IBM Center for The Business of Government

While much of the federal government lags behind, some agencies are pioneers in the internal use of social media tools.  What lessons and effective practices do they have to offer other agencies?

The purpose of this report is to learn lessons by looking at the use of internal collaborative tools across the Intelligence Community. The initial rubric was tools, but the real focus is collaboration, for while the tools can enable, what ultimately matters are policies and practices interacting with organizational culture. It looks for good practices to emulate. The ultimate question is how and how much could, and should, collaborative tools foster integration across the Community.

In the federal government, for example, agencies have begun to designate chief technology officers, chief innovation officers, chief data officers, entrepreneurs-in-residence, and similar roles to promote new approaches to innovation. But because many innovations are rooted in the use of technology, agency Chief Information Officers (CIOs) can play a strong role as well. Furthermore, the new Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act creates a statutory requirement for CIOs to help lead agency IT innovation efforts.

On behalf of the IBM Center for The Business of Government, we are pleased to present this report, Beyond Business as Usual: Improving Defense Acquisition through Better Buying Power, by Zachary S Huitink and David M Van Slyke, Syracuse University.