As Federal agency leaders look to modernize networks and provide better citizen services, they need to have a “Citizen First” mentality, rather than “Cloud First” or “Cloud Smart,” Claire Bailey, director of Federal, State and Local Mainframe Solutions at Compuware, told MeriTalk. […]

VA

The Senate confirmed James Gfrerer as Assistant Secretary for the Office of Information and Technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs Wednesday evening on a voice vote, filling the permanent CIO role that had been vacant since the start of the Trump administration. […]

Trump

Since the President’s Management Agenda was issued in March, Federal agencies have been working governmentwide to “provide a modern, streamlined, and responsive customer experience [CX] across government, comparable to leading private sector organizations.” According to an update released Wednesday on Performance.gov, agencies have made strong progress on the cross-agency priority (CAP) of improving CX with Federal services; however, the path forward has not been without bumps in the road. […]

Capitol Washington DC Federal

As MeriTalk reported earlier this month, the Senate today took action on the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA Act) and passed the legislation under unanimous consent. […]

The General Services Administration announced that Anil Cheriyan will be the new director of the agency’s Technology and Transformation Services unit and deputy commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, replacing acting director Kelly Olson in early January. […]

Congress Capitol Senate House

The Senate is expected to take action on H.R. 5759, the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA Act), via a “hotline” procedure before the end of the current session of Congress, a knowledgeable Capitol Hill source told MeriTalk. […]

Capital, House of Representatives, Congress, Senate

The House has voted to approve bills that would two bills–one that would elevate and reauthorize the role of the Federal CIO, and another that would establish minimum standards for Federal agency website functionality and performance. […]

Machine learning AI modernization

A new survey on the impact of the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) issued in March reveals positive responses to the document but also some of the biggest challenges on the PMA’s key drivers of IT modernization, data usage, and the workforce. […]

General Services Administration GSA

When it comes to customer experience in the Federal government, customers can be like your children: you love them and want to help them succeed, but you don’t get to pick them, and you have to work toward their high expectations. That was the message from Anahita Reilly, chief customer officer at the General Services Administration (GSA), during a speech today at Deloitte’s Creating a Future Forward event. […]

student aid, funding, student loans, education department, college

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos highlighted the success of the Department of Education’s mobile applications during a speech on Tuesday, pointing to their convenience and ability to reach citizens in an effective manner. […]

Congress Capitol Senate House
Federal money spending government

IT officials from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) detailed progress their agencies have made so far in utilizing grants awarded by the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), and highlighted the benefits of TMF funding including the ability to repay the working capital fund through cost savings. […]

The newest round of Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) awards came after the TMF board reviewed more than 40 proposals from agencies looking to win funds from the program, according to Federal Deputy CIO Margie Graves. […]

Jay Huie

The upcoming Federal Data Strategy, currently in development and open to comment, aims to increase transparency and drive better service for citizens, said Jay Huie, a White House leadership development fellow, who described himself as an “ombudsperson” for the Federal Data Fellows developing the strategy. […]

Customer Experience CX

For agencies looking to score a touchdown with their customer experience, the General Services Administration (GSA) released its Customer Experience Playbook today, offering “a synthesis of ideas gathered from interviewing several subject matter experts and leaders in CX and Human Centered Design in government.” […]

US Federal CIO Suzette Kent OMB MeriTalk CCXB

Federal CIO Suzette Kent provided a demonstration this morning at the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council’s (ACT-IAC) Imagine Nation ELC Conference to help envision a future for government services that may not be that far away. […]

Emily Murphy, administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), delivered a keynote address today that provided a glimpse of her vision as the head of GSA, along with recent government IT wins and the path she sees ahead for the agency serving as the Federal facilitator for IT acquisition and modernization. […]

Customer Experience CX
US Federal CIO Suzette Kent OMB MeriTalk CCXB
Gary Washington USDA CIO agriculture

Agriculture Department CIO Gary Washington laid out his agency’s IT modernization journey today, beginning with USDA’s work as the lighthouse agency for the Centers of Excellence (CoE) initiative, and continuing with the agency’s selection as one of the first three to receive an award under the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF). […]

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he is eyeing the post-midterm election “lame duck” period for further movement through Congress of his 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA) bill that would empower Federal agency CTOs and CIOs to modernize and improve their websites and citizen services. […]

matt lira

Matt Lira, special assistant to the president for innovation, policy, and initiatives at the White House Office of American Innovation, has a unique visualization exercise to help consider how we should address problems in the Federal IT space. […]

Suzette Kent

Federal CIO Suzette Kent called today’s first official test of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System a “historic event,” highlighting the test as evidence of the expanding role of mobile technologies and their impact on a broader effort toward digital transformation in the Federal government. […]

General Services Administration GSA

The General Services Administration announced several companies receiving awards for “critical work” at the Centers of Excellence (CoEs) within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), advancing the Centers of Excellence initiative into phase II. […]

hybrid cloud multi cloud computing in the cloud

As Federal agencies migrate applications to the cloud, data integration can be a major stumbling block that prevents them from reaping the benefits of cloud services. While agencies are putting more applications in cloud environments, often the underlying technologies connecting these applications are still on-premise. As a result, information technology teams must spend time provisioning and maintaining their middleware infrastructure to avoid performance bottlenecks. […]

Cloud computing

Federal IT executives from the Department of Energy and the United States Digital Service shared their experiences this week with cloud migrations and offered their lessons learned to help ease transitions to the cloud for other agencies, including the evaluation of cost structures and the importance of engineering “quick wins” from service transitions. […]

Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and one of the Trump administration’s most visible point persons promoting its plan to reorganize numerous aspects of Federal civilian agencies, said on Wednesday that the first fruits of that plan may be efforts to standardize aspects of the Federal cybersecurity workforce, ease the backlog of Federal background checks, and make improvements in the provision of government digital services generally. […]

White House

Underneath its more headline-grabbing aspects such as the proposed merger of the Departments of Labor and Education, the Trump administration’s Federal agency reorganization proposal issued on June 21 marks another step in the wider push toward greater Federal government IT modernization, a former Department of Commerce (DoC) official told MeriTalk. […]

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