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Reality Check

Michael Daconta is the vice president of advanced technology at InCadence Strategic Solutions and the former metadata program manager for the Homeland Security Department. His latest book is "Information as Product: How to Deliver the Right Information to the Right Person at the Right Time."


Mike Daconta

Hackers own today's free-love PC architecture, and it's time to move on

With the coming post-PC architecture, sensor, device and cloud components will form a new multi-machine OS with built-in solutions for security and ID management.

Mike Daconta

Why NIST's cloud definition is fatally flawed

NIST's definition of cloud computing is incomplete because it excludes big data and omits any number of "things as a service."

Mike Daconta

Good metadata means good government

Understanding how to design the right metadata is the key to helping users (and citizens) get the most value from data on your organization's products and services.

Mike Daconta

Are we serious about cybersecurity? Here's a test to find out.

The U.S. will either do the hard work necessary to establish a strong national cybersecurity defense or get stuck in the doldrums of decline.

Mike Daconta

Systemic tensions: 3 IT project zombies that just won't die

Three recurring conflicts born of well-meaning but often diametrically opposed IT forces keep haunting IT systems development.

Mike Daconta

Why programming languages no longer matter

It is not that there is no difference among programming languages. It's just that those differences are becoming less and less a factor in choosing a development platform.

Memo to health IT planners: no need to reinvent standards

Columnist Mike Daconta helps clarify the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology's recommendation for a universal exchange language for health care information and explains why it is more than feasible today.

Mike Daconta

Big data: You'll have it, but can you handle it?

Massive datasets created by new cloud platforms will put a heavy burden on government IT managers. Here’s what you can do about it.

Mike Daconta

Why IBM's Watson is good news for government

Watson's pipelined, pragmatic process demonstrated significant innovations that overcame the type of grand challenges faced every day by the government IT community.

Mike Daconta

What's right and what's wrong with IT reform plans

The CIO Council's plan for reforming IT management offers significant improvements but is weak in a few areas.

The cloud has a silver lining after all

Once you understand what it is and is not, the move to cloud computing represents an opportunity for a disciplined approach to tackling information overload.

Mike Daconta

Pros and cons of rogue databases

Local Access databases can serve an important prototyping and requirements role, but it is up to the CIO to provide an enterprise service to "webify" them.

Mike Daconta

3 tragic flaws of some well-meaning dashboards

When beginning a dashboard project, there are three common pitfalls to avoid: using the wrong type of dashboard, using weak metaphors and using made-up data.

Mike Daconta

Beware an impending e-records train wreck

Outdated technologies and inadequate transparency are hampering HHS's electronic health records effort, but the experience could provide lessons other agencies can use to avoid similar pitfalls, says columnist Michael Daconta.

Mike Daconta

With info sharing, context is as important as content

Context is so critical that its implications are cropping up in more than a half-dozen areas of data architecture, such as process monitoring, business glossaries, master data management, metadata catalogs, information exchanges, data warehousing and much more, Reality Check columnist Michael Daconta writes.

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