Odds + Ends

A hodgepodge of thoughts + links to share on yet another brutally hot and humid Washington, D.C. day…

Last month, Katie Fallet posted a piece about an application we designed + developed for the FCC that fosters communication between American Indian Tribes + government agencies: the Tower Construction Notification System (TCNS).  Yesterday afternoon, I learned the real origins of the system: it was conceived as an online chat room.  Yes, in the pre-blog days, the FCC had a forward-looking plan to provide an online destination for Tribes to share thoughts and ideas with the agency.  When security concerns arose, so too did TCNS as an alternative, more secure, means to increase communication with Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian Organizations (NHOs)…

…If you’re a regular follower of #Concomitantly, you probably recall a series of spectrum-related posts I added from London and Brussels a few weeks ago.  Since landing in D.C., I’ve been reminded that EU members aren’t the only ones looking at spectrum allocation as a means to spur economic recovery.  Case-in-point: the White House recently laid out plans to dramatically increase the amount of federal and commercial spectrum available for smart phones and wireless Internet.  Freeing up 500 MHz of spectrum like the White House directed last week?  Our Operations Research team on assignment at the FCC is already on it.  In fact, we’re building a model of the spectrum used by television stations to identify spectrum availability; as of now, approximately 120 MHz has been ID’d…

…Was it really less six months ago that we were digging out of “snow-maggedon III?”  Terrible, really, to slog ones way to work on the metro here in D.C. without even a hint of a breeze.  Even more so when our subway system doesn’t seem to run on any real/predictable schedule.  I wonder if we can help optimize our travel experience; after all, most operations research involve the construction of a mathematical model to describe important relationships.  In this case, I think keeping passengers cool — and not waiting on steamy platforms — meets the criteria, don’t you?


Posted on Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at 11:30 am and is filed under Business Process Modernization, News, spectrum management.

By: Computech

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Four letters || One cool project

As the practice lead for Computech’s Business Process Modernization group, I’m really proud of the support we provide to our clients that helps them better serve citizens’ and customers’ needs and interests.  One example: an application we designed + developed for the FCC that fosters communication between American Indian Tribes, Government agencies, and Tower Builders: the Tower Construction Notification System (TCNS).  The first of its kind in the federal space, I sat down with my colleague Vince Hozempa earlier this week to put a little more color to the work we’ve done in support of the Commission’s needs.  A few pretty cool things came out of our conversation:

Over the course of this project, my team has become intimately familiar with Tribal concerns and sensitivities, as well as the processes involved in complying with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).  We’ve even worked with the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service and the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration to create modified versions of the application to help with their Tribal coordination efforts.

Being fast, flexible and adaptive to our clients’ needs is something we take real pride in – just as we do creating a system like this one that benefits so many constituencies.  If you’d like to learn more about our BPM practice or other Computech projects that provide organizations with powerful information tools like this one, please feel free to comment below or get connected with me through LinkedIn.


Posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Business Process Modernization.

By: admin

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