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owen

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Member since : May-27-2009 (Verified)
1 Ideas, 29 Comments, 47 Votes

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Ideas Posted

Use AIIM's emerging Srategy Markup Language (StratML) to enable potential peformance partners to more easily discover and identify each other based upon common missions, visions, values, goals, objectives, and stakeholders. It would be especially appropriate to enable nonprofit, public service organizations performing quasi-governmental functions to post their strategic plans on their own Web sites in StratML format and thereby be absolved of having to supply the same data redundantly to IRS to qualify for 501(c)(3) status. Use of StratML would also enable .gov agencies to comply with paragraph 202(b)(4) of the eGov Act, which requires agencies to "... link their performance goals ... to key groups, including citizens, businesses, and other governments ..."
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Comments Posted

owen 9 months ago
It would be good to focus first on goals that we can accomplish with the knowledge, skills, and resources that we ourselves are willing and able to commit. Enabling those with common goals to more easily discover each other and work together is among the purposes of AIIM's emerging StratML standard.
owen 9 months ago
While attitude change may be required, it is not sufficient in and of itself. Goals and objectives must be documented in terms against which progress (or lack thereof) can be measured and reported to stakeholders. Enabling that to occur is the essence of AIIM's emerging StratML standard. http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm
owen 9 months ago
AIIM's emerging Strategy Markup Language (StratML) standard will support this proposal. http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm
owen 9 months ago
E-mail is being misused as a quasi-document/records management system. It is a stage of immaturity through which we must pass in progressing toward usage of better tools that are more appropriate for meeting the underlying requirements, which include long-term accessibility and management of records. Agencies should begin to use Web-based document/records management systems, in which We the People's records should be managed and maintained throughout their full life-cycles. Then E-mail, RSS/Atom "news" feeds can be used to "push" information to those who have requested it, while the emerging Content Management Interoperabily Services (CMIS) protocol can be used to enable interoperable query services on a governmentwide basis.
owen 9 months ago
One of the things that is disappointing about the strategic plans of .gov agencies is how few of them explicitly identify honesty as a value. See Joe Carmel's Atom demo using Strategy Markup Language (StratML) documents at http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm#Carmel
owen 9 months ago
To the degree that communities may identify common visions, mission, values, goals, objectives and stakeholders, it would be good to share them on the Web in an open format like AIIM's emerging Strategy Markup Language (StratML) standard. http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm
owen 9 months ago
Hopefully, AIIM's emerging Strategy Markup Language (StratML) standard will help to support this proposal. Part 2 of the standard will address the elements of performance plans and reports, including outcomes. http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm
owen 9 months ago
P.S. Kitty, your reference to "knowing which systems the data is stored in" calls to mind the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) Data Reference Model (DRM). An XML schema was drafted for the DRM but not finalized and implemented. See http://xml.gov/draft/drm20060105.xsd, which is available with basic "styling" at http://xml.gov/documents/completed/carmel/FEADRMXSDStyled.xml Note that one of the elements of the DRM is QueryPoint, which is defined as "An endpoint that provides an interface for accessing and querying a Data Asset." If agencies were documenting their segments of the FEA DRM in XML on their Web sites, myriad service providers could do wonders with the data. Hopefully, the existing Data.gov site will serve as a prototype toward the broader vision.
owen 9 months ago
It is good to know that I'm not the only one who thinks this is a good idea, Kitty. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

Unless things have changed in the two years since I retired from DOI/OCIO, agencies are required: a) to transmit Exhibit 300 to OMB in XML format, and b) to post those exhibits on their Web sites promptly after the President's budget is submitted to Congress. However, if they are posting the XML files on their Web sites, which they should be doing, that would be news to me. Those files would be a very valuable additions to the Data.gov collection.

BTW, eCPIC can create the XML files for Exhibit 300: http://www.ecpic.gov/features/omb_reporting.cfm However, agencies should be free to use whatever software they choose, so long as it creates XML that validates against the schema for Exhibit 300 (which, by the way, could be greatly improved if it were redesigned in an open manner with feedback from external stakeholders).
owen 9 months ago
It would be good for agencies to post their plans for open government in a standard, open format like AIIM's emerging StratML standard, whose prospective purposes are outlined at http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm
owen 9 months ago
The relationship between this proposal and the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) Data Reference Model (DRM) should be explored. An XML schema for the DRM was drafted but not finalized or implemented. See http://xml.gov/draft/drm20060105.xsd or (styled) http://xml.gov/documents/completed/carmel/FEADRMXSDStyled.xml
owen 9 months ago
Regardless of how many documents may contain the data, the key point is that they should be available on the Web in a standard XML format that enables indexing, aggregation, and analyses.
owen 9 months ago
Under the auspices of AIIM's Interoperable Enterprise Content Management (iECM)Committee, we hope to undertake an effort to identify and map document/content/management metadata to the taxonomy outlined in ANSI/AIIM/ARMA TR48-2006. However, our task is essentially on hold pending the availability of a better tool/service than Excel. http://www.aiim.org/Standards/Article.aspx?ID=29284

We would love to engage OMB, GSA, GPO, LOC, NARA and/or other agencies in the pursuit of that task.
owen 9 months ago
Thanks for making this suggestion, Erick. I hadn't seen it when I made my posting about StratML under the Collaboration/Public-Private Partnerships category. Hopefully, StratML will enable many providers, including Oracle, to offer myriad services in support of the purposes of the standard. Those who may wish to have more information on the emerging StratML standard are welcome to check out http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm
owen 9 months ago
The E-FOIA Amendments already require agencies to: a) make available by electronic means any record requested by anyone that is likely to be of interest to others, and b) to take reasonable steps to maintain records in whatever formats they are likely to be requested. http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/foia_updates/Vol_XVII_4/page2.htm

What is lacking are means of tracking and reporting agency performance in complying with the law.
owen 9 months ago
Lobbyists should be required to document their goals, objectives, and stakeholders (clients and MCs) on the Web in conformance with AIIM's emerging Strategy Markup Language (StratML) standard. http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm
owen 9 months ago
A variation on this theme would be to require all lobbyists to document and maintain their goals, objectives, and stakeholders on the Web in conformance with AIIM's emerging Strategy Markup Language (StratML) standard. http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm Those who are proud of what they are doing will be happy to do so.
owen 9 months ago
While XBRL may be too complex to impose on some of the smaller companies, it certainly should be required for use by those deemed to be "too big to fail" as well as those who make money handling OPM (other people's money).
owen 9 months ago
Individuals should be held accountable and those who are proud of what they are doing will be happy to "advertise" their performance. However, it is doubtful that .gov unions would agree to allow the performance of individual employees to be reported on a routine, ongoing basis on the Web. Indeed, in some cases there may be valid concerns about personal privacy and safety. On the other hand, there is no reason that the plans, activities, and performance of .gov *offices* should not be reported on agency Web sites in near-real time. If and, hopefully, when Part 2 of AIIM's emerging StratML standard is widely implemented, that will become quite possible. http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm
owen 9 months ago
In support of this idea, it would be good to make the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) XML files available via Data.gov: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg_xmlreports/ Those files might be a good master index for the Data.gov site itself.
owen 9 months ago
What you are proposing is what we hope will happen with respect to the information contained in the strategic and performance plans that agencies are required to compile and maintain under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA)... if and, hopefully, when those plans are rendered on agency Web sites in conformance with AIIM's emerging Strategy Markup Language (StratML) standard. http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm
owen 9 months ago
The CIO Council's ET.gov site/process enables anyone to indentify emerging techologies around which they'd like to try to build .gov/.mil communities of practice. http://et.gov/
owen 9 months ago
The Network for Good's mission, vision, goals, and objectives are also now in StratML format, at http://xml.gov/stratml/NfG.xml
owen 9 months ago
VolunteerMatch's goals and objectives are also now in the StratML collection, at http://xml.gov/stratml/VM.xml StratML can help connect volunteers more efficiently to organizations whose missions, visions, values, goals and objectives are of interest to them.
owen 9 months ago
I inferred a strategic plan from the information provided on NBIA's Web site, for inclusion in the Strategy Markup Language (StratML) collection at http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm#Nonprofits or, more specifically, http://xml.gov/stratml/NBIA.xml

It is the 512th plan indexed in Mark Logic's StratML search service prototype -- http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm#SearchServices -- in which it currently ranks: 1st among 9 referencing "incubator" and 7th of 233 referencing "business".

The prospective purposes the emerging StratML standard are outlined at http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm#DefinitionPurposes Under the auspices of AIIM, we aim to establish it as an international voluntary consensus standard for potential use by all organizations worldwide.
owen 9 months ago
To the degree the topic of brainstorming may focus on technology, anyone can use the CIO Council's ET.gov site/process to identify and try to build communities of practice (CoPs) around emerging technologies. http://et.gov/
owen 9 months ago
More effective engagement of stakeholders is among the prospective purposes of AIIM's emerging Stategy Markup Language (StratML) standard: http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm#DefinitionPurposes Paragraph 202(b)(4) of the eGov Act already directs agencies to link their goals and objectives to key stakeholder groups. http://xml.gov/documents/completed/eGovXML.htm#202b Doing so through a standard like StratML would in turn enable the realization of purposes like the one outlined in this suggestion.
owen 9 months ago
The CIO Council's ET.gov site/process can be used to identify and build communities of practice (CoPs) around emerging technologies. http://et.gov/
owen 9 months ago
The purpose of this idea would be well served by using AIIM's emerging Strategy Markup Language (StratML) standard. http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm