[Posted by Zach Tumin, Executive Director, LNW Program]

 We spent the day today in a small planning session called, "Information Sharing In Cross-Boundary, Shared Mission Environments: The Challenge of Standards." Good friends and colleagues from several "Five Star" standards organizations, government agencies, and corporations came together to map out where the major standards efforts should be next. Which should we put our shoulder against -- whether new standards or those awaiting broad uptake and adoption -- for biggest impact on policy arenas such as health, climate, energy, and safety?

We see standards as a major "force multiplier" for governments strapped for cash, and bent on improved performance: use and reuse each other's data and information, spur innovation and cost reduction, interoperate, create synergies and network effects by adding new users. We'll post more and have a report out later. For now, here are some thoughts going in from one member of our group today, and a blog post already up from another which hits the high points well.