While IT has clearly transformed government, making many programs and services more effective and cheaper to deliver, the battle to communicate the public benefits of these investments has never been harder to wage.

With the Open Source Conference (OSCon) and IDG's LinuxWorld show in the rearview mirror of 2008, it is clear that open source is no longer just a trendy conversation.

The most successful government Web sites devote time, people and technology to satisfy user requirements, according to new report from UK-based political research charity the Hansard Society

On February 20, IT manager and columnist Ron Nutter was called into his boss's office and told he was being let go -- that day. Once the initial shock wore off, Nutter launched an aggressive search for employment in the US area of Kansas City. Over the next 76 days, Nutter applied for 85 jobs, and had 16 interviews before landing a new position. He chronicled the job search in a daily blog. Now that he has had some time to reflect on the experience, Nutter offers these 20 tips for surviving a layoff.

As companies look to economize in a weak economy worsened by rising energy costs, it may be more tempting than ever to consider outsourcing your IT -- whether to a cloud-based provider, to a shop in your town, or to a provider in some far-off land. Certainly, outsourcing has worked well for many companies, but it can also lead to business-damaging nightmares, says Larry Harding, founder and president of High Street Partners, a global consultancy that advises company on how to expand overseas. After all, if outsourcers fail, you're left holding the bag without the resources to fix the problem.

Defence CIO Greg Farr is confident that within 12 months Defence will finally have a better grip on service level management

In our conversations, we spoke to Sam Lamonica, CIO of Rudolph and Sletten Construction, a general building contractor; Philipp Huber, CTO/COO of the UK based XCalibre Communications, a hosting firm; Clyde Williams, Infrastructure Systems Manager for Southeast Alabama Medical Center; and Walt Cornelison, Director of Information Technology for Tropitone Furniture, a manufacturer of high-end outdoor furniture. Here's how our conversation went:

The next US president could shape cybersecurity, government research initiatives, intellectual property laws, and wired and wireless communications services in ways that affect both enterprise IT executives and average citizens. Yet some experts say he could handle all this without having Twittered, texted or even used a PC, although his familiarity with information technologies might strongly affect his policies.

Higher Internet usage rates have put policy makers in a much better position to examine the digital divide, according to a new report from Queensland University of Technology

While e-government revolved around putting citizen services on the Web. Gov 2.0 steps citizen interaction up a notch

Australia at long last making headway in addressing the interoperability of police databases