blog) and emergency management systems are two of the most fascinating and compelling areas of technology.
Recently, I have been closely following the story of the Chilean miners trapped beneath 2,200 feet of rock and earth due to a cave-in on 5 August.
It took 17 days to even find the miners in the winding underground mineshaft, and since then the ongoing determination and ingenuity of the emergency rescuers has been incredible.
The Wall Street Journal, 1 October 2010, in an article called “Inventions Ease the Plight of Trapped Miners” describes this unbelievable rescue effort.
Here are some of the technologies making their way a half-mile underground to the 33-trapped miners:
NASA engineers have exclaimed about the innovation shown by the Chilean emergency rescuers: “they are crossing new thresholds here.”
There are some great pictures and graphics of these devices at an article in the U.K. Telegraph.
What was once being targeted as a holiday rescue, by December, is now being envisioned as an October-November rescue operation. And with the continued application of innovation and technology, the miners will soon we back safe with their families and loved ones.
Also, ongoing kudos to the heroic rescuers!
Awesome Emergency Management Technologies
September 30, 2010
Apps for Mobile Health Care
Talking about apps for your phone…this one is amazing from MIT Media Labs.
Attach a $1-2 eyepiece (the "NETRA") to your phone and get your eye prescription in less than 2 minutes.
What's next?
I wonder if they will come out with more apps for health and wellbeing that check your vital signs such as temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and more.
I can envision the smartphone becoming our personal health assistant for monitoring and alerting us to dangerous medical conditions.
This will increase our ability to get timely medical care and save lives.
This is a long way from "I've fallen and I can't get up," and that's a great thing.
Apps for Mobile Health Care
September 28, 2010
What's Next an Escalator to Heaven?
Introducing the Levytator—or escalator replacement.
It is a creation of Jack Levy, Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering at University of London.
Rather than just go straight up and down, this baby can go any which way—and even around curves.
Potentially a new mode of inner city transportation?
Take the Levytator to the gym and spend another half an hour on the treadmill!
What's Next an Escalator to Heaven?
September 26, 2010
Now The Computer War Games Are Real
The Iranian nuclear program hit has been claimed for civil nuclear power but has long been suspected of being a cover for making weapons, and Iran has been unabashedly vocal about its hostile intent to many nations, even going so far as to openly threaten some, especially Israel, with complete “annihilation.”
The technical aspects of Stuxnet as a weapon are fascinating, for this is the first computer program “specifically created to take over industrial control systems.” Another article in U.K.’s The Guardian quotes another source as saying it is “one of the most refined pieces of malware ever discovered.”
This worm works by exploiting Windows operating systems security holes and taking over critical infrastructure SCADA systems (AKA Supervisory Control And Data Acquisitions systems or industrial control systems).
What is maybe even more amazing than the technical feat of Stuxnet, is that for months or years, everyone has been focused on and hypothesizing about when a traditional military strike was going to occur to the ever menacing Iranian nuclear threat. However, instead of conventional planes and bombs making a big bang (remember “shock and awe”), we get a silent but “very sophisticated” cyber worm that no one seems to have expected.
So times have certainly changed and with it warfare. Prior military engagements occurred on land, sea, and air with kinetic “bang/boom” weapons. Today they have a new domain in cyberspace with bits and bytes that are just as impactful. But I think what hasn’t really hit home with most people is that cyber war is not just virtual, like playing a video game (like the SIMS) or acting out in virtual reality (like Second Life); cyberwarfare starts online but has real physical ramifications as we see with the Stuxnet worm. Industrial systems like nuclear plants or hosts of other critical infrastructure (in manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, etc.) can be taken out with cyber bombs just like with real bombs maybe even better, faster, cheaper, and cleaner (less collateral damage).
We had all better be prepared for the fight in this new realm as the potential damage is as real as any we have ever seen before.
Now The Computer War Games Are Real
September 25, 2010
Rethinking Topgrading
Topgrading is a best practice for hiring top performers, developed by Dr. Bradford Smart, and used by many leading companies.
According to Dr. Smart—managers have only a 25% success rate in hiring star performers:
- 1 in 4 hires end up actually being a high performer (“A players”)
- 2 of 4 disappoint as mediocre (“B players”)
- 1 in 4 turns out being low performers (“C players”)
Smart blames this on ineffective hiring techniques—resumes, traditional competency/behavioral interviews, and candidate selected references—where candidates can provide incomplete information, play up accomplishments, downplay negatives, and deceive interviewers.
Instead, Smart’s practice of Topgrading calls for a much more thorough screening process and therefore one that yields up to 90% success rates; the techniques used include:
- Reference calls specifically with former bosses, not just anybody provided by candidates.
- Complete career histories including salaries, ratings, likes/dislikes, and reasons for leaving.
- Competency/behavior interviews (same as in traditional hiring), but augmented by a second chronological interview that walks through with candidates all of their jobs (from the first to the last) in somewhat painstaking detail and includes all of the following: success/accomplishments, failures/mistakes, appraisals by bosses, and key decisions and relationships.
Topgrading also calls for Tandem interviewing—using 2 interviewers at a time. Again, the idea is to be thorough and thereby more careful in the hiring process to yield better results.
While I certainly agree with improving our hiring competencies and doing everything we can to hire the “best and brightest,” I think the premise of having everyone be an A player, all the time, is really more than a little naïve.
People are not things, like gems or coins that you trade and collect and see who has the shiniest, most valuable collection. Rather, people are human beings, and they come to work, as they do to all aspects of their lives, imperfect.
While I understand that Smart means by A player is not someone who is perfect, but “one who qualifies among the top 10 percent of those available,” and that we should of course strive to hire the top qualified available people for all our positions, I also believe that people come in all shapes and sizes and finding top quality is not a one size fits all (i.e. like a caste system), rather we need to find and match the right person to the right job.
Many will say, that prior successful behavior is the key determinate to future success, however, if your not failing, your probably not trying hard enough—so I think we need to look at people as a composite of who they are, what they’ve done, what their potential is, where do their interests lie, is it a god fit, and so on. It’s more than just are they “top 10” (grades, schools, appraisals, etc.). Remember the movie Rocky, he didn’t start out a top 10, but ended up the world champion.
In the end, we are all a lot more than our career histories and reference checks, and timing and fit have a huge impact on whether we are successful in a particular endeavor.
I know that I have certainly seen top performers from one job “fall on their face” in another job that was just wrong for them, and vice versa, people who failed miserably in one job (due to a misfit in culture, organization, boss, duties, etc.), thrive when they are in a better suited opportunity.
So Topgrading’s scientific approach to hiring has the potential of missing the finer point that people are complex organisms. The quantifiable approach is helpful, but only when coupled with qualitatively looking at the fit being the particular organization, job, person, place, and time.
Moreover, in searching only for the A players, Topgrading has the potential to perpetuate the way of thinking that we must only look for those who are robotic, conformists that get the best grades and appraisals, rather than breaking the mold and looking for those that are non-conformist, innovative, and put everything into question. Who will reward someone like that? Not everyone. So in some cases, it may actually be the A players that are the worst players—it actually depends on the situation.
In summary, I would say yes, Topgrade to do due diligence as a leader and manager in looking for and hiring the best talent, but recognize that people have ups and downs—sometimes due to the job, sometimes due to factors completely outside the job, and sometimes its their own undoing—but don’t expect that every one you hire will be perfect, are you?
Rethinking Topgrading
September 24, 2010
The User-centric Web
David Siegel has written a book called “Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web To Transform Your Business” (Dec. 2009).
The main idea is that businesses (suppliers) need to adapt to a new world, where rather than them “push” whatever data they want to us when they want, we (consumers) will be able to get to the information we want and “pull” it whenever we need it (i.e. on demand).
Siegel identifies three types of data online of which less than 1% is currently visible web pages:
- Public Web—what “we normally see when searching and browsing for information online: at least 21 billion pages indexed by search engines.
- Deep Web—includes the “large data repositories that requires their internal searches,” such as Facebook, Craigslist, etc.—“about 6 trillion documents generally not seen by search engines.”
- Private Web—data that “we can only get access to if we qualify: corporate intranets, private networks, subscription based services, and so on—about 3 trillion pages also not seen by search engines.”
In the future, Siegel sees an end of push (i.e. viewing just the Public Web) and instead a new world of pull (i.e. access to the Deep Web).
Moreover, Siegel builds on the “Semantic Web” definition of Sir Tim Berners-Lee who coined the term in the 1990s, as a virtual world where:
- Data is unambiguous (i.e. means exactly the same things to anyone or any system).
- Data is interconnected (i.e. it lives online in a web of databases, rather than in incompatible silos buried and inaccessible).
- Data has an authoritative source (i.e. each piece of information has a unique name, single source, and specified terms of distribution).
While, I enjoyed browsing this book, I wasn’t completely satisfied:
- It’s not a tug of war between push and pull—they are not mutually exclusive. Providers push information out (i.e. make information available), and at the same time, consumers pull information in (access it on-demand).
- It’s not just about data anymore—it’s also about the applications (“apps”). Like data, apps are pushed out by suppliers and are pulled down by consumers. The apps make the data friendly and usable to the consumer. Rather than providing raw data or information overload, apps can help ready the data for end-user consumption.
All semantics aside, getting to information on the web is important—through a combination of push and pull—but ultimately, making the information more helpful to people through countless of innovative applications is the next phase of the how the web is evolving.
I would call this next phase, the “user-centric web.” It relies on a sound semantic web—where data is unambiguous, interconnected, and authoritative—but also takes it to the next level, serving up sound semantic information to the end-user through a myriad of applications that make the information available in ever changing and intelligent ways. This is more user-centric, and ultimately closer to where we want to be.
The User-centric Web
September 23, 2010
World 2020
Forbes Magazine (7 September 2010) has an interesting look ahead at the world over the next ten years.
There were some notable predictions that stood out in terms of the good, the bad, and the ugly:
- 2011: The Terrafugia flying car goes on sales for $200,000. (GOOD—roads are congested)
- 2012: Oil prices skyrocket following Israeli raid on Iranian nukes. (GOOD—nuclear non-proliferation/ BAD—oil prices) Facebook IPOs at $40 billion. (GOOD—social media still sizzling)
- 2014:Marines deploy tens of thousands of HULC3 exoskeletons—robotic suits—to soldiers in Afghanistan. Lockheed Martin suits increases strength and endurance. (GOOD—“the edge” goes to our warfighters)
- 2016: First Internet balloting for U.S. President with 7% of votes cast online. (GOOD—the old ballot machines are so like “yesterday”)
- 2018: Trans Euro-Asia Express—world’s fastest train arrives in Paris from Bejing, break 300 MPH record. (Good—alternative to airlines)
- 2019: U.S. Life expectancy declines for first time in a century; doctors blame 55% obesity rate. (UGLY—“meaning really bad”—national health is in serious jeopardy)
- 2020: WalMart sales pass $1 trillion...now employs 5 million worldwide. (GOOD—low prices/BAD—low paying jobs) First privately owned spacecraft lands 6 men and 2 women on moon. (GOOD—Thanks Virgin Galactic; Star Trek is a closer reality: "To boldly go...")
Here are ten more predictions I’d like to see (from Forbes or others) in terms of what happens to:
- World peace (e.g. Middle-east)
- Cure for cancer (and other horrible illnesses)
- Economy
- Federal deficit
- Freedom and human rights
- Environment (including global warming)
- Osama bin Laden (and his terrorist henchmen)
- Everything new technology (insatiable appetite for this one!)
- Best careers (so I can advise the youngsters)
- Stock market (hey, wouldn’t it be great to know) :-)
World 2020
September 19, 2010
Doomsday Clock Architecture
The chart in this post from the Mirror in the U.K. shows the movement of the Doomsday Clock over the last 60 plus years.
Currently in 2010 (not shown in the chart), we stand at 6 minutes to midnight (midnight being a euphemism for the end of the world or Armageddon).
Since 1947, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has hypothesized and visualized with the dials on the clock how close they believe mankind is to self-extinction.
The closest we’ve gotten is 2 minutes to midnight in 1953 after the U.S. and Russia test the first nuclear devices.
The furthest we’ve gotten from midnight is 17 minutes in 1991, when the Cold War was over, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was signed, and the U.S. and Russia took their fingers off the hair-trigger alert on their nuclear arsenals pointed at each other.
While some may take the Doomsday Clock as a morbid or pessimistic reminder of our human frailties, missteps, and movement toward potential calamity, I see it as a tool that attempts to keep us—as humankind—from going over the edge.
This is very architecture-like, to me. We look at where we are and (implicitly here) set targets for ourselves to move the hands backward away from Armageddon. The architecture piece that we need to concentrate on is a crystal clear plan to get those hands on the clock way back to where we can feel more secure in our future and that of our children and grandchildren.
Wired Magazine (October 2010) has an article called “Suspend the Deathwatch,” calling for the measurement of “a wider variety of apocalyptic scenarios” and for the addition of a “Doom Queue, with a host of globe-killing catastrophes jockeying for slot number one.” The main idea being that we “do more than predict The End; it would organize our collective anxieties into a plan of action.”
I definitely like the idea of a plan of action—we need that. We need to plan for life, continuity, and a flourishing society that goes beyond the limits of sustainability of our situation today.
We are aware of the world’s growing population (aka the population explosion), the scarcity of vital resources like water, energy, arable land, etc. and the potential for conflict that arises from this. We need to plan for the “what ifs” even when they are uncomfortable. That is part of responsible leadership and a true world architecture. That is a big, but meaningful job indeed.
Doomsday Clock Architecture
See A Compelling Future and Make It That Way
- "See things as they are, but not worse than they are" -- People make things worse than they are, so they don't have to try ("it takes no guts to be a pessimist").
- "See it better than it is; see a compelling future" -- "Today can be tough, but if the future is compelling, we can get there."
- "Make it the way we see it" - This last one, in my opinion, is why we're here in life: to improve things, to add value, to leave things better than when you found them.
See A Compelling Future and Make It That Way
The Printer’s Dilemma
Some of the benefits are: higher printer use rates; reduction in printing; cost saving; and various environmental benefits.
Government Computer News (5 April 2010) has an article called “Printing Money” that states: managed printing is an obvious but overlooked way to cut costs, improve efficiency, and bolster security.”
But there are also a number of questions to consider:
In the end, there are a lot of considerations in moving to managed print solutions and certainly, there is a valid and compelling case to moving to MPS, especially in terms of the potential cost-saving to the organization (and this is particularly important in tough economic environments, like now), but we should also weight others considerations, such as productivity offsets, cultural and technological trends, and overall security and environmental impacts, and come up with what’s best for our organizations.
The Printer’s Dilemma
September 15, 2010
Eat, Pray, Fly
Imagine your airplane flight with 40% more people than today's already crammed cabin...
(Pretty unimaginable right?)
Well check out these new airline seats called Skyriders, marketed by Italian company Aviointeriors.
The catch is that the Skyrider seats are only 23 inches narrow and passengers are expected to be in this crazy, half-sitting, half-standing "ergonomic" position for up to 2 hour flights.
The company's advice to larger size people: "You have to lose some weight!"
This certainly doesn't seem like a very customer-centric attitude, nor a very practical way to fly, no matter how much their spokesperson tries to "sell us the Brooklyn Bridge" on this one.
Eat, Pray, Fly
September 12, 2010
The Humanization of Computers
The Wall Street Journal recently reviewed (Sept. 10, 2010) “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop,” by Clifford Nass.
The book examines human-computer interactions in order to “teach us about human relationships.”
The reviewer, David Robinson, sums up with a question about computers (and relationships): “do we really think it’s just a machine?”
Answer: “A new field of research says no. The CASA paradigm-short for ‘computers as social actors’—takes its starting point the observation that although we deny that we interact with a computer as we would with a human being, many of us actually do.”
The book review sums up human-computer interaction, as follows:
“Our brains can't fundamentally distinguish between interacting with people and interacting with devices. We will ‘protect’ a computer's feelings, feel flattered by a brown-nosing piece of software, and even do favors for technology that has been "nice" to us. All without even realizing it.”
Some interesting examples of how we treat computers like people:
- Having a heart for your computer: People in studies giving feedback on computer software have shown themselves to “be afraid to offend the machine” if they are using their own computers for the evaluation rather than a separate ‘evaluation computer.’
- Sexualizing your computer: People sexualize computer voices lauding a male sounding tutor voice as better at teaching ‘technical subjects,’ and a female sounding voice as better at teaching ‘love and relationship’ material.
- A little empathy from your computer goes a long way: People are more forthcoming in typing messages about their own mistakes “if the computer first ‘apologizes’ for crashing so often.”
It seems to me that attributing human attributes (feelings, sexuality, and camaraderie) to an inanimate object like a computer is a social ill that we should all be concerned about.
Sure, we all spend a lot of time going back and forth between our physical realities, virtual realities, and now augmented realities, but in the process we seem to be losing perspective of what is real and what is not.
Perhaps to too many people, their computers have become their best friends, closest allies, and likely the biggest time hog of everything they do. They are:
- Doing their work at arms length from computers rather than seriously working together with other people to solve large and complex problems facing us all.
- Interacting virtually on social networks rather than with friends in real life, and similarly gaming online rather than meeting at the ballpark for some swings at the bat.
- Blogging and tweeting their thoughts and feelings on their keyboards and screens, rather than with loved ones who care and really want to share.
We have taken shelter behind our computers and to some extent are in love with our computers—both of these are hugely problematic. Computers are tools and not hideaways or surrogate lovers!
Of course, the risk of treating computers as people is that we in turn treat people as inanimate computers—or maybe we already have?
This is a dangerous game of mistaken reality we are playing.
[Photo Source: http://www.wilsoninfo.com/computerclipart.shtml]
The Humanization of Computers
Earned Value Management - Made Easy
- Part I: Basic Concepts
- Part II: Calculating Variances and Indexes
- Part III: Forecasting Completion
Earned Value Management - Made Easy
September 11, 2010
A Boss that Looks Like a Vacuum Cleaner
This is too much…an article and picture in MIT Technology Review (September/October 2010) of a robotic boss, called Anybot—but this boss looks like a vacuum cleaner, costs $15,000, and is controlled remotely from a keyboard by your manager.
So much for the personal touch—does this count toward getting some face time with your superiors in the office?
With a robotic boss rolling up to check on employees, I guess we can forget about the chit-chat, going out for a Starbucks together, or seriously working through the issues.
Unless of course, you can see yourself looking into the “eyes” of the vacuum cleaner and getting some meaningful dialogue going.
This is an example of technology divorced from the human reality and going in absolutely the wrong direction!
A Boss that Looks Like a Vacuum Cleaner
Toward A Federal Enterprise Architecture Board
A Federal Enterprise Architecture Board (FEAB) would provide “teeth” to further implementing enterprise architecture across government.
We have a Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) that provides a government wide framework for architecture strategy and planning, but we do not have a FEA Board to govern the subsequent IT investments through capital planning and investment control (CPIC). CPIC is the governance process whereby we select, control, and evaluate new IT investments.
Interestingly, The Federal CIO Council’s Architecture Alignment and Assessment Guide (October 2000) specifically calls for complementary EA and CPIC functions (see graphics).
In this paradigm, the enterprise architecture (EA) informs, guides, drives the CPIC, and in turn the decisions from the CPIC governance process updates the EA planning, so that the EA and CPIC processes are seen as mutually supportive.
In the federal government, we have departmental and agency architectures and boards that serve to plan and govern IT investments at their respective levels. However, as we seek to build greater standardization, interoperability, and reuse across government with IT initiatives that cut across traditional government boundaries driven and guided by the Federal CIO and Federal CIO Council, there is a need for a FEAB to review new and major changes to IT investments.
There would be many purposes for the FEAB.
- Strategic alignment: One would be to ensure strategic alignment not to any single department or agency mission, but rather to the greater federal government strategy and policy. Some examples of this would be data center consolidation, green IT, open government, and more.
- Streamlining of investments: Additionally, the FEAB would assess IT investments to ensure that there is no overlap or opportunities for consolidation of initiatives. OMB performs some of this function today, but a FEAB would augment their capability with IT subject matter experts from across the government.
- Other key benefits: Of course, the FEAB would also look at things like return on investment measures, risk mitigation plans, technical compliance to federal architecture standards and mandates (security, privacy, records, FOIA, Section 508, etc.).
The FEAB would not be a substitute for the EA Boards that provide oversight functions at the department and agency levels, but would provide governance for the largest and riskiest IT initiatives and those that cut across different agencies.
While the OMB currently assesses IT investments using Exhibits 300s and 53s, which include EA assessment questions, the FEAB would provide a governance board made up of cross-cutting governmental IT subject matter experts to vet these business cases from an EA perspective thoroughly and provide recommendations to the Federal CIO Council and the OMB on approval or denial. Therefore, and not unimportantly, the stand-up of a FEAB would add an important human factor to the Federal Enterprise Architecture and make it “real.”
Of course, with a portfolio of some 10,000 IT systems, the FEAB would not be able to govern every new Federal IT investment. Therefore, it would be critical to establish thresholds that would be practical for implementation.
I would envision the FEAB being chaired by the Federal Architect and the board being a recommendation body to the Federal CIO Council and the Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President.
Critical initiatives by Federal CIO Vivek Kundra to effectively manage (i.e. CPIC control phase) IT investments through the Federal IT Dashboard and TechStat sessions would be augmented by the FEAB work to carefully recommend for selection (i.e. CPIC select phase) new federal IT investments.
Together, I see the federal select and control mechanisms of CPIC functioning in harmony to enhance governments IT planning, investment decision-making, and execution. Essentially, the FEA (architecture) and FEAB (governance) on the “front-end” will guide new IT investments, and the IT Dashboard and TechStat sessions on the “back-end” will ensure IT investments are properly progressing for the taxpayer based on cost, schedule, and performance measures.
In summary, the Federal Enterprise Architecture Board would be the governance arm of the Federal Enterprise Architecture, and serve as a support to the IT leadership of the Federal CIO, the Federal CIO Council, and the IT budgetary functions performed by the Office of Management and Budget.
Toward A Federal Enterprise Architecture Board
September 7, 2010
Enterprise Architecture Panel - Snowmaggedon and the End of the (Desktop) World: The Mobile Workforce
I still remember Snowmaggedon because that was when we shoveled out the wrong car because the snow was so high we couldn't see which was ours.
More seriously though, telework benefits federal agencies in many ways:
1. Increases productivity
2. Enhances work-life balance and morale
3. Helps the environment by keeping cars off the road
4. Can save the taxpayer money by reducing the agency's footprint
Data from the Telework Research Network indicate that telework could save agencies and participants as much as $11 billion annually (on such things as real estate, electricity, absenteeism, and employee turnover) and that if eligible employees telecommuted just one day every other week, agencies would increase productivity by more than $2.3 billion per year (driven by employee wellness, quality of life, and morale).
Five years ago nobody would've thought that EA would inform the discussion on telework. EA was still primarily a compliance only mechanism and didn't have a real seat at the decision table. Now thanks to the efforts of all of you, it's strategic benefit is recognized, and EA is playing a vital role in planning and governing strategic IT decisions such as in investing and implementing telework solutions for our agencies.
Our distinguished panelists here today will discuss how EA is informing the discussion of telework from both the policy, systems, and security perspectives.
Enterprise Architecture Panel - Snowmaggedon and the End of the (Desktop) World: The Mobile Workforce