When Federal CIO Vivek Kundra talks, every IT person in the federal government should be listening. He's recently started blogging on ostp.gov, and his words are an instant guide to where he is planning to take government in cyberspace.

In his latest entry, Kundra talks frankly about the challenges in collecting, organizing and communicating the vast amounts of data maintained across government. And he underscores the importance of Data.gov which is providing free access to government data.

"The goal of Data.gov is to enable better decision-making, drive transparency, and help to power innovation for a stronger America,"
he blogs.

Kundra also calls for suggestions on what new data should be included, and what types of applications the federal community would like to see built to leverage all the data.

You may think the federal government often makes ludicrous decisions without consulting the workers directly affected. Still, this is one project where your input is highly desirable, and the Obama administration has already indicated there will be plenty of others. There are already comments on the blog about which way to go. Here's one of them:

"I don't think you should give agencies such as the USPTO discretion on what data sets they can provide and prioratize, this in fact can impede transparency. I think however, that standardize ways should be provided to prioritize and inventory data sets. "

For more on Kundra's blog posting:
- check out this ostp.gov blog