Last month, I got to attend MeriTalk's fifth annual Cloud Computing Brainstorm at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. It was a great event that gathered more than 200 cloud thought leaders from both industry and government for a discussion on the state of cloud computing in the federal government. It's crazy to think of how much change we've already seen when it comes to the cloud in government: it's the five year anniversary of the FedRAMP program, and the two year anniversary of FITARAR. Cloud-based collaboration is no longer the future for federal agencies -it's happening now.

^{Photo of the "Unlock Collaboration for Your Agency" panel via MeriTalk.}

I had the distinct pleasure in moderating one of the panels, "Unlock Collaboration for Your Agency". The panel focused on who in the federal government is collaborating via the cloud well, what the cost and risk benefits of adopting cloud services are, and advice for agencies who still need to migrate to the cloud. We had great panelists: Karen Petraska, Service Executive in the Office of the CIO at NASA; Rusty Rickens, a senior advisor for digital platform at the State Department; and John Skularek, the deputy CIO at the FCC.

 If you weren't able to be at the Cloud Computing Brainstorm in person, make sure to watch the video of the panel below to hear all the wonderful insight from these experts!