Some CTO Vision: Is the future still the same?

Next month’s Gov2.0 Summit (9-10 Sep) is going to be a great event. From what I’ve seen of the agenda and the hard work the conference organizers have been putting into this I can tell it will bring together a great mix of techies, govies, innovators and citizens in a fast-moving, productive discussion about Web2.0 concepts applied to the largest of the large enterprises.

I’m hoping it will also be an opportunity for me to think about one of my favorite hobbies, projecting the near term future of IT. I’ll be at the Summit with my laptop open taking notes and trying to think through the future. I’ll look for the impact on IT trends the many issues and actions discussed will have. If all goes well, I’ll be able to use the result to fuel my blog for months to come.

Prediction, as Yogi Berra reminded us, is always hard, especially about the future. But with thought and an understanding of technology and requirements we can sometime capture the essence of important trends. As an example, here are a few points I made 9 months ago, right after the Obama win:

The Significance of the [Obama Win]

Here is a short list of assessments:

– Look for …

The Significance of the [Obama Win]

Here is a short list of assessments:

– Look for even more use of grid/cloud computing. This will include more cloud computing in government. Vivek Kundra is the model here. His pioneering efforts in leveraging cloud computing have generated real benefits many of us knew were possible but few of had the courage to implement.

– Look for an enhancement to the current CNCI (Comprehensive National Cyber Initiative). IT will be secured in government. With a strong federal CTO we can expect some changes to the current approach to the CNCI. Most, if not all, unauthorized intrusions into federal systems could be prevented with a strong CTO in place.

– Expect to see much much more use of open source software and hardware in the federal enterprise, which will continue to drive more adoption by open source software in commercial sectors. Expect to see a more widespread adoption of Open Office, Linux, Solaris, ZFS, and MySQL. This will be done for agility, flexibility, security and expense.

– Expect to see large pushes for automation of backend IT processes.

– Although federal IT budgets will be under significant downward pressure, good ideas regarding virtualization, automation and other high payoff disruptive technologies will be welcome and there will still be IT modernization efforts underway throughout the government.

So, coming out of that summit I’ll update all those with new directions that we should be tracking. I’ll do that by updating the Five Megatrends in Enterprise IT. Many of you contributed significantly to that presentation and that is much appreciated, so I’ll work updates similar to the last go-around. I’ll work up a draft, will ask CTO’s and other senior technologists/alpha-geeks to comment on it, and then post the new version.

I’ll also update my assessment on the Future of Good and Evil in Cyberspace. With the rapid move towards Web2.0 enabled Gov2.0 constructs it will be important for all us technologists to stay on top of trends in the threat.

While I’m foreshadowing I should also mention Vivek Kundra will be speaking at the Gov2.0 Summit. Vivek has continued to innovate in and lead the Washington area tech scene and he remains a great teacher of CIOs and CTOs. I’ve enjoyed writing about Vivek over the last year and have found that if we track what he is doing it will provide great insight into the course of enterprise IT.

If you have any new data to through into the predictive mix prior to the summit or if you have issues you want me to track for you at the Gov2.0 summit please get in touch and let me know what is on your mind.