As we reported last week, Navy CIO Robert Carey is expected to leave his current position by the end of the summer, departing as the Navy’s Next Generation Enterprise Network kicks into high gear and legacy IT architectures like the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet continue to be phased out.
Whoever moves in to fill CIO Carey’s shoes has their work cut out for them.  CIO Carey laid out an ambitious set of priorities for 2010 this February, detailing the need for agile decision-making in the budgetary and acquisition processes that is capable of keeping up with the fast-paced development of information technology as well as the need for better cybersecurity architecture and training.  From his blog, “Everyone is a cyber warrior and as such will require better and different training. The Cyber Age is here, and we must accelerate our knowledge of the network as a tool to perform our work.â€
Additionally, the GSA is looking for a deputy CIO to advise Casey Coleman, one of the brains behind GSA’s successful cloud computing storefront, apps.gov.  In an interview with ExecutiveBiz from last year, she explained the unique challenges of cloud computing for the federal government, “One of the challenges is going to be information security because one of the basic tenants of cloud computing is multi-tendency and that is the notion of sharing shared services delivered over the internet to a number of users in an environment where you are not in total control of that environment. You are subscribing to a service from a service provider. The security of that is a joint arrangement between the service provider and you as the consumer or customer.”
Also, CIO Coleman has been an active user of social media since she took office, frequently issuing updates via the microblogging site Twitter in line with the Obama administration’s mandate for increased transparency, even tweeting from a plane en route to a conference during an emergency situation. Â “During our flight to Las Vegas, some lunatic tried to open the front exit hatch in midair. About a dozen men rushed him & held him down,” she tweeted mid-flight to Las Vegas for Microstrategy World 2010.
Between cloud computing, social media and cybersecurity, whomever steps into these new federal IT jobs has their work cut out for them. Â Here’s hoping they live up to the high standard set by consummate professionals like Robert Carey.
