Eighteen-year-old Melodie Mayberry-Stewart had big dreams of becoming a mathematician or urban sociologist as she stepped off the Greyhound bus in Lincoln, Nebraska, (a 14-hour ride from her home in Ohio), to begin her college career. Thirty years later, as the CIO of New York, her life has "gone beyond what I expected for myself when growing up in Cleveland."

Mayberry-Stewart was in Lincoln to study mathematics at Union College because a high school teacher thought she was talented enough to handle the school's demanding program. In three years, she became the first person in her family to graduate from college, one of many "firsts" she would achieve in her career - the first black female to earn a doctorate from the Peter F. Drucker School of Executive Management, first female CIO of a major healthcare corporation, the first person to hold the title of CTO for the City of Cleveland and the first female CIO of New York State.

Mayberry-Stewart expected to leave Nebraska after college. But she stayed for 14 years while she obtained her master's in Sociological Research and all-but-dissertation in Sociology from the University of Nebraska, got married, had a child and joined IBM as a systems engineer. Mayberry-Stewart was offered a job at an IBM branch office soon after graduate school and jumped at the chance. "It was my dream to work for a company with such a reputation and unmatched training opportunities," she recalls.

A new hire at IBM, Mayberry-Stewart was the only black and female employee in her branch position. Her white male colleagues treated her as their little sister and took her under their wing to teach her the ropes. "Someone has to be the first, and I hope I was a good role model and representative for blacks and females," she said.

In order to make her mark in the technology world, in what sometimes can be a 'boys network,' she had to show she was prepared to sit at the table, make a contribution and add value to achieving the demanding goals of the organization. Mayberry-Stewart has never shied away from a challenge. For 15 years she's had a note taped to her fridge, mainly for her son that says 'YOU MUST FALL IN LOVE WITH COMPLETION.' To her it means to "go the distance no matter what obstacles are put in your way." It's the mantra that she taught to her son and guides her life.

After IBM, her career took a variety of turns. She became the first CIO of Community Health Corporation in California, worked in the energy industry for Amoco Corporation, and founded an IT consulting company to serve non-profits.

Along the way, she added a few more degrees to her resume. She received an MBA in Finance from Pepperdine University, a Master's in Executive Management and a PhD in Information Systems Management from Claremont Graduate University in California.

When asked about the path her career has taken, Mayberry-Stewart reflected that it has been "evolutionary." "I'm always willing to take risks I felt offered an opportunity to grow and be challenged. Each experience gave me the opportunity to positively influence more lives."

Her next position in 2002 was a bit of a homecoming, as Mayberry-Stewart was appointed the first CTO and CIO of Cleveland. She stayed there until 2007 when she was named New York State's CIO and Director of the Office of Technology. In this position she oversees $2 billion in annual IT spending and she serves as the Governor's Chief Technology Advisor to 5,000 state IT professionals.

Melodie Mayberry-Stewart is passionate about technology and how it improves people's lives by providing critical information anytime and anywhere. "Technology has infused every part of our life and in order to be successful we have to be comfortable with technology," she says.

She has given her passion full rein in New York and says her work in government has been the most rewarding of her 30-year career. She wants to make the state one of the most technologically savvy in the country, with a 'best in class' IT organization.

In 2008, New York entered into a unique $100 million three-way partnership with IBM and Rensselaer Polytechnic University in order to create one of the world's most powerful university-based supercomputer centers. As part of the investment, 20% of the supercomputer capacity was allocated to the state so state agencies can solve complex problems in public safety, cyber security, education, transportation, health or human services - at no cost. Mayberry-Stewart explains that supercomputers allow cutting-edge research and design projects to be performed in weeks or months, rather than the years it would take using conventional computers. They create more accurate models of complex processes, simulating problems once thought impossible to solve, and analyzing the vast amounts of data generated by experiments.

Mayberry-Stewart's office is also leading the state's broadband initiative, which seeks to bring affordable, high-speed Internet access to all New Yorkers. The underserved populations in the rural and urban areas of the state will benefit most, she says. The CIO's office is also committed to delivering a controversial public safety grade Statewide Wireless Network that meets the needs of first-responders and other public safety and public service workers from state, local and federal agencies.

Mayberry-Stewart's office has taken on one of Governor David Patterson's top priorities: increasing the percentage of women- and minority-owned businesses to 20% by 2010. In New York state, women own 26% and minorities own 23% of the state's small businesses. Altogether, however, they make up only 3% of companies selling technology to the state, which means hundreds of companies are left out of the process, she explains.

With everything she has on her plate right now, "free time" is a foreign word to Mayberry-Stewart. But fitting in her pike, walley and bass fishing trip in Canada with grown son, George, is key, because she can unwind for a few days and just hang out with her son. "It's the highlight of my year."

Federal agencies must use the General Services Administration's Networx contract to meet requirements currently handled by the FTS2001 contract, according to an August 28 memo to CIOs from Karen Evans, OMB administrator for E-Government and IT. The OMB decision was driven by the findings of a Federal CIO Council cost/benefit analysis of agency use of the Networx contract for IT services. The memo reminds agencies that the Networx contract can assist in meeting the requirements in the Trusted Internet Connections memo.

Agencies must submit a cost/benefit analysis for any decision to not use Networx to fulfill future requirements, including National Security System requirements and TIC requirements. These analyses must be reviewed and approved by agency acquisition authorities before services are contracted.

September 30 is the deadline for agencies to make a 'fair opportunity' decision regarding the Networx contractors they will transition their FTS2001 services to.

Delaware.gov and the U.S. government's official Web portal, USA.gov, topped the federal and state rankings of government websites in the annual study by Darrell West, who recently moved from Brown University's Taubman Center for Public Policy to the Brookings Institution. The study evaluated 1,537 state and federal websites against 18 best-practices criteria, such as online publications, disability access and foreign language or language translation to gauge the state of e-government in the United States. State and federal agency sites were ranked in its report, State and Federal Electronic Government in the United States, 2008, which was completed during June and July of 2008 at Brown University but published by Brookings.

The top state sites were:

• Delaware
• Georgia
• Florida
• California
• Massachusetts
• Maine
• Kentucky
• Alabama
• Indiana
• Tennessee

The top federal websites were:

• USA.gov
• Department of Agriculture
• General Services Administration
• Postal Service
• Internal Revenue Service
• Department of Education
• Small Business Administration
• Library of Congress
• Department of Treasury
• Federal Reserve Board

Brookings also compared the services online and the variations across the country with last year's findings. The study found:

• 89% of state and federal website have services that are fully executable online (86% in 2007)
• 3% of government websites are PDA-accessible (1% in 2007)
• 73% of government websites have a privacy policy online (same in 2007); 58% have a visible security policy available online (52% last year)
• 40% of government websites are written at the 12th-grade reading level - which is much higher than that of the average American
• 7% of websites have user fees
• 25% of federal websites and 19% of state websites are accessible to people with disabilities.

The annual Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) report released in September showed 80% of 1,000 programs scored were rated as 'performing,' the rest were rated as 'not performing.' These 1,000 programs account for $2.6 trillion dollars in federal spending and 98% of the budget.

This year, agencies added summary and detailed plans of how they are addressing the GAO High Risk issues. A zip file has also been released that contains .html scripts so the information can be mirrored on other sites.

The Federal CIO Council created a Security and Identity Management Committee that will play a crucial role in identifying and adopting successful information management and technology initiatives from across government, industry and academia.

The new committee will address the need for improvement and coordination for a secure, well-protected national cyber-infrastructure and stringent standards for identity management, consistent with the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12). Committee co-chairs are CIOs Robert Carey, Department of the Navy, and Vance Hitch, Justice Department.

The CIO Council was codified by the E-Government Act of 2002. It is the principal interagency forum for improving practices in the design, modernization, use, sharing and performance of federal government agency information resources.

New policies should be implemented for deploying Domain Name System Security (DNSSEC) to all federal information systems by December 2009. DNSSEC provides cryptographic protections to Domain Name System communication exchanges, thus removing DNS-based attack threats and improving the overall integrity and authenticity of information processed over the Internet.

The new policy, laid out in an August 22 memo from Karen Evans, OMB administrator for E-government and IT, requires the federal government to deploy DNSSEC to the top level .gov domain by January 2009. The top level .gov domain includes the registrar, registry and DNS server operations.

This policy requires the top level .gov domain to be DNSSEC signed, and processes enabling secure delegated sub-domains to be developed. Signing the top-level .gov domain is critical for broad deployment of DNSSEC. It increases the utility of DNSSEC, and simplifies lower level deployment for agencies, the memo stated.

Agencies also must develop plans of actions and milestones for the deployment of DNSSEC to all applicable information systems. The draft plans were due by September 5, 2008 and the final plans should be in place by October 24.

OMB offers resources to help support agencies' DNSSEC deployment:

• The USG DNSSEC deployment email list: usg-forum@dnssec-deployment.org



• The DNSSEC Deployment Initiative: http://www.dnssec-deployment.org



• The NIST DNSSEC project: http://www-x.antd.nist.gov/dnssec



• The Secure Naming Infrastructure Pilot (SNIP): http://www.dnsops.gov



• The FISMA Implementation Project: http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SMA/fisma/index.html.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is requiring agencies involved with managing or providing content for multi-agency or cross-functional web portals to assign records management responsibilities to a single agency and notify NARA of the designee by October 15.

Since NARA isn't performing an end-of-Administration web harvest due to a lack of resources and the availability of harvested web content on other "archiving" sites, it is necessary for agencies to continue managing the content and administrative records beyond the end of the current administration, especially the records generated by the operation of the web portal program office. See http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/initiatives/web-tech.html for frequently asked questions about the policy.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology published version 1 of the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) profile that recommends technical standards for common network devices, such as hosts, routers, firewalls and intrusion detection systems. A Profile for IPv6 in the U.S. Government - Version 1.0, outlines the compliance and testing programs NIST will establish to ensure IPv6-enabled federal information systems work securely with existing IPv4 systems.

The profile will support government agencies as they implement IPv6, the next-generation communication standard that defines how all data (text, voice and video) will move across the Internet in the future and vastly increases the pool of available addresses for Internet-connected devices.

The NIST publication, USGv6 Version 1 Frequently Asked Questions, answers questions commonly asked about the scope and purpose of the profile and how it relates to other profile and test efforts.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) released results from its survey of states' use of innovative or alternative funding models for IT projects. NASCIO's goal was to identify the effective funding strategies that have been utilized or are currently being used successfully by states. Thirty-one states responded from June 4 through July 22.

Innovative Funding for State IT: Models, Trends & Perspectives provides state CIOs with information and tools for the facilitation of innovative funding initiatives in their own states that enable delivery of savings and improved IT services to citizens.

The report found that states are still highly reliant on 'traditional' funding methods, but alternative and innovative funding models are being adopted more widely.

The most-used alternative funding models by the states include:

• User-fee revenue
• Grant funding
• Budgeting and appropriations strategies
• Leasing and financing
• Outsourcing and managed services
• Purchasing and procurement.

Seven projects that creatively use new technologies to engage citizens in public issues and showcase compelling models for the future of news were honored by the Knight-Batten Awards, administered by J-Lab, a center of American University's School of Communication, on September 10.

The grand prize, and $10,000, went to Wired.com's WikiScanner. It helps readers investigate and expose ego-editing and corporate whitewashing of Wikipedia entries.

Special Distinction Awards ($2,000):

• PolitiFact.com – Identifies false and partially true statements in the 2008 presidential campaigns. It rates election messages by candidate, issue or ruling.
• Ushahidi: Crowdsourcing Crisis Information – Kenyan techies launched a site where bloggers and citizen journalists could text eyewitness accounts and map incidents of political violence in the wake of a corrupted presidential election.

Citizen Media Award ($2,000):

• JDLand.com - Using text, Twitter, interactive maps and before-and-now photos, a citizen digitally chronicles the redevelopment, construction and community concerns in a rapidly changing Washington, D.C., neighborhood.

Honorable Mentions:

• Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica – This multimedia project used poetry as a moving way to cover the impact of HIV/AIDS in Jamaica.
• Iowa's Deadly Tornado – The Des Moines Register created a house-by-house, color-coded map embedded with first-person survivor accounts, surveillance and cell phone video, before-and-after photographs, and obituaries to chronicle the path of destruction.
• iReport.com – CNN's groundbreaking user-generated news site has not only hosted tens of thousands of videos, but the best reports are verified and expanded by CNN reporters and also posted to CNN.com.

NASCIO Meritorious Service Award and Recognition Awards. Teri Takai, CIO of California, was awarded the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) Meritorious Service Award for exemplifying outstanding service, advocacy and leadership in state government at NASCIO's annual meeting in Milwaukee, WI. NASCIO announced the winners of its 20th annual Recognition Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Information Technology in State Government at the annual meeting. Programs were recognized for a variety of reasons, including: exemplifying best practices, supporting public policy goals of state leaders and representing an innovative use of existing technology.

The winners were chosen from 114 submissions in 10 categories:

• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery – State of Michigan, Enterprise Storage, Backup & Recovery
• Cross-Boundary Collaboration and Partnerships – State of California, Los Angeles Regional Transportation Management Center
• Data, Information and Knowledge Management – Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, JNET Statewide Consolidated Warrant Search
• Digital Government: Government to Business – District of Columbia, CBE Resource Center: Promoting the Home Field Advantage
• Digital Government: Government to Citizen – State of Michigan, Direct Certification Program
• Digital Government: Government to Government – State of Minnesota, Applications for Road Closures, Routing and Common Operating Picture for the I-35W Bridge Collapse
• Enterprise IT Management Initiatives – Commonwealth of Virginia, Virginia Information Technology Infrastructure Partnership
• Information Communications Technology Innovations – State of Arkansas, Implementing the Arkansas Wireless Information Network
• Information Security and Privacy – Commonwealth of Virginia, Information Security: Interlocking Spheres of Collaborative Protection
• IT Project and Portfolio Management – District of Columbia, Tapping in the Stock Market Model for Washington, DC's IT Governance.

Innovations in American Government Awards. The Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School announced its 2008 Innovations in American Government Award winners. Six government initiatives highlight exemplary models of government innovation. The six winners include one city, three state and two federal programs:

• Acquisition Fund – City of New York, NY
• Division of Youth Services – State of Missouri
• Getting Ready: Keeping Communities Safe – State of Arizona
• Global Maritime Domain Awareness – U.S. Department of Transportation
• Intelligence Community Civilian Joint Duty Program – Office of the Director of National Intelligence
• Learn and Earn – State of North Carolina.

Top 10 Digital States. e.Republic's Center for Digital Government recognized the 10 states with the most advanced use of technology. State CIOs and senior executives nationwide participated in the survey which benchmarks progression in digital government. This year's survey included a measure of sustainability efforts, especially in the area of green IT. The Top 10 states were:

• Utah
• Michigan
• Virginia
• Arizona
• California
• Washington
• Kentucky
• South Dakota
• Maryland
• Tennessee, Pennsylvania (tie).

CIO 100 Awards. Seven government agencies were among the 100 companies CIO.com recognized for using IT in innovative ways to deliver competitive advantage to the enterprise and enable growth. The seven government agencies honored were:

• King County, Washington
• Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council
• Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
• State of Alabama
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Veterans Health Administration
• Welfare Client Data Systems Consortium.

Exemplary Systems in Government Awards: The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association recognized exceptional achievements in the application of IT that have improved the delivery and quality of government services with its Exemplary Systems in Government Awards.

The Geospatial Incident Management System of Horry County, S.C., won in the Enterprise Systems category. Also honored in this category were:

• Illinois Virtual Tollway – Illinois Tollway
• Land Information Network (LandNet) – Singapore Land Authority
• WebPuff - Automated Emergency Management Decision Support System – U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency

The Public Works GIS Viewer from the city of Fontana, CA, won in the Single Process Systems category. Other noted systems in this category were:

• Geographic Information Portal System for Everyone – City of Aurora, CO; North Carolina's Economic Development Intelligence System - N.C. Department of Commerce.

Also available in pdf 275 kb

GOVERNING's Managing Performance 2008
Austin, TX
October 1-3

Collaborative Expedition Workshop: Cyberinfrastructure Readiness for Emergency Response
Ballston, VA
October 7

Designing for the Scent of Information
Washington, DC
October 21

GEIA 2008 Vision Conference
Springfield, VA
October 22-23

2008 Federal IT and Privacy Summits
Washington, DC
October 22-23

How to Create Your Own RSS Feeds
Online Training
October 23

ACT/IAC Executive Leadership Conference
Colonial Williamsburg, VA
October 26-28

Collaborative Expedition Workshop: Green IT
Ballston, VA
November 3

Content ROT: How to Find and Treat It
Washington, DC
November 6

2008 World Usability Day
November 13

The 6th Annual Program Management Summit
Washington, DC
November 18-19

The 9th Security Conference & Exhibition
Washington, DC
November 20-21

Website Makeover: Focusing on Your Visitors' Major Tasks
Washington, DC
November 20

Government Web Analytics 101
Online Training
December 3

The Council of State Governments Annual Conference
Omaha, NE
December 4-7

Hands-On Social Media: Everything You Need to Get Started Using New Media Tools
Washington, DC
December 9-10

National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Council Annual Conference
Seattle, WA
December 10-12

AFCEA Solutions Series - CyberSpace/CyberWarfare
Washington, DC
December 10-11

Collaborative Expedition Workshop: The Science of Science and Information Policy
Ballston, VA
December 17

GSA's IRMCO
Cambridge, MD
April 19-22, 2009

ACT/IAC 2009 Management of Change Conference
Norfolk, VA
May 31-June 2, 2009

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