Success through Collaboration

As you may know, May 23rd marks the opening of the Management of Change (MOC) conference. For 30 years, the MOC has served as a catalyst for collaboration across the government IT community. I am proud to be a conference vice chair on this year’s planning committee.

Even before wikis, blogs and tweets, the MOC conference was a focal point for IT professionals from all levels of government and industry to connect, share information, and work together to drive innovation. Not too long ago we were debating the merits of allowing government employees to access the Internet. Today Internet access is commonplace across government – that’s change at lightning speed. We’ve all had to adapt, and I’m proud of the role GSA has played in the provision of this service.

With the emergence of new knowledge-sharing and social media tools, we have all changed the manner in which we communicate, as well as the frequency. The MOC conference goal, however, remains unchanged: to assemble a group of experts to address the government’s most pressing IT challenges and share best practices, which lead to success through collaboration.

This year’s panel topics align with some of the most critical issues we as IT professionals face – increasing the quality and focus of our engagement efforts, achieving operational excellence, and addressing critical issues such as cybersecurity. Perhaps getting a group of people in a room to talk is considered low-tech. But I, for one, am looking forward to hearing what our industry partners and customers have to say and how my organization ITS can tap into this collective intelligence to develop forward-looking solutions.

To quote the late, great technologist Yogi Berra, “the future ain’t what it used to be.” Change happens – technologies change, workforces change, policies change, and our challenges change. We’ve got to learn how to manage change, get ahead of it and anticipate it. We can only do that with an open exchange of ideas.

If you haven’t signed up yet, you can find out more information here. I will look forward to seeing you there.