New Ideas : Empire 2.0 Tech Talk

Characteristics that Drive Cloud Hosting Decisions

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:57:48 PST

Which application or data characteristics help lead to a decision to host an application in a public cloud or within private cloud?

Comments (0)Cloud Computing, cloud, rfi

Technical & Business Considerations of Cloud Computing

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:54:38 PST

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What are the primary technical and business considerations CIO/OFT should address to build “best practice” processes, so a mix of public and private hosting configurations for State applications can be deployed effectively?

Comments (0)Cloud Computing, cloud, rfi

Internal Virtual World for CIO-OFT

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:55:48 PST

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Do you think that a second-life like virtural world for CIO-OFT employees would foster more internal participation in internal communication, and expression and generation of internal ideas?

Comments (3)Social Media / Networking

SEFA

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:55:12 PST

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In the future, SEFA may be able to partner more with their state affiliations. Emails and online documentation could be proliferated to cut costs of getting the word out. One distributed notification of SEFA providing 100% of donations to charities, would greatly increase participation.

If this could be realized, it could make the difference in one hungry child. I would be willing to donate my time on nights or weekends to help in any additional administrative processes. If successful, this could be a catalyst for other states to adopt.

Comments (1)Workforce Management

Revisit the web filtering procedure

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:55:03 PST

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The CIO/OFT web filter often prevents access to websites needed for me to do my job, either because of false positives or false assumptions. This usually hits at the worst time-pressed times, so the current process for asking for an exception is too cumbersome. Specific examples of a:

- False positive: Assigned task, research security issue. A website that mentions the word "hacking" is misinterpreted as a prohibited hackers' site.

- False assumption: Assigned task, research a webpage creating-vendor's approach on one of the sample pages it has helped a third party create. The sample page is a federal government webpage about strengthening romantic relationships to reduce societal harms like divorce. False assumption is made by the web filter this is a prohibited "Dating" webpage.

- False assumption: Assigned task, determine vendor's statements on a public policy issue. Finding that vendor has taken down its webpage, try to access Internet Archive to find earlier version of page. Prohibited. (Not sure the reason why).

- False assumption: Assigned task, research public policy issue where most discussions have taken place overseas. Try to use web language translator websites to translate discussions into English. Prohibited. Not sure why.

I think CIO/OFT should explore a better approach, one which generally permits the requested accesses based on the assumption it can trust its workforce members, but with a more robust logging and alert capability.

For example, workforce member tries to access questionable site, receives warning message: "This site has been flagged as inappropriate because it contains ______ types of content. Please enter your work-related reason for accessing this site."

This would train and encourage any workforce members not following acceptable use policy to either desist immediately, or in the future.

But this would allow legitimate uses to go through with a justification without work being stopped in its tracks.

And this would still allow administrators to monitor and prevent abuses. ("Gee, Mary's website accesses were frequently flagged as possibly inappropriate this month. Let's make sure she isn't doing anything inappropriate and her assertion of work-relatedness is supportable").

Comments (2)I.T. Policies

Establish an information bank of policies, training materials, procedures, manuals, etc that can be accessed by all agencies

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:54:53 PST

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Staff of state agencies frequently prepare information for administrative and other activities that is or may be useful and applicable to other government entities. Currently, some of this information may be shared informally, but it would be of great help to everyone if there were to be a centralized repository so staff could save time and effort (thus effecting cost savings) in researching and writing original materials by copying or adapting existing information.

Comments (2)I.T. Policies

SecondLife ~ Virtual New York

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:54:42 PST

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Hello, as part of a community Health Information Exchange social media project, we've created a New York Statewide Virtual World in SecondLife (http://www.secondlife.com). Would be interested in demonstrating/collaborating/sharing our project as it might fit with the Empire2.0 intiative. We are planning to open in SecondLife in mid-july.

Comments (2)Social Media / Networking

Statewide Public Data Cataloging and Access Tools

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:54:32 PST

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A Federal website called data.gov is working with states and local governments to launch their own sites with access to machine-readable data and it looks like New York is not at the moment participating.

Whether New York collaborates with data.gov or not, the concept behind what they are doing is compelling and worth investigating.

One of the goals beyond making public data readily available is to encourage innovative uses of the data - similar to how Google has taken data they have acquired and developed products and services around it.

It appears that this concept could develop into a "Data as a Service" offering that has unlimited potential.

Cataloging agency data also provides an opportunity to eliminate redundancy and increase data integrity via shared access to key data provider agencies which ultimately saves money.

Available data would be gradual at first as various agencies learn how to make their data machine readable through web services, xml, rss, etc and that could be done over time through workshops and training.

Perhaps there is Federal money that could be granted to this type of initiative.

Comments (7)Government Transparency

HR Open House- Option 2

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:54:07 PST

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Option 2: HR could host a series of regularly scheduled training programs geared at providing interested employees with information on topics such as: eligible lists, exam announcements, how to study for a State exam, the Civil Service ‘Rule of Three’, etc. Employees would schedule attendance and HRS would provide each attendee with specific information related to their title, including transfer options, exam history, and any exam opportunities that might exist.

Comments (1)Workforce Management

HR Open House Survey

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:53:56 PST

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Human Resource Services is interested in your feedback!

Would you be interested in attending an HRS open house? The open house would be held monthly and designed to assist employees with understanding the Civil Service merit system, discuss individual career options and opportunities, and provide general career and recruitment guidance.

Please vote yes or no to either of the options indicated below:

Option 1: HRS could host an ‘open house’ so that employees could visit anytime throughout the day and obtain information on career mobility, look at the eligible lists they are currently on, discuss any upcoming exams that they might qualify for taking, and review titles they are eligible for transfer into. Employees would meet personally with a Personnel Administrator and have one-on-one time to discuss any questions they may have.

Comments (2)Workforce Management