Sunday, April 12, 2009

NASCOE Update

The National Association of State and County Employees (NASCOE) is the employee organization for FSA. The President has a report of her meeting with Vilsack and various DC (temporary) bigshots. Most of it (all of it, actually) is inside baseball stuff, the general status of various programs and improvements, issues on the proper classification of different positions, etc.

One item of interest to me: " Plans for future of IT include a central application server which a county office user will access using a thin client. This will make the system easier to manage and upgrade. Data will be stored on a central database. " I guess, assuming broadband in all counties, the location of data has become irrelevant. Even today, we can move graphic information (GIS images) around the web fast enough to service people. Of course, by 2013 FSA ought to be getting its acreage data by download from the planters and combines which are guided by GPS.

Another thing I noted: absolutely no mention of any need to work with NRCS on computer implementation. (So much for Secretary Madigan's Info Share initiative, I guess. (That's geezer inside baseball.))

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