The Agency Deputy CIO (DCIO), Enterprise Architect (EA), IT System/Security Manager (ITSM) and the Open Data Community Evangelist (ODCE) – Over Cafeteria Coffee The DCIO & ITSM at a table, talking about the annual IT budget status. The ODCE drifts over, recognizes the ITSM from a recent agency newsletter. ODCE – "Can I sit here? I wanted to talk to you about opening up data, freeing it, from your system to my Github group. Want to join? It’s at ODCE.io., plus there will be an announcement soon on Sharepoint." ITSM – "Um, sure. Do you have a badge? Who do you work for?" DCIO ( Thinking – this must be one of those social media risks. Can you twitter without using your hands? Maybe he’s got the new Google glasses thing. Need to check my email. This coffee is a bit stale. ) ODCE – "Oh, sorry (produces badge from pocket) – the lanyard felt like a tie. I’m not a clacker yet, you know, with all the badges, I mostly telecommute – but I work for the O...

The title of this article is quite a mouthful, and three very complex and broadly-scoped disciplines mashed together. But that's what's happening all over, isn't it, driven by consumer demand on their iPhones - mashing and manipulating information that's managed to leak through the risk-adverse, highly-regulated mantle of the government's secure data cocoon, and instantly sharing it for further rendering, visualization or actual, productive use. Mostly a "pull" style information flow, at best constrained or abstracted by public sector Enterprise Architecture (EA) methods and models - at worst, simply denied. This demand for open data, however, is rapidly exposing both opportunities and challenges within government information-sharing environments, behind the firewall - in turn a fantastic opportunity and challenge for the Enterprise Architects and Data Management organizations. The recent " Open Data Policy " compels US Federal agencies to make a...

Last week’s “Meeting the Open Government Directive ” (OGD) conference hosted by GovDelivery (new owners of the popular GovLoop.com public/private social media forum) showcased a number of very important, relevant initiatives and ideas to help Federal Agencies comply with this important White House mandate. The directive comes from a memorandum signed by President Obama on his very first day in office, to all federal agencies directing them to break down barriers to transparency, participation, and collaboration between the federal government and the people it is to serve. Most agencies have already started their compliance initiatives, creating “Open Government” pages (for example at DHS ) to highlight shared data sources and programs, and all agencies are required to present their holistic strategies (i.e. their “Open Government Plan”) by April 7th of this year. Ideas from the public regarding how agencies should approach their Open Government Plans are currently being accepted throu...