I attended the FY11 Federal Advisory Committee Training Conference earlier this month at the Washington, DC Convention Center. About 350 Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) professionals, including about 50 speakers, from over 70 Executive departments, agencies and commissions attended this periodic conference hosted by the OGP’s Office of Committee and Regulatory Management. The Conference theme was Transparency and Open Government, which included discussion on the use of social media in the management and operation of Federal advisory committees.

As the Keynote Speaker, Administrator Martha Johnson welcomed a packed house of FACA professionals to the conference’s opening session, encouraging participants to take up the challenges, and to consider the impacts of increased transparency in an era of open government. Featured GSA speakers and subject principals were me, Office of Committee and Regulatory Management Director Robert Flaak, Committee Management Secretariat Director Lorelei Kowalski, Office of General Counsel trademark attorney Elizabeth Hochberg, and Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies Principal Deputy Associate Administrator Kathy Conrad.

The Conference featured three concurrent tracks for FACA Attorneys, departmental/agency Committee Management Officers, and advisory committee Designated Federal Officers. Attendees listened to the latest techniques used by agencies to effectively communicate with the public, use of social media in the development of advice, and learned how agencies track information and maintain records of their advisory committee deliberations. Moderators and panelists led the discussions in each of the Conference’s 18 sessions, supplemented by expert commentary and probing questions from the 100 or so participants in each session.

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