In March 2013 the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued guidance on freezing the federal workspace footprint. As the federal government’s landlord, GSA closely monitors the federal real estate inventory and is piloting some interesting options to follow this directive, including using hoteling technology to make existing workspace in its Washington, DC buildings more efficient.

Here’s how hoteling works: rather than having an assigned desk, workers reserve their workspaces using booking software. The technology categorizes workspaces into asset classes that can be booked on demand; e.g., conference rooms, small collaborative spaces, or individual cubicles. People can select the space–and the location in the building–that best meets their needs depending on their work and the size of their team.

With robust hoteling technology, GSA’s renovated Washington, D.C. headquarters will support more than twice as many workers as the originally configured space ever did. We are confident in this approach because our research indicates that offices are utilized at about 50 percent on a given day due to normal factors such as leave, travel, and out of office meetings. Hoteling works best in flexible space that can support it – so GSA’s headquarters building is open and collaborative, with multipurpose furniture that is easily movable and adjustable. Benefits include increased collaboration, reduced real estate costs, and improved energy utilization.

Other government agencies are successfully hoteling too. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) had more than 2,600 patent examiners participating in its Patent Hoteling Program (PHP), according to its report titled “The Patent Hoteling Program is Succeeding as a Business Strategy.” PHP reported real estate cost savings and boosts in productivity. PHP participants spent 66.3 more hours a year examining patents, which translates to 3.5 more patent applications per employee a year, because “they use less sick and administrative leave and charge less time to administrative tasks.” (The report notes that more patent applications reviewed means more revenue for USPTO.)

Last April, The Wall Street Journal reported that roughly 20 percent of American Express’ employees in New York City are hoteling, and the London and Singapore offices are following suit. Other companies, like GlaxoSmithKline and PricewaterhouseCoopers, are hoteling to save money and maximize space.

The federal government can learn a lot by emulating industry when it makes sense, and hoteling is one trend that definitely meets that standard. GSA is sharing our expertise to help other government agencies operate space more efficiently by reducing energy and utility costs and using their workspace more efficiently.

One of the things about Big Data – collections of large and complex data that require new analysis methods – is that analyzing its results is a complex job. And to tackle it, researchers, app developers, and people who like challenges are unleashing all their creativity.

However, the promise of big data isn’t discovering the past, it’s looking forward to shape the future. Big data provides predictive analysis about the future, and that’s huge for governments trying to maximize limited resources while delivering necessary services.

Just one example of big data’s predictions: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) uses big data to feed its FluView website, a weekly tracker of where the flu virus can be found. CDC can get as many as 700,000 reports weekly on patients with flu-like symptoms, so it created a complex flu-tracking system to determine what types of vaccines should be developed and where and in what quantities they should be sent. Because of big data, the government got ahead of this year’s dangerous flu outbreaks.

“It is this ability to collect, measure and analyze data for meaningful insights that is the promise of Big Data technology,” The New York Times recently noted. “Big Data is steadily pushing beyond the Internet industry and scientific research into seemingly foreign fields like the social sciences and the humanities. The new tools of discovery provide a fresh look at culture, much as the microscope gave us a closer look at the subtleties of life and the telescope opened the way to faraway galaxies.”

Or, as Malcolm Gladwell might put it, big data has achieved the tipping point.

We use big data to discover new approaches to emerging problems, and to find better, more cost-effective ways to meet our customers’ needs through websites like Data.gov.

Whether our innovations come from inside our agency or from engaged citizens, the core material comes from analyzing the information buried in big data, gleaning insights, and understanding trends.

I’m sure you’ve heard the latest buzzword, “big data.” Big data are datasets too large and complex to be analyzed with traditional software, like Medicare claims data, global weather information, or the DNA sequencing of the human genome.  We in government must manage exponentially increasing data, while improving our ability to use and share it. Many interesting federal initiatives are emerging in this area.

Last month, for example, the White House announced a new Data.gov Communities area for crowdsourcing ideas and initiatives on how best to use federal data. Data.gov datasets now number over 345,000 and draw over 1.3 million visits a  month. The public creates innovative reporting methods from this data, such as mashups on any number of issues: bills in Congress, historic homes of D.C., finding local resources for HIV/AIDS care, and much more.  Several Datapoloozas and Data Jams are scheduled to develop new, improved ways of analyzing and presenting data to help us better meet our missions.

In March 2012, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) launched the Big Data Research and Development Initiative. OSTP recognized that that government needs to develop technologies to work with big data, and that the workforce needs to be expanded to develop and use big data technologies.

GSA manages the web presence of government’s most visible big data project:Data.gov. GSA posts over 83 high-value datasets on Data.gov, and like other agencies shares federal data with interested citizens while also saving resources through pre-fulfilling potential Federal of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

GSA continues to look for improved approaches for ways to use big data and provide better services to our customers. We need to do that quickly – and securely – while keeping an eye on our bottom line for savings during implementation.

What are the challenges that you see facing federal government CIOs and CTOs as they tackle the big data initiative? How would you solve them?

Most of us are familiar with social media and are likely to use it in our personal and professional lives.  We saw social media take off in 2012 as a tool for getting work done here at GSA.  We standardized on an agency-wide social networking platform (Chatter from Salesforce). This has been a helpful solution for GSA employees to connect virtually in workgroups and project teams regardless of where they are located. In fact, there are now more than 1,000 groups with members from all over GSA who provide advice, lessons learned and innovative ideas to the organization.  For example, the “Supervisor’s Lounge” group helps our managers improve their knowledge and skills to support their teams.  I posted previously about using this platform’s “Ideas” capability to uncover employee ideas on how GSA can save money.   And our “Ask IT” group provides on-the-spot assistance with GSA’s technology tools and systems; oftentimes, helpful tips are suggested by other users rather than the IT support technicians. Social media has become integral to GSA’s mission over the past year, assisting us with better fulfilling our mission and serving our stakeholders.

Like many other organizations, collaborative tools are changing how we do business with our customers as well as our colleagues. Building a 21st century government at every level means openness, transparency and collaboration are the order of the day—but so are speed, scalability and affordability.  Social media enables these capabilities, and we have learned some lessons along the way on effective collaboration. Here are a few guideposts to follow:

Engage constituents on their terms
Constituents are going social, discussing government in the new public town square online. It’s time to revolutionize how citizens engage with their government and bring these voices in. Answer questions and make improvements—together. Use social media to bring the voice of constituents and partners back into government.

Build apps to power your agency
There’s a lot of data in the legacy systems of most agencies—but it can be hard to find when you need it. You can free up that valuable information and fuel innovation when you can quickly spin up powerful, social, apps to support the core business of government for a fraction of the usual cost. For instance, the Texas Department of Information Resources has built a dozen or so apps to improve its operations and bring government closer to the public.

Transform services with social media
Social, interactive, websites are raising the expectations of consumers everywhere, and people increasingly expect the government services they depend on to go social, too. The pressure is on to give more personalized service, provide access to answers from everywhere, and empower the community to jump in and help.  The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Bureau of Consumer Protection produces the Business Center Blog, an interactive information source that addresses a wide range of consumer issues and concerns.  It’s a good illustration of where social media is taking the government.

At GSA, we’ve acted on the premise that the future of computing is social and mobile, and we’re heading in the right direction with the technology we’ve implemented, and learning from what we’re doing through active measurement and analysis.  In 2012, we became a leader in using social media in government.  Our goal for 2013  is to continue to save taxpayer money while delivering necessary and innovative services to our customers.

It’s been just over a year since GSA transitioned to Google’s cloud-based email platform, and to date the agency has realized a cost saving of $2 million dollars. As the first large federal agency to adopt cloud-based email, GSA is leading the way and serving as a best practices model for other government agencies. In fact, early estimates show that GSA will save $15 million in costs over the next five years.

Lastly, migrating to a cloud based IT system has vastly improved our ability to operate during times of national emergency. Shortly after GSA’s migration to the new platform, Hurricane Irene hit the Eastern seaboard causing serious damage across a wide area of the country. Workers at GSA’s Office of Emergency Response and Recovery used Google sites to quickly set up a Hurricane Irene homepage for employees to share essential emergency response information.

It has been a remarkable year for GSA and bringing cloud IT solutions to government.  We have been at the forefront of implementing cloud services, and we’ve proven that they work to save taxpayer dollars, conserve energy, eliminate waste, and improve efficiency.

Note: This post can also be found at The GSA Blog.