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NASCIO to Present Governor O'Malley with National Technology Champion

Governor Martin O'Malley has been named the association's 2010 National Technology Champion. NASCIO will present the award to Governor O'Malley during the 2010 Midyear Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, on Friday, April 30 at 10:30 am. This award honors Governor O'Malley for his outstanding contributions to promote government performance excellence through sound information technology solutions, policies and practice. NASCIO presents this award on an annual basis to acknowledge pioneers who promote excellence in both technology and good government.

Governor O'Malley's vision for how technology can improve government performance is evident in his data-driven approach. First pioneered as the CitiStat program when he was Mayor of Baltimore, this concept has expanded into state-wide initiatives like Maryland's StateStat and BayStat. As Governor, O'Malley has demonstrated he is a "champion" for technology by making IT an integral part of his management process, applying performance metrics to measure and continually monitor progress in a wide variety of statewide and regional programs. NASCIO and its members recognize that such leadership is key to advancing citizen service, information sharing and good government, and we applaud Governor O'Malley for his longstanding commitment to these efforts.

Social Media and Risk

A Government Technology headline from last week announced that the Colorado Attorney General's office has advised Colorado state agencies not to use Facebook due to the potential for legal liability. While existing sites were not immediately taken down, a host of agencies, and in fact the entire public university system, is left wondering whether they have been asked to discontinue use of this extremely popular social media platform.

From the position of the State CIO or government IT staff generally, what kind of impact would this ruling have on your agencies? What would this do to your state government's strategic goals? How many sites would you have to take down? What do you consider the risk of that to be? What kind of publicity would a ruling like this provoke? How would it affect your citizens or internal users? A spokesperson for the Colorado state university system said, "Facebook has become essential to how the university communicates with students and the wider community." Is an "essential element" of your own state's communications strategy at risk?

Although specific numbers are difficult to obtain, the use of social media by state governments has grown at an enormous pace over the last two years. One has only to browse the state pages at NASCIO.org to find that numerous CIO offices are themselves actively using Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other common social media tools. It is in fact hard to find a government at any level - federal, state, or local - that does not use social media in one form or another. Social media, defined by Wikipedia as web-based media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, has exploded in popularity at a pace that parallels the growth and popularity of the Internet itself. Social media tools have become if not essential to government's communications and collaboration strategies at least critical elements of them.

At the same time, almost all of the myriad articles and literature that focus on use of social media by government note a range of issues or problems that are associated with the tools. Typically, these relate to legal concerns, business case, resource commitment, appropriate use, security, privacy, and records retention, all of which were of course issues that state governments had to grapple with as the web exploded onto the scene in the 1990s.

The specific issue of legal liability in the use of social media - particularly of that related to the most popular, free tools state governments commonly employ - is a well-known one. NASCIO convened a work group on legal issues in mid 2009. The SM Legal workgroup sought to take advantage of prior efforts by the federal General Services Administration that led to successful negotiation with many free social media providers and produced amendments that make the software acceptable for use by many federal cabinets. Some of those negotiations, however, took more than two years to complete, and even at that, are not universally adopted across all federal agencies, as a result of differing assessments of the risk and legal contexts. What NASCIO, the states and the providers are challenged with is fifty new sets of legal contexts and an almost exponentially multiplied set of risk assessments.

The legal workgroup has made significant progress within the last few months and continues in its efforts, but rulings such as that from Colorado speak to the continuing urgency of this effort. As is always the case, state governments are well-advised to adopt an enterprise-wide approach to the range of issues associated with social media, and expect that, despite the relative low up-front cost of tool adoption, bumps in the road can and will occur.

Key Federal Leaders to Speak in Baltimore at the 2010 Midyear Conference

Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer, US Office of Management and Budget, will address the state members on Wednesday, April 28 during the State Member Meeting. Kundra will outline opportunities for Federal and State collaboration and share insights on how we can work together to make government more efficient and effective.

Howard Schmidt, White House Cyber Security Coordinator, will be the Luncheon Keynote Speaker on Thursday, April 29. Schmidt will address new opportunities for coordination and collaboration between the states and the Federal government on issues related to cyber security and critical infrastructure protection.

Gene Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), will present the Closing Keynote Address on Friday, April 30. Dodaro will discuss the GAO's perspective on efforts to improve government performance and efficiency as well as transparency and accountability to citizens.

It's not too late to Register for the Midyear Conference!

Wednesday, April 21 is the deadline to register online for the conference. Registration will reopen onsite on April 28, but fees will be $100 higher. For more details on the conference sessions, see the conference website www.nascio.org/events/2010midyear.

Benefit from the knowledge and expertise of our Midyear Conference Sponsors by visiting the 2010 Midyear Conference Virtual Resource Center to view the latest research and thought leadership resources. Download whitepapers, research briefs and other educational materials on an array of topics at www.nascio.org/events/2010Midyear/sponsorResourceCenter.cfm. The collection is searchable by keyword. Each person who accesses a whitepaper between March 1 and April 27 will have the opportunity to submit his or her name for the drawing to win an iPod™ nano (8GB). The winner will be announced at the conference.

Joint CIO-Corporate Leadership Council (CLC) Briefing

NASCIO will host a joint CIO-CLC briefing at the Midyear Conference on Wednesday, April 28 from 4:30 - 6:00 pm. The featured speaker, Jennifer Duffy, Senior Editor with The Cook Political Report will discuss the 2010 gubernatorial elections. This briefing is open to all State and Corporate Members.

NASCIO Welcomes New Team Member

DeLaine Bender joined AMR Management Services as NASCIO's Deputy Director on April 5. DeLaine will assist the Executive Director Doug Robinson in managing the day-to-day activities of NASCIO while offering additional support in the areas of grant management, policy analysis, financial management, staff development, and communications. DeLaine brings over 20 years association management and related experience to AMR. Throughout her career she has managed operational functions, sales, communications, grant-funded initiatives, technology, and government relations functions for trade and professional associations. DeLaine holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma.

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