Change is one of the most reliable components found within the task of managing an $80 billion dollar IT budget for the US. Vivek Kundra exemplifies this as the former Public Sector CIO accepts the new role of EVP/ emerging markets for none other then the private sector, cloud-friendly app Salesforce.com.

The Obama Administration has made a continued effort to in-source work performed for the Federal Government. The thought behind this is that government contractors are more expensive than federal employees. In an effort to increase efficiency, the Obama administration has suggested that agencies in the Federal Government in-source some of the work that has historically been done by contractors. With the start of in-sourcing, there grows a demand for greater workforce management. Agencies need to pay closer attention to the efficiencies within their workforce and make sure the job is done quickly and properly.

Through the recent IT management reform effort established by The White House, a totally different type of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell may be coming to an end. This is of course the practice of conducting multi-million/billion dollar projects without sufficient Project Management involvement by the involved Federal Agencies. As Trey Hodgkins said to FCW, “Right now, the way the process works, it is purely coincidental if all the elements in the process are actually talking to each other”, producing a de-facto practice of not asking, and not reporting issues in project progress. It is this practice that the White House’s reform is attempting to address. The reform looks to create a new career path for Government personnel to establish a knowledge base and experience in successful IT Project Management, which will provide a large pool of candidates to provide these services from within Federal Agencies. This will help alleviate the strain on existing Federal Project Managers, who are diverted between an increasing number of projects, and provide more resources to ensure any project over a specific size will have diligent Agency based Project Management.

What is a Small business and how important are they to the US economy? Overshadowed every day by big business and constant media, Small businesses rarely get their share of attention and credit. Did you know Small businesses employ half of US workers and represent 99.7% of all employer firms? Yes, 99.7%! According to Office of Advocacy, there were 27.5 million Small businesses in the United States in 2009. Can you think of a more influential group?

The web continues to have a profound effect on our personal and professional lives. From contacting a loved one miles away, to skipping a walk to the store for a gift purchase, to organizing your business's day to day activities, our lives are continually touched and made easier by the World Wide Web – and, in particular, those solutions delivered to us and run almost entirely over the internet. Businesses especially are taking greater advantage of these web based tools and applications in an effort to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and facilitate organization-wide transparency. Such so called "cloud computing" applications and services are an area of significant growth within the IT industry - in fact, growing at a faster clip than any other type of IT spending. And don't think Uncle Sam hasn't taken notice. Last year, the Obama Administration made note of the rising trend in applications run in the "cloud" by rolling out its own government App store for Federal Agencies, www.apps.gov, with the goal of furthering propelling the Federal Government into the digital frontier. GSA, for its part, is managing the store and marketing Apps.gov as part of its "GSA eTools" library that includes both GSA Advantage! and GSA eBuy. For GSA Schedule 70 Contract holders this is significant news. The President's initiative represents a dedicated effort to modernize the Federal Government's IT systems with an approach dedicated, in part, to cloud centric solutions. The App store is the forum for these opportunities and it's only open to Schedule 70 contractors to boot!