A couple of years ago, the Obama Administration began making good on its promise to make the federal government more transparent about how tax dollars are allocated for IT and general government spending. Sites such as ITDashboard.gov offer general information on more than 7,000 federal IT investments and specific details on 800 "major" investments as classified by federal agencies.

But now, reports are circulating that the government is planning to shut down a number of "open" data sites, including ITDashboard.gov and USAspending.gov. According to reports from sites such as TechDirt, the House has set aside just $2 million for e-government funding this year while the White House requested $35 million for these initiatives.

I read an interesting blog about how the emergence of cloud computing may result in a wide range of new titles and responsibilities. I'll touch on some of those that were listed and include a few that I see emerging as well.

One such role/title that's cropped up is CTO of Cloud Computing, a designation that's held by Lewis Tucker at Cisco, according to a recent Fortune article. Tucker describes his role as one where he has "to make sure that (cloud) disruption happens in a very positive way - that we can use it as an opportunity."

On Dec. 9, the Obama administration released an ambitious 25-point IT management reform plan. The strategy, announced by Federal CIO Vivek Kundra, is aimed at eliminating wasteful spending, streamlining the IT footprint of the federal government, shifting to a "Cloud First" policy and designing 21^st century career path programs for at least some federal IT workers.

For instance, the plan includes efforts to either fix or scrap underperforming IT projects over the next 18 months. The government also plans to eliminate at least 800 data centers by 2015.