Attendance at today's Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) Bethesda Chapter Breakfast Series entitled "Federal Cloud Computing Environments – Modernizing IT Systems" was very heavy, as viewed from the Blackstone Technology Group sponsored table. The panel discussion and DC Federal IT community networking conversation revolved around the push to promote and adopt cloud computing as part of the Obama administration’s effort to modernize the government’s information technology systems, and to help reduce the $75 billion annual budget for Federal IT in the process. The event panelists held an informative and rigorous discussion about how cloud computing is enabling IT professionals (government and industry) to rethink the packaging, delivery and operation of government services, and is changing the landscape of government IT infrastructure management and streamlining system, network and storage management. Panelists included Casey Coleman (Moderat...

Important DC and Northern Virginia Regional Business and Marketing Networking Announcement: by KME Internet Marketing Learn Integrated Online Marketing /Advertising, Branding, Web Design, SEO, Social Media, Analytics and Internet Video - in Northern Virginia, DC metro area. As 2009 draws to a close, it’s become very apparent that 2010 will continue to be an extremely challenging year for businesses seeking new customers, and new ways to market and advertise their brand and services. As well, the ability of Northern Virginia and DC-area professionals to effectively learn and leverage new Online Marketing and Internet New Media/Web 2.0 skills is hampered by the current lack of expert yet cost-effective, local and hands-on Internet Marketing/SEO training. Add to this the dizzying proliferation of Social Media publishing and analytic tools, the rapid change in the search engine technologies and video media industries, and the quickly-growing competition for eyeballs and click-throughs from...

Data.gov is a fairly recent Federal initiative with respect to data and information sharing and transparency; i.e. encouraging and facilitating the exposure (by all Government agencies) of verifiable, raw government data/geodata and data tools/visualization techniques to the public. Data can be accessed and downloaded in many formats, for any purpose - including datasets in XML, CSV, Text, KML, KMZ, or ESRI Shapefile formats. Recently the Data.gov CONOPS was released by the Federal CIO Council, together with OMB, along with a very interesting method and means to encourage public dialogue and input. To help stakeholders "join the dialogue", per se, the " http://www.datagov.ideascale.com " site was developed - essentially a blog with social media hooks (i.e. facebook, twitter, RSS). I went ahead and submitted an idea recently (to be moderated); as follows - be sure to review and submit your own, and/or comment on mine! "The Data.gov CONOPS provides a great deal...

Here's a very good article concerning the various types of strong identity management, multifactor and two-factor authentication solutions that are necessary for healthcare system and process identity enforcement - recently written by John D. Halamka MD, a self-described Healthcare CIO. Strong Identity Management In this article, Dr. Halamka states that he's had a wide range of experience with many of these token-based and tokenless two-factor authentication methods, including security tokens, smart cards, biometrics, certificates, soft tokens, and cell phone-based approaches. His summarized findings include: Security Tokens - many challenges and prohibitive expenses. Smart cards - a good consideration, though requires installation of many readers. Biometrics - great results, but still requires major technology upgrade for existing PC/LAN infrastructure (this is especially challenging in government and healthcare institutions with extremely diverse and aged personal computer...