Yes, you can really buy a thumb drive at GeekStuff4U!  Stephen King would be proud.  I wonder if you could fool a fingerprint reader with one of these.

Technorati Tags: Geek, Absurd, Thumbdrive

Last week, BBC News reported that Scott McNealy, Chairman of Sun Microsystems, has been asked to prepare a paper for the new administration on the subject of how open source software can benefit government.   Commenting on this subject, Scott said:

“It’s intuitively obvious open source is more cost effective and productive than proprietary software. Open source does not require you to pay a penny to Microsoft or IBM or Oracle or any proprietary vendor any money.”

It will be interesting to read Scott’s paper when it become available.  I would be delighted to find that our government would adopt practices that actually saved our precious tax money.

I also applaud Scott’s comments about a suggested new cabinet-level post of Chief Technology Officer.  He said that new CTO should:

“Have veto power, the right to eliminate any hardware, software or networking product that touches the federal network. He or she would have real power, real oversight and employ real consequences for folk that don’t realign with the architecture. It’s what every business does that the government doesn’t.”

If such a CTO were appointed to lead the implementation of President Obama’s “open” technology policy, we could call him or her the “Open CTO.”

We at Sun often talk about how leading companies use information technology as a strategic weapon to gain competitive advantage.  President Obama certainly demonstrated the effectiveness of web technology as a competive weapon in his campaign. 

I think we should consider information technology to be a weapon for the American people to improve government.  It can help slash through the impermeable curtains of back-room dealmaking and obfuscating “spin” wherein political insiders try to deceive the public as they push their own agendas.   For example, having access on the web to emerging details of the “stimulus package” enabled each of us to evaluate its worth on its actual merits, rather than having selected information sifted through levels of political commentary before it reached us.

Information technology can make government more accessible, transparent and responsive for us citizens whom the government is supposed to serve.  Open source and and “Open CTO” could be two effective arrows in our arsenal to return the power government to the hands of the people.

Technorati Tags: Opensouce, egovernment, government

This video has apparently been around for awhile, but I saw it first today on my son’s Facebook page.  It is the coolest sports story I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Technorati Tags: Basketball, Autism, Courage

Yesterday, Sun announced a “community day for OpenSSO enthusiasts around the time of the CommunityOne Conference in New York.
All are welcome, attendance is free, and continental breakfast plus lunch will be provided. … Hosted by New York University at the Kimmel Center in Greenwich Village, New York, and sponsored by Sun Microsystems, this is an opportunity for OpenSSO contributors, deployers and users to come together in an informal unconference setting.”

For more information or to sign up, please visit the OpenSSO Community Day page on wikis.sun.com.

Technorati Tags: OpenSSO, Sun Microsystems, Identity, Identity Management, Digital Identity, Unconference

So much for the wisdom of posting leadership thoughts …

Technorati Tags: Dilbert, Leadership

Yesterday, I blogged about an Open Government Workshop to be held at MIT on January 15th to address the role of Digital Identity in modern government.   You can participate in framing the discussion by participating in this online forum.  Please take a few minutes to read questions others have submitted and vote on which topics you think are most relevant.
Here are the five questions I submitted:

• How can personal Digital Identity attributes be leveraged to personalize the interaction a citizen has with a government agency while protecting confidential citizen information?
• How can Digital Identity be leveraged to effectively enable citizen/government interaction without using a National ID card system?
• How can static Digital Identity attributes (e.g. name, age) be combined or blended with contextual attributes (e.g. location, current interest) to enrich citizen/government interaction without compromising confidential information?
• How can confidential Digital Identity attributes provided by a citizen to one organization or agency be effectively used for an overall citizen/government experience without divulging that information to other organizations?
• Are there ways Digital Identity systems employed by private enterprise be leveraged to provide e-government authentication and authorization services?

What are yours?

Technorati Tags: Identity, Identity Management, Digital Identity, eGovernment

An Open Government Workshop to be held at MIT on January 15th,  will address the role of Digital Identity as a key enabler for effective interaction between citizens and government leaders. 

This workshop is being organized by Dazza Greenwood of Civics.com on behalf of the MIT eCitizen Architecture Program, the MIT Media Lab SmartCities Group and the eCitizen Foundation.

The Digital Identity part of the workshop is being directed by Bruce Bakis of Mitre Corporation, Team Leader of the Safeguarding Digital Identity research project for the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection.  In an invitation to Identity Management community, Bruce stated:

“Several goals in the Obama-Biden technology agenda articulated at change.gov fit right into our Digital Identity wheelhouse. Two of these really hit our sweet spot: Create a Transparent and Connected Democracy, and Lower Health Care Costs by Investing in Electronic Information Technology Systems.

“So, here’s what we’re doing: holding several virtual events and one “real” one to compile and present to the Obama-Biden administration a prioritized list of issues, problems and questions.  During the “real” event we will hold three interrelated discussions:

• The use of Digital Identity as a key enabler (for the other two agenda items and so much more)
• How to Create a Transparent and Connected Democracy that’s open, effective, privacy preserving and secure;
• How to Lower Health Care Costs by Investing in Electronic Information Technology Systems.”

You can register here for participation in the January 15th event.  You can participate in formulation of the dialogue that will occur at the main event by using this online forum to submit and rank questions to be addressed during the event.

Technorati Tags: Identity, Identity Management, Digital Identity, eGovernment

The big question is: Now we know he is Ziggy and he is Here.  What does he want in that place and time?  There in lies the secret to Identity-enabled, location based services.

Technorati Tags: Identity, Location, Ziggy