Time To Deliver On Federal IT Reform

J. Nicholas Hoover | InformationWeek | November 13, 2012

First four years of the Obama Administration were marked by the beginnings of significant changes in federal IT. Execution will be the name of the game during the next four.

President Barack Obama's first term was marked by ambitious IT reform initiatives in cybersecurity, cloud computing, mobility, project management and more. With his reelection, Obama's focus must now shift to finishing what he started.

On his first day in office in 2009, Obama signaled that IT would be high on his agenda when he issued a memo calling on federal agencies to "harness new technologies" to promote open government. It remains to be seen if he will launch a tech policy of similar scope on day one of his second term, but there's already enough to keep the federal CIO and federal CTO -- positions created in Obama's first term -- busy pushing those existing programs forward.

We now know that federal CIO Steven VanRoekel plans to stick around to oversee that. VanRoekel shared the news on Twitter. "For those who asked if I am staying with the Administration – four words – '2 Legit 2 Quit,' " he tweeted on Nov. 9...