Bill Greeves, IT Director of Roanoke County, VA, and co-founder of MuniGov 2.0, may refer to himself as a 'stylish geek,' but he does not profess to be an authority on Web 2.0. He's just someone who's willing to learn and experiment.

What started as an idea for an online collection of Web 2.0 best practices for state and local governments has morphed into a community of MuniGov members who meet weekly in Second Life, the popular virtual world, to discuss out-of-the-box ideas. For Greeves himself it became an opportunity to blog about his experiences for Government Technology Magazine's website.

Last spring, Greeves began looking online for information about Web 2.0 tools that he could bring to the Roanoke County government. Although he had "heard about Web 2.0 for years," it wasn't until he read an article with examples of how local governments applied the technology that he began "getting really excited about its potential."

But he became frustrated with the lack of good information online until he was introduced—in Second Life—to Pam Broviak, a city planner from Illinois. "We were both complaining that there wasn't a good clearinghouse for information and decided, "Why don't we just build one," Greeves recalls.

So the two joined forces and launched MuniGov 2.0 in late September. The website houses best practices and resources for state and local government officials interested in using Web 2.0 to improve services and communication to citizens. It already has 196 members from city, county and state governments across the country, as well as Australia, Canada, Brazil and the United Kingdom, who come together to share their Web 2.0 experiences.

Greeves is amazed at how quickly the site has taken off. It was "something I was just doing a little research on, and now it's a second job," he says. But he understands that the effort he puts in today will lead to greater participation by others in the future, which is the project's "true value." MuniGov is open to all levels of government, not just state and locals, he adds.

Greeves says he's become an evangelist for Web 2.0, but he's not claiming to be an expert. "I found other people who also were looking for answers and I'm comfortable trying to organize them to get the information," he explains.

Bill Greeves hopes MuniGov will become a "recognized, powerful and dynamic resource for governments implementing and innovating via Web 2.0." He wants the site to house "a strong set of virtual world resources for government agencies" that will enable a large, active user community.

"In my opinion, Web 2.0 is the future of technology communication." It empowers citizens to participate in government and enables them to communicate more easily with government, which influences how well government serves them, he says.

Second Life is a 2.0 technology the MuniGov members have adopted wholeheartedly. In the virtual world, users can interact with each other through avatars, which can appear in many different guises: male, female, people and animals. The group has built a dedicated space in Second Life, which includes a conference room, theatre, R&D lab and "gov pods."

The pods are essentially small offices that members can claim for their organization, Greeves says. Gov pods are intended to serve as a "home base" for conducting interviews or conducting Second Life tours for colleagues and bosses. Roanoke County and other MuniGov members have already outfitted their Second Life spaces with their city/county seal—and comfortable furniture.

Roanoke County is no stranger to technological innovation. This year it was again named a top digital county in its population category by the Center for Digital Government. Roanoke has taken the top honor in 2005 and 2006, and in 2007 earned second place, due in part to a "strong culture of innovation" from leadership willing to try new things, according to Greeves.

Bill Greeves, 35, has been the IT Director for Roanoke since February 2008. Prior to that, the Virginia-native was the Director of Information Technology for the City of Hampton, VA. He has been working at the local level in Virginia government since 2000, when he was hired by City of Virginia Beach and held positions including Webmaster, and Public Information Coordinator.

Working in the IT industry was not the career path the teenage Greeves imagined for himself when he was attending Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, in the early 1990s. He majored in English and wanted to become a journalist.

But his interest in technology was piqued at his first job out of college, in 1994, where he was a technical writer. The company's CEO came to Greeves curious about the Internet. He told Greeves: "I want you to check out this Web thing and tell me what it's all about." That was all it took. "I bought HTML For Dummies and never looked back," he says.

Nowadays Greeves is leading an eager group into the Web 2.0 frontier. "There's a lot of opportunity all over the 2.0 space and we need to be looking at it and sharing with our colleagues," he says. It's "surreal" for him to look around the Second Life conference table during the MuniGov's weekly meetings and see the avatars (human and non-human) interacting and discussing valuable issues, he says.

Greeves understands that each collaborative technology has a downside, but "you either overcome it or you ditch it" and move on to something else "because there are so many new opportunities within the 2.0 space every day." If all its members maintain an attitude like that, the (virtual) sky's the limit for MuniGov.

Change.gov, the President-elect's official website for transition information, has posted five tips for participating in its online discussions and forums.

• Know the comment policy - Change.gov's comment policy has four components that serve as guidelines for those interested in posting comments: stay focused, be respectful, tell the truth, no spam.



• Set up an account - Setting up an account helps build community around the discussions and allows you to rate other people's comments.



• Rate other comments - Participants can rate comments only after setting up an account. Comments can be rated by using the "thumbs-up/thumbs-down" buttons or responding directly to comments with the participant's own thoughts.



• Post a comment - Comments can be left by entering information in the text field at the top of the discussion. Participants can also respond directly to another user by using the "post reply" button at the bottom of the comments.



• Stay on topic - Posting comments related to particular topics or questions posed benefits the community.

OMB updated the Virtualization for Understanding Expenditures in Information Technology (VUE-IT) tool that categorizes IT investments by agency and bureau, as well as the Federal Enterprise Architecture's service groupings.

The VUE-IT tool was enhanced through the addition of:

• High-risk principle criteria - Determination of whether the high-risk projects have a clear baseline and are within 10% of their cost or schedule baseline
• The ability to export data displayed on pages in standard formats
• Links from detailed views of specific investments to agency-posted business case reports (Exhibit 300s) for major investments
• Additional channels for users to provide feedback to OMB.

The updates also display investment amounts for certain high-risk projects where the project in question was part of a larger investment.

GSA awarded the $15 billion Alliant Small Business contract December 18 to 72 companies - 10 more than last year's contract award. There is no award date yet for the $50 billion Alliant contract. Both contracts will provide federal agencies a central source to buy IT solutions worldwide. Both contracts were scrapped in April after a federal judge put them on hold until an agreement between GSA and protesting bidders could be reached.

GSA will name a new award date for Alliant after it receives information the agency has requested from bidders, the release states. GSA has already completed the technical and cost/price re-evaluation of the Alliant contract, based on the Court of Federal Claims' recommendations.

Both Alliant and Alliant Small Business are 5-year base contracts with one 5-year option.

The Department of Homeland Security is accepting applications for its $48.6 million 2009 Driver's License Security Grant Program from state motor vehicle offices, until February 27, 2009.

These grants will fund state projects that will improve the processes for issuing driver's licenses and will expedite compliance with the REAL ID Act. REAL ID requires a standard format for state-issued driver's licenses.

The 2009 target allocations are pre-determined for each state, based on a formula dependent on the number of licensed drivers within each state and territory. This replaces the 2008 method of competitively awarding the funds.

Each applicant will need to identify the office that has program and fiscal oversight of the 2009 program funding awarded to the state.

The Association for Federal Information Resources Management released the findings from its annual survey of the top challenges CIOs face. Eighty-six senior IT officials responded to mailed survey requests in August 2008. Eighty-five percent of the respondents were from civilian agencies and 15% were from intelligence agencies.

The survey recipients were asked to select five items from a list of 25 challenges they consider the most important to federal CIOs. The items that received the most number of votes in 2009 are listed in the following table, along with the comparable 2007 rankings.

GSA and the Coalition for Government Procurement conducted a survey to find out what federal officials knew about security convergence, (which is the integration of physical, personal and data security systems) the associated requirements and their desire to use GSA schedules to provide these products and services.

A number of Department of Defense and civilian agency officials responsible for physical and IT security were interviewed from July through September. The interviews revealed four major concerns:

• Security convergence is defined, by many, to mean no more than an HSPD-12 compliant card
• GSA services and schedules are not easy to use
• Agency program managers involved in security implementations are unfamiliar with GSA
• Agency program managers are unable to evaluate GSA value.

Three recommendations were made in the group's report based on survey feedback:

• Provide "boot camp" training on the GSA Schedule Process
• Identify the GSA Value Proposition - and communicate it
• Develop a configuration tool for using GSA Schedule 84.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a special publication recommending best practices for integrating personal identity verification (PIV) cards with the Physical Access Control Systems (PACS) that authenticate the cardholders in federal facilities.

A Recommendation for the Use of PIV Credentials in Physical Access Control Systems, (SP 800-116) also:

• Describes the desired characteristics of a target implementation of PIV-enabled PACS.
• Describes trust and infrastructure challenges that must be overcome to achieve government-wide credential interoperability.
• Discusses the PIV Card capabilities so that risk-based assessment can be aligned with the appropriate PIV authentication mechanism.

SmartBUY's Origins

SmartBUY is a federal procurement program that aims to reduce the costs of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software. It got its start in June 2003 when OMB called upon agencies to leverage the spending power of the federal government to negotiate lower prices. Citing $58 billion in expected IT costs for that year, OMB stated that the federal government could save $100 million annually by consolidating many of the thousands of piecemeal software purchase agreements into more cost-effective government-wide licensing agreements.

Before SmartBUY, different agencies paid different prices for the same software. Some agencies negotiated a good price, while others paid more than double the price negotiated elsewhere.

In addition to saving money on software, SmartBUY was designed to reduce the administrative cost of procurement, increase standardization, and improve quality of service to the federal government. SmartBUY would relieve managers of the need to search for software that works - SmartBUY could make the selection, all the while ensuring that the accompanying terms and conditions were as advantageous to the customer agency as possible. Paperwork would be streamlined, and perhaps best of all, products would be delivered more quickly.

Implementing SmartBUY

Initially, OMB instructed agencies to submit information about their software needs, including how much they were paying, the terms and conditions of their purchases, and what might be needed in the future. Agencies were also directed to develop plans to incorporate government-wide licensing agreements into their IT strategies.

Under the terms of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, GSA is leading the effort to negotiate the COTS software licenses that are needed across the government. Prior to implementation, the agreements are vetted by an interagency Governance Board made up of officials from OMB, GSA, and the CIO and CAO Councils. Final approval is given by OMB.

SmartBUY agreements are GSA Multiple-Award Schedule Blanket Purchase Agreements and standard procedures apply. Furthermore, SmartBUY is designed so that incorporating pre-existing purchase agreements is as easy as possible. Using SmartBUY guarantees a good deal for agencies, but agencies can negotiate for even lower prices and, where applicable, volume discounts still apply.

When purchasing software covered by a SmartBUY agreement, agencies must use SmartBUY. But when no software is available via SmartBUY that fully meets an agency's needs, they may purchase and use other software. Also, in special cases, agencies can apply for a waiver by submitting written justification to GSA and OMB.

Results

SmartBUY has delivered impressive savings and convenience across the government in its first five years. To get started, SmartBUY focused on the software needs that draw the most federal spending, and it paid off. According to GSA, agencies paid $168.5 million less in 2008 alone than they would have without SmartBUY. In total, the program has saved the federal government $500 million.

These savings were made possible by 29 agreements with 23 different software publishers covering a full spectrum of software needs. Agreements have been finalized in seven of the 10 software market categories: database management, enterprise content management, enterprise resource planning, geospatial information systems, information assurance, network management, and office automation. Agreements have yet to be reached in three software market areas: business intelligence, open source, and enterprise backup/recovery.

GSA and OMB continue to encourage open competition through the use of the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps.gov) web page whenever new government-wide software needs are identified. Federal agencies use FedBizOpps to publicize potential solicitations to the federal contracting community. Ten notices have been issued to date, most recently for the impending Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) and Situational Awareness and Incident Response (SAIR) solicitations.

Both the Defense and the Civilian Agency Acquisition Regulatory Councils have approved adding SmartBUY to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), which will give SmartBUY a stronger mandate. Final approval from OMB is expected in the coming months.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released the results of its third Future of the Internet survey, December 14. Nearly 1,200 participants, including Internet experts, responded to questions about the effect of the Internet on social, political and economic life in the year 2020.

The survey highlighted six major themes:

• Most people in the world will connect to the Internet primarily through mobile devices in 2020.
• People and organizations will function more transparently, but personal integrity, social tolerance or forgiveness won't necessarily increase.
• Voice recognition and touch user interfaces with the Internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.
• There will be a struggle between those working to enforce intellectual property law and those who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.
• The divisions between personal and work time, and physical and virtual reality will further be erased for everyone who's connected, and the results will be mixed in terms of social relations.
• Engineering of the network to improve the current Internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.

Twitter, the micro-blogging site that allows users to send and read other users' text updates of up to 140 characters in length, now has a directory of government agencies and individuals that are using it and other forms of social media. GovTwit, posted by the consulting firm BearingPoint, is intended to be a single source of information about what individuals in and around government are up to.

The directory includes the IDs and links to official government blogs and URLs noted in Twitter blogs. The IDs are grouped into the following categories: Agencies & Executive Branch; The Hill; State & Local; Reporters & Publications; Industry, Academia & Other; International.

Presidential Award for Management Excellence. The Office of Personnel Management presented three agencies with the Presidential Award for Management Excellence, the most prestigious award given to executive branch agencies for management excellence. The 2008 recipients and the categories in which they were recognized are:

• Environmental Protection Agency - Overall Management
• Department of the Treasury - Innovative and Exemplary Practices
• Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs - Innovative and Exemplary Practices

Premiere 100 IT Leaders. Fourteen government officials were named to Computerworld magazine's 2009 Premiere 100 IT Leaders. The honorees were chosen from 1,000 nominations and represent leaders who: promote an IT vision that supports the company strategy; think beyond short-term tactical need to long-term strategic goals; and viewed as a leader by other executives and the IT staff.

The 14 government leaders are:

• Jim Burns, CIO, State of Alabama
• Laura E. Campbell, Associate Librarian, CIO, Library of Congress
• Rebecca Harris, Program Executive Officer, Global Information Grid Enterprise Services, Defense Information Systems Agency
• Tom P. Hughes, CIO, Social Security Administration
• Ronald W. Huston, Agency Services Director and State Enterprise Architect, Governor's Office of Information Technology, State of Colorado
• Toni Jelinek, CIO, Hennepin County, Minneapolis
• Melodie Mayberry-Stewart, CIO and Director of the Office for Technology, State of New York
• Kshemendra N. Paul, Chief Architect, Office of Management and Budget
• Christy Diane Quinlan, Chief Deputy Director, Office of the CIO, State of California
• June L. Randall, Senior Bureau Commander, IT Services Bureau, Miami-Dade County Police Department
• Sam Sumwalt, CTO, U.S. Navy Reserve
• John R. Wetsch, Program Director, North Carolina Window of Information on Student Education, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
• George J. White, CIO, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General
• George W. Wright, Vice President of IT, U.S. Postal Service.

EU e-Inclusion Awards. Seven European initiatives were chosen out of 469 entrants to receive the first European e-Inclusion Awards. The initiatives were selected for their innovative uses of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to promote digital and social inclusion in Europe:

• Ageing Well, London Borough of Newham, United Kingdom
• Geographic Inclusion, Kyvjarven Mediamyllarit ry, Finland
• Digital Literacy, Association Langas I ateti, Lithuania
• Cultural Diversity, Milton Keynes Council, United Kingdom
• Marginalised Young People, A-Clinic Foundation, Finland
• e-Accessibility, Synscenter Refsnaes, Denmark
• Inclusive Public Services, Sotiria Hospital, Greece.

The GSA Office of Citizen Services is accepting nominations for its second annual Citizen Service Award until February 20, 2009.

Federal Computer Week is accepting nominations for its 2009 Federal 100 Awards program now until December 23.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers is accepting nominations for its National Technology Champion Award until January 30.

The Partnership for Public Service is accepting nominations for its 2009 Service to America Medals until February 27.

Also available in pdf 94 kb

Collaborative Expedition Workshop
January 8, 2009

Social Media for Government
Ottawa, Ontario
February 9-12, 2009

FOSE 2009
Washington, DC
March 10-12, 2009

GSA's IRMCO
Cambridge, MD
April 19-22, 2009

ACT/IAC 2009 Management of Change Conference
Norfolk, VA
May 31-June 2, 2009

Comments: We welcome your feedback.

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

Check out our previous editions at www.usa.gov/dotgovbuzz.html.

The DotGov Buzz is produced by the following individuals in the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications:

Darlene Meskell
Andrea Noce
Bryant Jones.