The Value of Federal Government Data
Dr. Bill Brantley covers the application of infonomics as a way to help agencies to measure and use data for organizational innovation and digital transformation.
Bill Brantley
USPTO |Washington D.C.
William.Brantley@uspto.gov
News and Events
The Data Briefing: How to Build a Chatbot in a Weekend
As chatbots have become more popular, some online sites will let you create a chatbot with little or no programming.
The Data Briefing: Will Artificial Intelligence Tools Replace or Augment Federal Employees?
A Washington, D.C. think tank recently released reports advocating using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to reorganize the federal government.
The Data Briefing: How Blockchain’s Future Growth Will Affect Federal Agencies
Blockchains are an innovative technology which promises to radically change how society conducts business. It will take significant changes in organizational processes before agencies can begin to support blockchains.
How Federal Leaders Can Build the Will, Skill, and Velocity Needed for Digital Transformation
Learning—and practicing—five imperatives of network leadership can help agencies improve their odds for successful digital transformation. Many organizations are undergoing digital transformation because the organizations see that it is necessary for long-term survival. However, digitally reinventing the organization is “one of the hardest journeys to make.” According to industry experts, two-thirds of organizations will fail
The Data Briefing: Federal Government Pioneers in Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Training
When I was in the private sector, around the year 2000, I worked for an information technology (IT) consulting company as a project manager and developer. On one project, I provided support for early mobile devices given to medical students. I worked in a small office around the corner from the cardio-respiratory simulator (CRS). The
The Data Briefing: Ten Years of Digital Transformation—Lessons Learned
Since 2007, a major consulting firm has conducted an annual survey on organizations’ “Digital IQ.” In the ten years of organizations grappling with digital transformation, what has been learned?
The Data Briefing: The Arrival of Generation Z into the Federal Government. And Generation A?
In the last national election, the earliest born members of Generation Z voted for the first time. In 2019, the American workforce will see the influx of tens of millions of Gen Zers who, according to some researchers, will be a stark contrast to the Millennials that will make the largest part of the 2020
The Data Briefing: the Promise – and Perils – of Artificial Emotional Intelligence
People are quick to treat computer programs as being more aware than computer code could be. However, can computer programs – especially chatbots – have a significant effect on people? Especially people suffering from depression or anxiety? A recent academic study shows some promising results from using a chatbot as a complement to a human therapist.
The Data Briefing: Design-Driven Enterprise Architecture Creating the New Federal Government Agency
It’s been a while since I’ve checked in on enterprise architecture (EA). My last in-depth work with EA was around 2011 when I was on detail to the Office of Personnel Management’s Open Government Team. The EA model I worked with was the top-down organizational design of information technology assets, data assets, and business processes.
The Data Briefing: How to Best Prepare Federal Government Datasets for Chatbots
Forbes magazine recently ran an article showcasing six handy mobile apps that were built using federal government open data. The apps range from the Alternative Fueling Station Locator to ZocDoc (a doctor locator). What I especially like about the Forbes article is that the author describes the federal government data sets behind each app. There
The Data Briefing: The Department of Education Needs Your Help with their First Developers’ Site
The Department of Education (ED) launched its first developer site. The developer site is built on GitHub which will make it easier for ED to centralize their code and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Currently, ten APIs are on the developer site: The Civil Right Data Collection (CRDC) APIs: These three APIs give information on public
The Data Briefing: Understand Serverless Architecture in Three Minutes
You may have heard of “serverless architecture” or Amazon Web Services (AWS) Lambda product and wondered what is unique about this new buzzword. As with many new digital cloud technologies, serverless architecture could mean two things. It may be applications that are built using third-party cloud applications. Or serverless architectures could be pieces of code
The Data Briefing: Finding the New Federal Government Technologists
This week, I want to briefly discuss the human resources challenges in finding the new IT technology workers for the government. As agencies move toward microservices, artificial intelligence chatbots, and deep learning application programming interfaces (APIs), the demand for experts in these fields continues to grow fast. The universities and professional development programs are not
The Data Briefing: Why and How to Attend Your First Hackathon
December 9, 2016, will be the 110th anniversary of Admiral Grace Hopper’s birthday. Admiral Hopper was a pioneer in computer programming who created the first compiler and whose ideas lead to the creation of COBOL. An apocryphal legend also credits Admiral Hopper with coining the terms “bug” and “debugging.” The GSA’s IT Digital Service Team
The Data Briefing: It Takes an Online Community to Digitally Transform an Organization
The open source movement has changed how we develop software, create content, and even do science. Using a community to help complete projects and bring about change has become so ubiquitous in the last ten years that it has even earned a name — crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is a powerful tool and is now being used to help
The Data Briefing: Four Steps to Becoming a Data-Driven Organization
As the Federal government agencies begin the digital transformation journey, becoming a data-driven organization is even more vital. What does it mean to become a data-driven organization? According to one definition, “[a] data-driven company is an organization where every person who can use data to make better decisions, has access to the data they need
The Data Briefing: Learning from the U.S. Cities on How to Implement Big Data Initiatives
A recent study of big data initiatives in 65 cities has interesting guidance for Federal big data initiatives. The researchers studied how data is collected and then used for decision making in what they called “the framework for Big Data initiatives.” There are two major cycles in the framework: “The data cycle governs the tools
The Data Briefing: Help Predict the Future of Federal Government Data
In December, I plan to write two postings detailing a scenario analysis for the next ten years of the Federal government’s data technologies. Governments are on the cusp of amazing technological advances propelled by artificial intelligence, blockchain technologies, and the Internet of Things. Also, governments will face new challenges such as the recent global cyber
The Data Briefing: Using Artificial Intelligence to Augment the Work of Frontline Government Employees
You have probably read about the recent release of the White House’s report on using artificial intelligence (AI). As with previous technologies, AI holds much promise in the areas of education, commerce, criminal justice, the environment—almost all aspects of the American public’s life. AI also poses a danger if it is not properly managed and
