Government Executive Takes to the Web

CYBERSCAPE COLUMN

Government Executive Takes to the Web

ince we started this column last year, we have searched high and low for a site that meets the wide-ranging needs of the managers and executives who make the federal government work. We never found it, so we built it.

OK, so maybe the new Government Executive site (http://www. govexec.com) isn't the last word on federal management, but we hope it provides a good start. It is much more than an electronic version of the magazine. Of course, you will be able to find the features that appear in our pages each month, but we will also provide more frequent updates and news briefs. And we will make available online full-length features and news items from the various publications of our two parent companies, National Journal and Times Mirror Inc.

What's more, we hope to do something that was hard to imagine only a little over a year ago: Use the interactive capabilities of the Web to create an online community of federal professionals. We want to give you the opportunity to talk directly to the experts on important issues, network with your peers and eventually work together to solve common problems. In short, we want to be a clearinghouse both for information and ideas about the quest to make government "work better and cost less" that federal managers were on long before Al Gore came up with that pithy phrase.

Of course, you will also be able to talk back to Government Executive's editors and writers in a much more direct and immediate fashion. We welcome your thoughts on how to improve both our print publication and the Web site.

Some of the areas of the new Government Executive Web site:

• Cover Story. Each week, our front page features a new cover story that will take a comprehensive look at an issue of concern to federal managers, such as: the federal budget, major procurements, reinvention and reengineering, management issues and political events.
• The Daily Fed. Every day, the news items in the Daily Fed will provide managers with the latest updates on budget negotiations, appropriations measures, agency shutdowns and other events, as reported by the staffs of Government Executive, National Journal, CongressDaily, and the six publications of the American Political Network.
• Features. This section includes stories from the pages of Government Executive and National Journal.
• Forum. In this online discussion area, government's top administrators can meet to swap stories about reinvention, share information on best practices for business process improvements, participate in discussions about budget negotiations on Capitol Hill or listen to an expert hold forth on how to implement procurement reform initiatives.
• Top 200 Federal Contractors. For the first time, Government Executive makes available online a searchable database of our popular Top 200 contractors rankings, which highlight the biggest providers of goods and services to the federal government.
• Federal Technology Source. Also available online for the first time is this comprehensive database of both public and private sector information technology executives. It includes the names, addresses, phone and fax numbers and Web and e-mail addresses of more than 3,000 government and corporate information technology leaders.
• Reinvention Center. This includes articles from Government Executive, a comprehensive directory of reinvention and reengineering-oriented sites on the Web and links to our discussion forums on this critical topic.
• Information Technology. This section features special reports on such subjects as systems integration, imaging, security, database management, networking and open systems. The Techbytes section will include brief updates on federal technology news.
• Procurement. Government Executive's extensive coverage of the federal marketplace will be featured here, along with links to on-line procurement information.
• Careers. The Careers section will provide Senior Executive Service job vacancy listings, extensive links to career information sites inside and outside government, and online job application forms.
• Virtual Government. This section will provide a user's guide to the federal government on the Internet, with links to comprehensive directories of agency web servers. As always, the Cyberscape column will review the government's best-and worst-Web sites.
• Travel. The regular Government Executive travel column will appear here, along with online maps of popular federal destinations, information about city-pair airline contracts and per diem rates for major cities.
• Archive. This section of the site will feature a full-text database of past Government Executive articles, searchable by keywords.
• Feedback. Users of the Government Executive site will be able to e-mail letters to the editor, participate in online surveys and polls and update their subscription information for the print edition of Government Executive.