Recent efforts to improve cooperation and coordination between the federal government and the IT industry have shown mixed results, including the aborted attempt this spring to create a Chief Information Security Officer Exchange. The ongoing struggle to improve the dialogue increases the pressure on the original public/private-sector forum—the Industry Advisory Council—and its new chairman, Ellen Glover.
Glover, vice president and general manager of systems development at Dynamics Research Corp., in Andover, Mass., was slated to take the reins of the council in late June. One of her priorities is to broaden and enhance teamwork in the private sector by further increasing IAC membership. The councils membership has more than doubled since 2000—consistent with a vast increase in federal government spending—and IACs leaders expect the trend will continue.
In the coming year, the IAC, based in Fairfax, Va., will focus on problems that have dogged widespread federal deployment of new technologies, including program management deficiencies and difficulties in cross-agency collaboration. Participation in the IAC from more businesses means greater opportunity for partnering and bringing to government a complete set of products and services for any given problem, Glover said. “Were looking for people outside the Beltway,” she said. “We team with our competition all the time.”
In addition, the broader the participation, the less likely the IAC will be criticized for providing members with unfair access to government.
“We do a lot to make sure we dont have any bias,” said Kenneth Allen, executive director of the IAC and its parent organization, the American Council for Technology. “The presumption is to make everything open.”
Another of Glovers priorities will be to help federal agencies accelerate deployment and adoption of online services, or e-government. The IAC will work on developing ways to measure the effectiveness of e-government projects that have been deployed and develop suggestions for improving public-sector management of interagency projects.
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