Government Executive - Authors - Gautham Nagesh

All About Apps

Gautham Nagesh — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Many in government consider the phrase killer apps to be an oxymoron. Federal software typically comes with an extensive list of requirements and takes years to write. By the time applications reach the end user, the technology often is old news. That's why White House officials have spent the past year emphasizing that government must become more nimble and creative in its development approach.

The effort has started to pay off. While it still is relatively rare to find federally developed applications so valuable or desirable that users adopt them quickly and organically, there are pockets of innovation. One example is NASA's Be a Martian Web site, a cloud computing effort that lets the public view hundreds of thousands of images from the Red Planet. In the fiscal 2011 budget released on Feb. 1, President Obama noted that the administration will continue to roll out less intensive and less expensive cloud computing technologies, making it easier and more practical to store large amounts of data online in a public-facing server.

The Be a Martian site also takes advantage of crowd-sourcing-or using the collective talent of the public to complete a project-by allowing visitors to count craters and other formations on Mars' surface. The results help NASA map the planet.

If there's any thread connecting the various killer applications within government, it's that most of the activity is taking place on the Web and with the public in mind. The Homeland Security, State and Veterans Affairs departments have revamped their online offerings and unveiled redesigned sites to considerable fanfare. The enhancements don't only make the sites look better; they also aim to provide easier navigation and tools that deliver more useful-and sometimes customized-information to visitors. Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services bureau, for example, gives applicants for residency and citizenship of processing times for myriad forms and allows them to track the progress of their cases.

Many of the functionalities that previously required downloading software now are accessible from agencies with just a few mouse clicks. While these Web-native programs might not fit the traditional definition of killer apps, they represent the current trend in both the government and private sector toward housing tools on the Web or in the cloud so users can access them from any computer or mobile device.

Another online effort that has drawn attention is the Federal Communications Commission's Reboot.FCC.gov, which debuted on Jan. 7. The site features a blog, discussion forum and clearinghouse for online data. Clay Johnson, director of the nonprofit Sunlight Labs, says FCC has been particularly interested in working with the open government community to advance transparency and make more data available online.

"FCC Reboot is a good example of an agency leading the way on how to talk to developers and constituents," Johnson says. "It's not going to create applications right now, but they are creating a dialogue . . . that's going to pay off in the long run."

Private sector companies already have proved adept at finding innovative uses for government data. Sunlight Labs' 2009 Apps for America contest, which challenged developers to build software using a feed from the online clearinghouse of federal information Data.gov, drew more than 40 entries. The winning application, Forum One Communication's DataMasher, allows citizens to combine any two sets of statistics from Data.gov to examine possible correlations. Other entries help citizens locate toxic waste dumps on their iPhones; play a memory game with faces from the FBI's Most Wanted list; and surf the Federal Register, the daily publication of the government's regulatory actions.

Interest in such applications is likely to grow as agencies post more information online in keeping with the Obama administration's December 2009 open government directive, Johnson predicts. Going forward, the best formula to meet the demand for more killer applications might be to reform the cumbersome federal procurement process and enlist more help from the private sector.

"Really what has to happen is the process for developing and procuring software has to change," Johnson says. "It means changing the procurement process to make smaller teams that are more user-driven rather than giant contractors that are using the same processes to build Web software as to build a plane."

Johnson suggested a legislative solution ultimately would be needed to move from big-bang development, with its long list of requirements, toward a more nimble approach with multiple rollouts. In the interim, he proposes offering incentives for large contractors to allow smaller, more innovative developers to take part in the process.

"It would be easier for them to open their doors to smaller contractors than to get legislative change," he says.

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All About Apps

Gautham Nagesh — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

A push to develop more online applications is gathering supporters.

"It would be easier for them to open their doors to smaller contractors than to get legislative change," he says.

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From Nextgov.com: GSA tags Steven Kempf to lead Federal Acquisition Service

Gautham Nagesh — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

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From Nextgov.com: Private equity firm buys majority of GovDelivery

Gautham Nagesh — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

The private equity firm Internet Capital Group Inc. announced on Tuesday it is acquiring a majority stake in the communications firm GovDelivery Inc., based in St. Paul, Minn.

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From Nextgov.com: Senators introduce bills to boost acquisition workforce roles, training

Gautham Nagesh — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0500

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From Nextgov.com: GSA awards geospatial services agreements to four firms

Gautham Nagesh — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0500

The General Services Administration announced on Thursday that it awarded a new blanket purchase agreement federal, state and local governments can use to buy geospatial software and services through its SmartBUY program.

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From Nextgov.com: Northrop's sale of business unit signals start of a divestiture trend

Gautham Nagesh — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500

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From Nextgov.com: Bill to increase oversight of IT projects gets big boost from report

Gautham Nagesh — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500

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From Nextgov.com: GSA awards $99 million contract for IT support to combat drug trafficking

Gautham Nagesh — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400

The General Services Administration awarded a contract on Wednesday to improve information sharing among the law enforcement agencies that investigate drug traffickers.

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In the Worx

Gautham Nagesh — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Three and a half years. That's how much time the General Services Administration set aside for federal agencies to transition their telecommunications services from the expiring FTS 2001 contract to Networx, a program that offers them a broader range of services at lower costs.

It seemed like more than enough time, especially if the additional one-year agreement extending old services to June 2011 was factored in, giving agencies really four and a half years to make the switch. Federal managers have a little less than two years until the deadline, when FTS 2001 services will terminate. But less than a quarter of agencies have moved to Networx, a slow pace that costs the government $18 million for every month an agency delays its decision. And costs will escalate if agencies miss the cutoff and require emergency provisions to keep phones on, something telecom specialists say is likely to happen. How did it come to this?

More Than Just Phones

The Networx transition has proved more complex than GSA anticipated, according to Karl Krumbholz, director of network services programs in the agency's Federal Acquisition Service. The program offers more products and services than its predecessor, including more than 900 pages of contract line items for agencies to choose from.

AT&T, for example, offers 44 categories of products on the two Networx contracts, Universal and Enterprise, compared with 26 categories on its FTS 2001 lineup. The new products and services include a wider range of security services, more options for wireless communications, video- and teleconferencing, and advanced Internet protocol services such as Voice over IP.

Agencies also have had less time to sift through Networx's products and services because they face an unprecedented workload to award hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of contracts under the Recovery Act.

In addition, the number of employees who have the experience to understand the offerings has dwindled. The success of the FTS 2000 and 2001 contracts led agencies to rely on GSA and vendors to make their service decisions for them, and they reduced network engineering staff as a result, says Warren Suss, president of Suss Consulting in Jenkintown, Pa. "In some ways the government is a victim of its own success," Suss says.

Another cause for the delay is the decision by agencies to issue separate task orders for voice, data and wireless services. Krumbholz says GSA designed the contract with the expectation that most agencies would purchase all their voice, wireless and data services from one carrier. "We haven't seen that play out," he says.

Under the 1994 Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, all multiple award contractors must receive a fair opportunity to win task or delivery orders in excess of $2,500. Agencies cannot place orders on Networx until they have completed a fair opportunity competition. By issuing multiple task orders for different services, agencies have created more work than GSA anticipated.

For example, NASA took 14 months to evaluate all bids before awarding Qwest Government Services a $14.2 million, eight-year task order to upgrade its high-speed broadband backbone. "In our experience, what we've seen is that different contractors provide different services in technically and operationally different ways," says NASA procurement specialist Vanessa Lindsey. In addition, they charge different prices for the same service. The portion of the fair opportunity process that took the longest to complete was retrieving the required information from vendors to conduct the evaluation, she adds.

As of the end of August, only six agencies had completed all fair opportunity competitions and only half had been awarded. "You can measure it several ways: by the number of agencies disconnected [from FTS 2001] or the number connected [to Networx], but any way you cut it, only 20 to 25 percent are transitioned," says Bob Woods, president of Topside Consulting LLC in Vienna, Va.

But GSA is not ready to give up on making the June 2011 deadline. "There's a tremendous amount of work ongoing; we've done a lot of work that hasn't resulted in final disconnects," Krumbholz says, adding the agency has no plans to extend FTS 2001 bridge contracts.

By invoking the continuity-of-service provisions on the bridge contracts, however, GSA is all but admitting that the original June 2010 deadline is likely to come and go without the majority of agencies having completed the transition.

What to Do?

To avoid missing the deadline, agencies' first step should be to dedicate experienced telecom personnel to complete the transition, says Jim Whetstone, client service executive at Acquisition Solutions in Arlington, Va. Agencies should conduct a comprehensive inventory of their telecom services and assets. This will expedite their first orders on Networx and speed the acquisition process, he says.

"It goes back to being prepared going in," Whetstone says. "Having the right people writing the evaluation criteria and on the evaluation panel. If you have the right people, they know what to review, what to document, what should be looked at."

Still, he says, as in any major initiative, the government will encounter a few agencies that don't meet the cutoff. Woods and Suss predict the government won't allow those agencies to lose their service, likely opting instead to negotiate some sort of emergency sole-source contract extension-which will cost a lot.

Krumbholz still says GSA has no plans to extend the contracts and the agency is planning to meet the deadline. "At this point, we're not prepared to make an estimate" of how many agencies will or won't make the deadline, he says. "But it's clear that we need to make it, because if we have to put other contracts in place, it's an enormous amount of work for GSA. It takes resources and support away from the transition, and frankly, the costs on the current contract are higher."

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From Nextgov.com: Intelligence e-mail shut down prompts concerns about other collaboration tools

Gautham Nagesh — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400

The decision to shut down a popular e-mail system used by intelligence agencies to exchange information has many in the intelligence community fearing that other technologies designed to increase interagency collaboration will be shut down.

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From Nextgov.com: Agencies to spend more on IT in 2010, but not on new projects

Gautham Nagesh — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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In the Worx

Gautham Nagesh — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Agencies that don't make the deadline for transition to Networx could face huge cost increases.

More Than Just Phones

What to Do?

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From Nextgov.com: Michigan unveils strategy to garner stimulus IT funds

Gautham Nagesh — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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From Nextgov.com: System to check worker eligibility for federal contractors running smoothly

Gautham Nagesh — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

A mandatory program for federal contractors that verifies the legal status of workers is processing requests in a timely fashion, according to the Homeland Security Department.

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From Nextgov.com: Top CIO unveils cloud computing storefront

Gautham Nagesh — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Federal agencies should prepare to begin shifting their information technology systems by next year to the cloud, where outside vendors operate and service infrastructure and applications, according to federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra.

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From Nextgov.com: Lawmakers join forces on cybersecurity legislation

Gautham Nagesh — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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From Nextgov.com: CMS provides guidance to states on stimulus grants for health IT

Gautham Nagesh — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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CBP to continue searches of travelers’ laptops

Gautham Nagesh — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400

The Homeland Security Department announced on Thursday that it will continue to allow Customs and Border Protection officials to search travelers' laptop computers and other electronic devices without suspicion of wrongdoing.

The practice of searching travelers' electronic devices without suspicion has been controversial. In April 2008, a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge ruled CBP agents do not need reasonable suspicion to search travelers' laptops, smart phones and other electronic devices.

In June 2009, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held a hearing on the issue, which has been challenged in court 11 times by individuals convicted of having child pornography on their laptops.

Homeland Security released two directives on Thursday, indicating the Obama administration will continue the practice of suspicionless searches, much to the dismay of privacy advocates. Group such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union have opposed the practice, saying it is invasive and likely to lead to racial and religious profiling.

"Keeping Americans safe in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully screen materials entering the United States," said DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. "The new directives announced today strike the balance between respecting the civil liberties and privacy of all travelers, while ensuring DHS can take the lawful actions necessary to secure our borders."

The new directives describe the department's policy on searching travelers' laptops, cell phones and other electronic devices in-depth and set a five-day limit on Customs and Border Protection searches. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents are allowed up to 30 days to search an electronic device. The new rules require agents to get a supervisor's approval before confiscating a device and CBP must notify travelers where their device is being kept.

But the changes don't go far enough, according to Christopher Calabrese, counsel for the ACLU's Technology and Liberty program.

"Essentially, they retain the power to look at any laptop at any time," Calabrese said. "Our reaction is that we still haven't reached the core problems of the searches -- the totally suspicionless search of anyone with a laptop and anything on a laptop."

Calabrese said in addition to protecting sensitive information like legal documents or medical records that might be on the devices, his organization is concerned about CBP agents using the policies to profile minorities. The policy is misguided, given that anyone attempting to smuggle data into the United States could easily do so from anywhere in the world via an encrypted e-mail, he added.

"There have been a number of reports from advocacy organizations, Muslim advocates, describing people clearly targeted because of religion and race," Calabrese said. "We take it too much for granted in this country sometimes, that when we're talking about security it's OK to do nudge-and-wink racial profiling. But it's not, and it doesn't have security value."

Customs and Border Protection searched approximately 1,000 laptops between Oct. 1, 2008, and Aug. 11, 2009, 46 of them in-depth.

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From Nextgov.com: IG reports detail abuses in hiring, travel, bonuses at VA technology office

Gautham Nagesh — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Former high-ranking information technology officials at the Veterans Affairs Department gave preferential treatment to certain contractors, engaged in nepotism in hiring and, in one case, took advantage of a relationship with a supervisor for personal gain, according to a new report from the department's inspector general.

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Turmoil at the Top

Gautham Nagesh — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400

GSA faces greater scrutiny with emphasis on transparency in IT acquisitions.

As President Obama's choice to lead the General Services Administration, Martha Johnson finds herself in the middle of some of the administration's most ambitious plans. GSA is playing a key role in disbursing Recovery Act dollars and has taken the lead on the White House's efforts to expand government's use of social media tools. But Johnson's main challenge will be to bring stability and transparency to the government's central procurement shop, which has had five acting administrators since April 2008.

Johnson is no stranger to GSA; she served as its chief of staff from 1996 to 2001 and was co-chairwoman of the Obama transition team that evaluated the agency. Her initial months will be spent overseeing the more than $5 billion in stimulus funds allocated to GSA's Public Buildings Service to renovate federal facilities.

But spending stimulus funds is only one of the challenges awaiting Johnson. If Obama and federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra fulfill their promise to bring transparency to government information technology procurements, then GSA officials will face greater scrutiny over how they conduct their competitions.

At the same time, a blue-ribbon advisory panel set up to examine the Federal Supply Schedule program recently recommended that GSA eliminate the price reduction clause, which requires vendors to offer the government the same price as their top commercial customers. The clause has caused some vendors to drop out of the program, which is the primary procurement vehicle for commercial products and services. Instead, the panel recommended that GSA require contracting officers to obtain multiple bids at the task order level to guarantee competition and best value for the government.

Another issue GSA faces is the ongoing transition to the Alliant and Networx contracts for IT and telecommunications services, respectively. Both contracts have been slow to attract agency interest. At her confirmation hearing Johnson said the transition to Networx is taking too long and at the current rate, most agencies will not have made the transition from FTS 2001 services before that contract expires.

GSA finally awarded the $50 billion Alliant contract for IT goods and services in March, one year after a protest derailed the original award. The number of awardees doubled to 59 after the agency allowed vendors to update their bids before the final decision. Alliant appears to be GSA's main weapon in the competition for agencies' IT procurement dollars; only vendors on the contract were eligible to bid on the redesign of Recovery.gov, the federal Web site GSA is building to allow users to track economic stimulus spending. Alliant is likely to see its importance rise as agencies rush to spend Recovery Act dollars.

The true measure of Johnson's success will be whether GSA can reverse its declining market share in federal contracts.

Industry watchers say the recent proliferation of government contracting vehicles outside GSA could be seen as a lack of confidence in the agency. If one year from now Johnson has succeeded in convincing more agencies to use GSA's contracts instead of creating their own, then chances are she's doing pretty well.

Click here for the top 25 GSA contractors.

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From Nextgov.com: Complexity of Networx offerings causes delays

Gautham Nagesh — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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From Nextgov.com: GSA's new chief acquisition officer to wear multiple hats

Gautham Nagesh — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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From Nextgov.com: Agencies likely to miss deadline to transition to Networx telecom pact

Gautham Nagesh — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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From Nextgov.com: OMB asks agencies to focus on science and technology in 2011 budgets

Gautham Nagesh — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400

The White House released a memo on Tuesday telling agencies to direct more spending on science and technology when formulating fiscal 2011 budgets as a way for the Obama administration to increase federal funding for basic scientific research.

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