For more details, check out the posting on Adobe's Security Matters blog.

For more information on the awards and other recipients, please read the announcements from the White House and the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Here's some more FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt for the acronym challenged):

* Social media is insecure!
* What a time waster!
* I know my employees are going to say something they shouldn't!
* Eh, this technology is for kids, mine use it at home every day.
* I can't be bothered to learn yet another technology

Ok, so, I'm sure you get the point. Anytime something new comes along, there will be those who will do all they can to put up road blocks. It is a common response from some people when facing something unfamiliar. However, on the flip side, there are the innovators and early adopters to balance the FUD with hype. It's this community of people who typically believe so deeply in a particular idea that they tend to see it as an answer to all things! Of course, over time, as a new idea becomes more acceptable and adopted for use by a larger population, the fear begins to minimize along with the hype.

Before jumping in, I would like to refer you over to a couple, somewhat more historic blog entries from one of my colleagues, Jim King. Jim is a PDF Architect and a Senior Principal Scientist for Adobe and most certainly knows this topic better than most anyone I know. Check these entries out - XML for - XML Documents. I bring these ideas back to the forefront as it seems perhaps the lessons need to be revisited within the context of open and transparent government.

Many programs supporting the Department of Defense missions require security services, such as authentication, confidentiality, non-repudiation, and access control. The JITC certification demonstrates compliance with DoD policy as well as showing confidence that the applications are properly and securely using Public Key Infrastructure.

Here are the direct links for certification of Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader

Certification was also achieved for Acrobat and Reader version 7 and version 8.

To help bridge that gap, Telework Exchange and Adobe have teamed up to sponsor a series of events aimed at helping federal managers understand how to make teleworking an option in their organizations. Federal News Radio covered the first Telework in a Box event held in Washington, DC on February 29, 2009. Representatives from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the Treasury Department discussed how teleworking is in place within their agencies and provided direction on training and infrastructure that make teleworking successful.

Read more about both agencies' experiences or listen to the event coverage via podcast. A second podcast provides insight into how Andrew Krzmarzick from the USDA Graduate School has used technology to make telework...work.

For more details on the Telework in a Box events series, including the next stop in Atlanta, GA in May, visit the Telework Exchange.

Adobe Acrobat 9.0 and Adobe Reader 9.0 have been tested and meet the NIST FDCC compliance guidelines according to the testing process provided in OMB memo m08‐22.

For details on compliance testing, check out the posting on the Security Matters blog.

Aside from the obvious answer of the need to really start with the analysis of your agency's processes so that you have insight into where and when technology makes sense, there is also something that can be done in the short-term.

I have yet to meet a governemnt process involving paper forms and documents which didn't benefit significantly by conversion to smart electronic forms which can still be printed, but which allow for agencies to encourage people to submit electronically in much the same way Amazon and eBay have convinced us to buy online.

This latter, "low-hanging fruit" is not at the demise of a long-term strategy. In fact, I have often seen it be the catalyst for inspiring even greater leaps into improved services and efficiency with IT.

Firstly, look for paper forms that:

• Are important and use by a lot of people


• Are often submitted with missing, illegible or wrong information


• Require a lot of staff time and energy to process in the mail centers and in manual data re-entry into back-end systems

The keynote speaker will be Teresa Nasif, Director of the Federal Citizen Information Center with the GSA. Teresa will provide best practices on how to use existing technologies to improve the interactive link between the federal government and its citizens. She will also look at how the same tools can help deliver on President Obama’s mission of increased transparency across government.

Learn more or register now.

I was a legislative aid on Capitol Hill from 1993-1999, when collaboration technology was just getting started, as was 24 hour news coverage. Legislation was available online, but never immediately. Back then, when the President's budget was sent to Congress, it was done so in paper, and staff would stay up all night reading through a single version so the Senator could have comments ready for an early morning statement. Rapidly amended legislation always caused tension between Members because there was no way to quickly distribute changes on the fly and make intelligent public comments to feed the increasing 24 hour news demands. So the news coverage for urgent funding packages (usually supplemental's for disaster response) or high profile bills usually devolved into a discussion of process and representative fairness, rather than the substantive merits of the legislation. Much like the public discourse this past weekend.

But this is 2009.

The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet, based on the graphical image depicted in computer network diagrams. The specific technical meaning of cloud computing is dependent on who is talking about it. At the highest level, cloud computing is like having pizza delivered rather than the traditional way of dining in the restaurant. Either method may be more appropriate depending on your circumstance, but it doesn't necessarily mean that one is always better than the other or that the pizza will taste any better. For some government agencies, cloud computing will be as sensible delivery method, for others it will not, or perhaps a hybrid will be best. If you'd like to see beautiful versions of well known on-premise software applications (Acrobat and Connect) hosted in the cloud, go to www.Acrobat.com, you can use them for free.

Unfortunately all the enthusiasm over cloud computing has clouded over the more important opportunity for government software applications - which is that for truly connected democracy, applications have to be ubiquitous. If a user is offline, working across multiple devices or operating on an unsupported platform, cloud applications may fall short. Government agencies shouldn't get locked in to the cloud or not cloud debate, but should consider the true needs of their end users, all relevant infrastructure in the ecosystem that can be leveraged (Yes, this is a veiled plug for Adobe Reader, Flash and AIR) and leverage the appropriate delivery models to optimize the user experience and productivity.

This case is interesting because the Department of Health and Ageing solution actually uses the shared-services platform provided by the Australian Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (ADIISR) available to all federal agencies and built using Adobe LiveCycle ES. Because of this shared-service infrastructure, the Department of Health and Ageing was able to get their solution rolled out quicker and more cost-efficiently.

Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing
Australian health agency improves cancer screening process, completeness of medical records, and realizes 923% ROI over three years using Adobe LiveCycle ES solutions. You can access the case study here.

Amidst the salutations that usually arrive in an email, the key statement that stood out was:

"Ontario Supreme Court Justice The Honorable Patrick J Lesage and University Professor Michael Code have released a report to the public on major case management in the province of Ontario. This report 'SPECIFICALLY' names Adobe on no less than 5 separate occasions as the standard for electronic disclosure across the province. The report also recommends the province adopt Acrobat for case management for policing, crown attorneys and the legal community at large."

Adobe PDF and Acrobat are already widely used in Ontario to address the real challenges of accurately and efficiently collecting and collaborating on documents and evidence for a given investigation.