j.j. toothman

Category: NASA

  • Working NASA’s Enterprise Web

    Working NASA’s Enterprise Web

    While reading Neil deGrasse Tyson’s book Space Chronicles, I came across a passage that helped remind me how great it is to get the chance to evolve NASA’s enterprise web environment. From January 3 through January 5, 2004, the NASA website that tracked the doings of the Mars rovers sustained more than half a billion […]

  • Why I do it

    It’s been forever since I’ve posted here.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned about blogging over the years, it’s that (for me) blogging is like exercising and eating well.  You’ve got to do it regularly.  If you stop for a while, starting back up takes much longer than you believe it will.  I’ve done many […]

  • open.nasa.gov launches to the public

    open.nasa.gov launches to the public

    Congratulations to NASA’s Open Government Team – Nick, Ali, Chris, and a few others I’m sure I’m forgetting – on getting their new website launched – http://open.nasa.gov.  The site uses the open source content management system WordPress ((Hey, just like this site does.  Those guys chose wisely.)) to publish and share success stories as well […]

  • NASA Open Source Summit Proceedings

    NASA’s approach to open source software is, as it with many things at NASA, disjointed. The meandering approaches didn’t find their common ground to the point that all issues were solved at the NASA Open Source Summit this past Spring, but they all were put on the table. In reading the official NASA Open Source […]

  • Middle management is ground zero for government’s digital divide

    As I have mentioned in the past, the biggest hurdle to fulfilling the ambitions of Gov 2.0 and enabling government institutions with Open Government principles, has nothing to do with technology. Sadly, the biggest hurdles to achieving the promise of a new era of government enriched with technologies enabling access to and participation with government […]

  • Big shoes to fill in the NASA I.T. world

    I’ve been asked by many people inside and outside of NASA.  What are my thoughts on the departure of Chris Kemp from the role of CTO for IT? I like Chris.  And I’ve enjoyed tackling some I.T. issues with him at NASA over the past few years.  The first time we sat down and had […]

  • Presentation: How To Use Open Source Techniques For Your Project Management Needs: Achieving Organizational Culture Change And Breaking Down Barriers Through Social Media Participation

    Below is  a presentation I gave at the Social Media for Government conference in Washington, D.C. recently. My talk tied what I’ve experienced participating with open source communities and how the attributes of the most successful open source communities can be applied to working within our institutions and enterprises to change stagnant working cultures. How […]

  • Data as Art Presentation at Strata Conference

    Many thanks to O’Reilly for producing Strata .  It was an amazing conference. And many thanks to everyone who attended my session titled “Data as Art.”  I am most grateful for the patience everyone had while I was dealing with A/V challenges.  Trust me, you weren’t nearly as frustrated by that as I was.  I’ve […]

  • Speaking at Strata Conference This Week

    I’m very honored and excited to be included in the program for the O’Reilly Strata Conference in Santa Clara this week.  An entire conference focused on data mining and visualizations is ultra-intriguing to say the least.  I just read a blog post that puts the conference into proper perspective by stating “Big data is the […]

  • What I’m Working On at NASA – Winter 2011 Edition

    A few subtle changes since my last sharing of current work activities.  NASA Web Service Office Exciting news.  As I’ve mentioned previously, I was spending a lot of time trying to increase the number of people who were dedicating the majority of their time tackling NASA’s Web challenges.  Those efforts have manifested itself in the […]