Here’s an explanation of what Apple announced regarding it’s seven background services soon to be available.

Voice Over IP
The likes of Skype,  iTalk, Talk2, and other VoIP programs will be able to receive and continue calls in the background.

Location Services
Background location services will let GPS navigation applications continue to navigate, all while the end user is utilizing voice services, sending text messages, or listening to music.  Furthermore, background services & GPS applications will wake up social location apps and inform them when a person has moved between cell-phone towers for updated location updates.

Background Audio
Audio services like Pandora and Slacker will be to be streamed via Apple’s background service, enabling the end user to perform another task  while listening to them.

Task Completion
The Task Completion background service lets programs finish tasks and processes items in the background - the likes of uploading photos, updating contacts, etc.   However, some restrictions do exist with this feature as to where the application is started.  It appears as though the active application performing the tasks, needs to be started in the foreground.

Push Notifications

Push Notifications involving such applications such as Facebook messages, CNN, or NYTimes news alerts, are available.  Apple’s cloud-based server is available for content developers to utilize and request an alert to users when fresh content is available.

Local Notifications
Much like Push notifications, only without network involvement, a third party application can set an alarm that notifies the user on the screen and requests to bring it to the forefront of the screen for viewing.

Fast App Switching
This is the key to unlocking the appearance of multitasking. With fast app switching, applications will save their states so they can pop up to the foreground instantly. Essentially, they appear as if they had been running all along. Apple promises there won’t be a long launch delay in switching between apps.

What’s Not in the upgrade:

Much anticipated by the media and industry watchers, but left out of this upgrade and announcement by Apple is the following:

Hardware and Upgrades

With the introduction of multitasking, or at least appearance of it, comes new demands for hardware, memory, and application–O/S management.  This generally equals new hardware.  Apple did not discuss any new hardware upgrades or new phone units, but is expected to do so in early-summer.

More communication carriers for the iPhone

At present, and at the aggravation of many,  the monolithic AT&T has the only agreement in the U.S.  This is expected to change in time but it may be a long time before Apple opens up its very profitable iphone franchise to other carriers. Apple is conservative and moves at a slow and careful pace in many ways with regards to it large business partners.  Rumors of a Verizon network compatible phone have been abundant, but no concrete proof of data exists yet.  Apple’s iphone business is hugely profitable at the moment and its level of customer satisfaction is high, and it wants to keep it that way.  Apple achieves what it does in many ways via control; control over its design, manufacturing, product sales, and companies that it interacts with. Again, that is unlikely to change with Steven Jobs in place.

Flash, Java, and family

Flash, Java, and the like.  Frequently and in a spirited manner, Steven Jobs displays disdain for these applications.   Despite their unprecedented popularity and widespread use, it is unlikely that they will ever appear on an iphone-ipad like device during Mr. job’s reign at Apple.

No Syncing of Wireless devices. 

This was much anticipated and on nearly everyone’s list, but to no avail.  Strategically and product design-wise, wireless syncing is a fit with Apple’s core.  But Apple sometimes take the approach that it will go without until it gets it exactly the way it wants it.  Remember the story of how Steven Job’s lived in a million dollar house for 5 years without any furniture?

Social network integration

Many users belong to multiple social networking sites in which multiple address books, messaging apps. etc. exist.  Apple seems content with that. Industry wide there is some apprehension that you can successfully merge all of the social apps functions into one for efficient purposes anyway. Apple has elected to not play in this area at least for now.

An anonymous group of G-20 protesters calling themselves the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project published a list of local businesses, community organizations and research facilities that they’ve identified as “places where oppression and injustice exist on a daily basis.”  The Resistance Project is encouraging affinity groups and other organizations to select places on this list for “protests and other actions” on the morning of Friday Sept. 25^th and is specifying that all protests should end by 11:30 a.m.

            Neither the Resistance Project nor anyone else requested permits for these protests so local businesses and other institutions targeted on the list have found out haphazardly or not at all. Ernest Hogan, Deputy Director of East Liberty Development Inc., said that he found out when a friend sent them an email with the list attached. The Resistance Project hasn’t provided any reasons for why businesses are on the list but Mr. Hogan suspects that East Liberty Development is being targeted because it’s perceived as gentrifying East Liberty. Mr. Hogan said that the rationale for targeting East Liberty Development is suspect because “our whole mission is empowering the people.”  East Liberty Development has built 500 units of affordable housing, brought $200 million in investments to the neighborhood and created 900 jobs — 40 percent of which went to residents — Mr. Hogan said. Businesses such as Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods that East Liberty Development helped bring to the neighborhood – businesses Mr. Hogan identified as “great stewards” of the community - are also on the list. Mr. Hogan said that they’ve talked to other businesses in the area and have met with local police, who are aware of the situation. In spite of the threat of protests and other disruptions, Mr. Hogan said, “we are not going to shut down our office because we don’t feel that we should.

But Shadyside X, a 24/7 gym that also appears on the list of targets, has modified its hours in order to protect its patrons and will be closing between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday night, the gym’s president, John Byrnes, said. Mr. Byrnes said that he made the decision to close the gym at night after the police told him that his gym was on the Resistance Project’s list. Mr. Byrnes said that he’s also hired extra security for the duration of the G-20 and installed anti-shatter film on the gym’s windows. “I wonder if I should send the bill to Ravenstahl,” Mr. Byrnes said. He said he doesn’t know why protesters would target his gym but he doesn’t think it’s because of the racy advertising that has caused him problems in the past. Whatever the reason, Mr. Byrnes said that he’s worried about the safety of his patrons and concerned by the possibility of vandalism. Mr. Byrnes wants to know who will pay for the damage if local businesses are vandalized. “It seems like [the G-20] is a headache for a lot of small businesses.”

          Whereas Mr. Byrnes had known for weeks that his business was on a list of protest targets, the staff of the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation was never notified of its position on the list and didn’t find out until BLACK AND WHITE requested comment on the issue. Wanda Wilson, the organization’s executive director, said, “it’s sort of funny that we would be on a protest list.” She said that her company focuses on creating affordable housing and affordable rentals for low-income people – activities that Ms. Wilson wouldn’t expect to be protested during the G-20 Summit.

            Asked why G-20 protesters would target her organization, Ms. Wilson said that her organization’s funding might be at issue. The Oakland Planning and Development Corporation receives funding from PNC Bank – another local business targeted by protesters – as well as state and local governments. But Ms. Wilson is only guessing that funding might be the issue and ultimately, she said, she “just can’t understand why they would spend their time [protesting her organization].”  Ms. Wilson said that she and her organization will be taking extra security precautions and that the office will be staying open during the G-20 Summit. Ms. Wilson said she thinks keeping the office open will help prevent vandalism during any possible protests but she said that their offices are relative secure unlike more vulnerable targets such as Starbucks that are open to the public.

            Whether by staying open to prevent vandalism, working with local police or installing anti-shatter film on windows, local businesses targeted by G-20 protesters are taking steps to protect their employees and customers. Businesses on this list found out about it haphazardly and are not all sure why they are being targeted. Identified as “places where oppression and injustice exist on a daily basis,” the list features a diverse selection of Pittsburgh businesses and institutions including community development groups, banks, research institutes and grocery stores. Some of them have modified their hours for the Summit or have decided to close down entirely but many will continue to provide services to their community regardless of threats from anonymous organizations.

The Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance protesters list

In mid-September, Google surprised its fans with a new service: FastFlip. A user already familiar with Google News will find a few similar elements, but FastFlip takes the experience to a new level, both on a desktop and on a mobile device, allowing users to “browse news like a magazine”.

FastFlip attempts to lower the time it takes to load pages filled up with high-resolution pictures, videos, or commercial. According to Google’s researcher Mr. Krishna Bharat http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/read-news-fast-with-google-fast-flip.html, what the company intended to offer its users with this service is the opportunity to quickly flip through about three dozen publications. The pages are stripped of the slow-loading items, present the first page in an article, and allow the user to continue reading the piece, should he so desire, by accessing a link to the source publication.

Meanwhile, Google places ads on the side of the page and promises to share the ad revenue with the publishers of the content that appears on FastFlip. Based on the same type of ranking and search algorithms that have made the company successful, Google will calculate an amount to be paid to these publishers for the contextually relevant ads.

Most newspapers have been facing a significant drop in advertising revenue in the past several years, a trend that was further aggravated by the current economic situation. In addition, the continually decreasing number of paid subscriptions is further hurting the print media, while online content is freely accessible – and preferred by more and more users. Hurt on two fronts, newspapers have tried to come up with other sources of income, but a clear strategy has not yet been determined. Newscorp took a decisive step and announced in July http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a_DxphTycoDM that it will start charging for most of its online content. The Wall Street Journal, owned by the same company, is currently offering a mix of free and paid access to its articles.

With these concerns in mind, it seems that Google’s FastFlip came up to join forces with the print media companies to help increase their revenues by a mutually advantageous deal that involves providing aggregate news to Google’s users while making money from the traditional Google business, then sharing this income with the providers of the articles, namely the media trusts http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/blogs/bizfeed/172056/google_fast_flip_bridges_digital_and_print_media.html. A question mark appears when, flipping through the list of partner publications, one can see the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, along with magazines like Cosmopolitan or The Atlantic – but no Newscorp publications can be found. Of course, it is possible that the company is still negotiating with Google, but it is more likely that Newscorp trusts more its newly developed model of charging for online subscriptions than the advertising income offered by FastFlip, at least for now.

It will be interesting, as time goes by, which turns out to be the better option: shared advertising revenue with FastFlip, or paid content on Newscorp’s model.  On one hand, if Rupert Murdoch’s trust turns out to be the only one charging for online access to the published articles, it may be simply that the readers will turn away from it and go instead for the free access to Newscorp’s competition, thus tremendously hurting it. On the other hand, it is possible for the publications accessible through FastFlip to not benefit as much as they expect to from the ads included by Google, and thus further hurt to the point that they are forced to either disappear from the market or turn to a paid online subscription of the Newscorp type.

Another round of absentees from Google’s FastFlip is represented by the local newspapers, but they may be included later, as the service expands. After all, the service is still very new. Google’s next step could be to include a local list of publications in FastFlip, along with the current selection of topics, sections, and popular pages. This would likely increase the chances of survival for the local papers, which are even more hurt than the national ones, given their smaller advertising revenue and subscription base. In addition, it would further underline the fact that the future of newspapers will no longer be tied up to the paper as delivery media, as most publications are already using both online and print versions.

It is worth mentioning that Google already has a news aggregator, named simply Google News, which aggregates the newest and most popular information and provides direct links to the original publisher of the content and thus to the entire article. Of course, this is nothing new on the web, as Yahoo! and AOL also have news services, just to name a couple. Yet Google took the model one step further, thus identifying a way to include the advertising and to co-interest the parties, while also relying on simplicity and visual appeal as the news content is presented in easy to browse pictures of the actual article page in its respective publication.

The “visual” part is where Microsoft also planned to attract users, with its Bing search engine now offering a revolutionary method of finding content: through images. Currently, the search categories that allow the image search do not extend to news and articles, while Bing’s news section is not that different from the other online aggregators to pose a threat to Google’s FastFlip. However, Bing is expanding and positioning itself as a “decision engine”, thus frontally attacking Google’s leader position in searches. How successful it will be is hard to guess, as Bing Visual Search has a lot of ground to cover to catch up with Google.

As far as the news and relationships with publications go, Google clearly has the first mover advantage in what seems like a potentially profitable endeavor for all parts involved. If this works out and the newspapers significantly increase their income, Bing might have a hard time closing a similar deal.

It was 7:30 in the morning and I was suffering from both jet lag and a terrible gin hangover but I was still thankful to be back in the United States.  I hadn’t slept, afraid that I would awake again in the desert.  Cheering the sunrise, my unit began the redeployment process, and mine began with this meeting at this ungodly hour.  While in Iraq, my eight-year contract had expired and was unceremoniously extended so that I could complete my 18-month tour of duty. Amazingly, the first person who wanted to meet with me upon my return home was not a doctor or a veterans affairs representative, but instead the local retention sergeant with a mind to discuss my future with the military. Staff Sergeant Williams sat across from me, his dark complexion sharply contrasting his eerily white Cheshire Cat smile.  His uniform was brand-new and immaculately pressed.  Obnoxious jewelry adorned his fingers and wrists, a clear reminder that I was back in the States and no longer in the sights of snipers.  I considered reenlistment while in Iraq.  I would have received in the range of a $15,000 bonus for signing, paying no taxes due to Iraq’s combat zone designation, but I passed on the offer without a moment’s hesitation. Yet, Sergeant Williams believed that his pitch was so smooth that I would be unable to pass on the opportunity before me.  It was pointless; I had stars in my eyes and knew that there were companies out there just waiting to hire a war-vet with a good work ethic.  I was sadly mistaken.

While the current national rate of unemployment is hovering at 9.7% , the figures are higher within the community of veterans, specifically at 11.2% for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.  When I weighed the decision of re-enlisting in the first weeks of 2006, the national unemployment rate hovered at about 4.7%; today young veterans face even greater challenges in finding gainful employment.  According to a human resources employee with a recruiting firm in Pittsburgh, PA who spoke on condition of anonymity, “I hate to say this, but veterans, especially ‘young’ veterans are considered risky hires.”   With numerous cases of mental distress in the years following the war and the military’s inability to adequately screen and treat these cases, this alone might cause reticence to hire veterans.

The time spent in the military can also play against the veteran searching for work, especially if the depth of their experience was limited to combat-related tasks.  “A 23 year-old with a degree and relevant internship experience is just a better fit for us than someone with no degree and experience that does not apply to what we [want].”  The main argument against veterans’ education benefit reform was that it would hurt retention.  Is this because these soldiers are no longer pigeon-holed into a solely military career? With the post-9/11 GI Bill program just beginning, veterans may be able to win more competitive jobs, especially as the country climbs back from recession. 

A  recession is technically defined as two quarters of negative GDP growth, but many Americans in the middle-class and below saw this recession coming long before it was official.  A number of men and women I served with reenlisted in the Reserves with the option to go active while still in Iraq – remarkably they were all in the mortgage and real estate businesses in their civilian lives; well aware that the market was not where it had been when they left.  Once at home, we veterans found that we had an uphill battle when it came to finding a civilian position that could compete with the salary and benefits offered by the military.  The Air Force, for example, usually does not spend as much time in-theater as long as some of the other branches, yet airmen sometimes deploy more frequently.  Juan Femath served for 12-and-a-half-years in the Air Force.  When it came time for him to consider reenlisting he discussed it with his wife.   “[We] did the prerequisite list of reasons to stay in, versus reasons to get out, and the only significant reason I had for staying in was retirement,” he told me.  As an aerial combat videographer, he was able to transition into a civilian career that, even in good economic times, breaking into can be difficult.  “I just couldn’t see myself doing a job I was no longer passionate about for another 8 years; and one that would put additional stress not only on my body and well-being, but more importantly on my wife and my marriage,” Juan says.  Despite the benefits offered by retiring from the Air Force, Juan opted to risk entering the civilian workforce in an effort to ease the burden frequent separation caused his family. 

The Navy and the Air Force have been consistently reaching the 90th percentile of their retention goals, while the Marines have achieved over 100% of their retention goal for the last five years.  The Army has not failed to hit its retention goals for the past eleven years. In fact, the Army had decreased their goal for reenlistment by 10,500 troops mid-way through 2008.  According to statistics found by Ben Shaw, a former marine and journalist reporting from Iraq (byshaw.com), “the [Army’s] career retention budget jumped from about 173 million dollars in 2003 to well over a billion by 2007 .”   Only $50 million was budgeted for reenlistment bonus in 1998, but that amount skyrocketed to $562 million in 2007.   In a report provided by the Army to the media, the percentage of soldiers leaving the Army after the first Gulf War was twice as high as it is today.  In 1992 a recession was ending and the economy was slowly improving, only growing by about 2% by the end of the fiscal year.  The most recent report by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics shows the economy contracted by 5.7% in the first quarter of 2009 and by another percentage point during the second quarter.  It’s no surprise that the Army is currently at 157% of its retention goals, but this success has caused them to drastically limit the options for retention. 

By the end of 2008, the budget for bonuses had been cut by about $90 million, and the number of qualified military occupational specialties was reduced from 88 to 63.  Even more recently the contracts are limited to only 24 months of service, whereas one must reenlist for three to six years to qualify for any signing bonus.  These restrictions are temporary and will be lifted at the start of the new fiscal year.  Still even without the bonuses, reenlistment means the continuation of a steady paycheck and an eventual pay raise.  Worries about housing and health care are not gone, but not nearly as desperate as these concerns for the unemployed.  Ben Shaw spoke to a soldier that upon discovering that his parents lost their home, reenlisted, volunteered to go to Iraq, and purchased a home.  “If it wasn’t for the war, the Army, and this tour, my entire family would be living on the streets right now. There’s just no way to make any money in my hometown,” says the unnamed National Guardsman.  With limited options in the civilian world – a place where there is no one to ensure that you are squared away – perhaps reenlistment is the best option for these men and women, troubled economy notwithstanding.  For the majority of veterans I’ve spoken with, there are higher reasons for reenlisting such as love of country, sense of duty, and a feeling that the military is the right career for that individual.  Although I will not fall into Sergeant Williams’s retention statistic, his job is much easier than when I met him three years ago.

Sensational media coverage is already beginning to portray anti-G20 protesters as a single homogeneous group preparing for violent opposition to September’s G20 meeting. Some of the reporting has simply been ridiculous with the likes of KDKA, a local CBS Television affiliate, suggesting that protesters are hoarding human feces to throw at police, but even the more reasonable media coverage has sometimes failed to represent the protesters as the patchwork of ideologies and interests that they are.

Determined to get beyond the local news hype, BLACK AND WHITE spoke to Melissa Minnich at the Thomas Merton Center to gain a better understanding of the protests and protesters. Located on Penn Avenue in Garfield, the Merton Center has served as a clearinghouse for dissent and activism in the Pittsburgh area since its founding in 1972. The Merton Center is coordinating the G20 protests, a natural role based on the Center’s history as an organizer of and headquarters for diverse activists and causes. Ms. Minnich said that people simply expected the Center to assume such a role and that she received three phone calls within 20 minutes of Pittsburgh being announced as the summit’s location all asking her what the Merton Center’s position would be. From there, the Center began holding meetings to plan for the summit and things took off with the Center’s Anti-War Committee coordinating events including a massive permitted march Downtown planned for September 25^th.

Ms. Minnich said that the Merton Center’s main goal is public education about issues such as the military industrial complex, unemployment and the environment. The Merton Center and the groups it represents are positioning themselves to raise awareness about specific issues relating to G20 nations and policies. Toward this goal, the Merton Center is working with groups to organize panel discussions, tent cities and a sustainable-living fair.

These activities are being organized legally with permits being sought for actions in Point State Park, the Hill District, Oakland and other neighborhoods in the city. The fact that these actions are being planned legally and with education as their goal, is what unites these groups in preparing for September’s G20 meeting. Responding to concerns that protests might turn violent, Ms. Minnich said, “Everything that we organize is organized to be nonviolent.” Indeed, the hallmark of the Merton Center is that its actions are nonviolent, legal and educational. Ms. Minnich said that upwards of tens of thousands of individuals are expected to take part in the various legal protests planned in opposition to the G20.

But whereas the Merton Center and its affiliates have planned their protests to be nonviolent, legal and educational, an umbrella group for anarchists and anti-authoritarians are indeed planning to disrupt the G20 and protest outside the bounds of the law. The group, the Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project, is planning two days of direct action when they say on their website that they “will be taking to the streets to express our anger and our rage against the conditions [the G20] are imposing on us.” The website also states that it is their purpose to “disrupt the summit and undermine its legitimacy.” Toward this end, the Resistance Project is planning an illegal march on September 24^th that will begin at 2:30 pm at an unannounced location in the East End. The Project has also designated September 25^th as a day for dozens of direct actions to begin at noon throughout the city.

Whereas Ms. Minnich was very clear that the Merton Center’s actions would be nonviolent and educational, the Resistance Project describes its plans in vague language speaking of direct actions and being careful to say that they will be “unaware of what is planned” by individual organizations involved in street protests. These direct actions could take the form of nonviolent civil disobedience or of violent vandalism. Either way, the Resistance Project is planning the actions in secret and refusing to accept ownership for the tactics employed. Such attention to plausible denial stands in stark contrast to the Merton Center’s public organizing of protests and represents a clear division between the protesters. This is what much of the sensationalized media coverage has missed: There are two distinct elements intending to protest at the G20 with one element committed to nonviolent permitted protests and the other planning “direct actions” in secret.

Of course, while the groups’ tactics are different, they share similar goals and this has led to some cooperation between the Merton Center and the Resistance Project with the Merton Center advertising the Project’s events and the Center’s Anti-War Committee endorsing the Project’s list of principles. But beyond this limited cooperation, the Merton Center and the Resistance Project represent two very different visions of opposition to the G20.

Recognizing these internal divisions, it’s obvious that the actual protesters are far more complex than the feces-hoarding terrorists that local television news has been portraying. Indeed, the vast majority of the thousands of protesters to turn out for the G20 are expected to be nonviolent and focused on raising awareness about their niche issues be it the environment, women’s rights or opposition to the military industrial complex. To-date, a very small minority of protesters is intent on disrupting the summit illegally and their actual organizing has gone largely unnoticed by a media portraying protesters as a homogeneous group of violent miscreants.

By the CBO’s estimate, the debt of the United States would grow to 82% of the overall economy by 2019 if the current policies of the Obama’s administration are maintained. This in comparison to with a pre-recession average in 2008 of 40%.

Even though the current plan issued by the Obama administration would come close to meeting the president’s goal of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term in 2012, the CBO predicts that the nation’s annual operating deficit would never drop below 4% of the overall economy over the next ten years, a growth rate that would not be sustainable because the national debt would grow too rapidly accordingly to the administration.

While the CBO report, which is issued publicly and released on a consistent basis makes such projections regardless of the political party in office, the new report will most likely cause difficult complications to overcome for the Obama administration efforts to win over congress for their approval of the presidents $3.6 trillion budget request for the fiscal year that begins October 1. Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate are currently detailing fine points on the Obama administration’s spending plans, while Republicans of both legislative bodies are expected to object strongly to major aspects of the plan that include a major expansion of the healthcare coverage plans to cover the uninsured, and taxes on greenhouse gas emissions.

So describe for me what collaborative law is and how it is different from standard litigation?
DiGIROLAMO: Collaborative law begins with the parties signing an agreement that says that they will not litigate their case. The reason for that is that it is an alternative dispute resolution process and the practitioners want to make sure that the people involved are committed to the process. If the process breaks down and they would be free to litigate, it would tend to undermine the process and have them not be as motivated as they need be.

So, both parties go into it with the idea that they are not going to litigate, and both lawyers are collaborative law attorneys.
DiGIROLAMO: We are, and we are bound by the same agreement and part of that is that if the process breaks down and one of the parties decides to litigate, both attorneys must withdraw from the case.

And when they decided to do this, this is something then that both parties find their own collaborative lawyer?
DiGIROLAMO: What normally happens is a person will come in and approach me about a divorce case. I will suggest collaborative law if it is appropriate for them. If their spouse does not have an attorney yet I will give them a list of the attorneys who are in my particular practice group. There are 32 attorneys in Pittsburgh who are collaborative lawyers and they are all trained in collaborative law and I simply give that list to my client and my client gives it to their spouse. There is a website they can also use that has the same information on it, and they are free to choose anyone on the list.

Tell me about how collaborative law got started. Where did it originate– in the U.S.? How long ago, and by whom?
DiGIROLAMO: Yes, it was started by an attorney named Stu Webb and he practiced in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He had been practicing traditional family law—litigation– for 18 years and was tired of the process. He thought that the litigation process was not the best method by which to settle these kind of issues and therefore he decided that he was not going to litigate anymore. At some point he realized that he couldn’t do it alone, he needed other attorneys who had the same philosophy…

Another collaborative lawyer…
DiGIROLAMO: Exactly, so they could resolve the cases together, and he met shortly thereafter with another attorney, from California this time, her name was Colleen Kessler, she had the same kind of idea. They got together and developed what we now use as the framework for the process.

So, why is this good? Why is it effective? Why does it work? Does it work?
DiGIROLAMO: It does work. The statistics we have are that about 85% of the cases we get in the collaborative process are settled by agreement. In my opinion, the most important reason why it works is that it allows people to go through the process of deciding the issues that need to be decided in a way that allows them to express their needs. Sometimes, some of their emotional needs can be met through the process. It’s not therapy, but they get to express themselves in a way that never happens in litigation. And, it is a very effective method because of the two attorneys who are there are very skilled and very experienced in family law, guiding them through the process and helping them to come to their own conclusions.

Let’s take for example, when you go to litigation, immediately the two parties are set against one other as combatants, basically. Everything that one person gives up the other person gets and vice-versa. It’s kind of like it’s a pie and you cut it into pieces. In collaborative law we don’t see it that way, We can make the pie, in effect, bigger, and we try to meet everyone’s needs the best that we can, and we allow them to decide what those needs are. Secondly, the parties have control over not only the process, but the outcome, and that’s something that they never would get in litigation. For example, if you have two busy business people, I have several clients like this, in collaborative law, they set the schedule. We schedule our meetings based on their preferences. It’s not handed down by the court. That’s just a simple example of something that really reduces the stress on the participants. And then, of course, we can’t force them to agree to anything, so, unlike the court, they have to come up with their own ideas and their own solutions to their problems. So, at the end of the day we find that they are much more satisfied with the outcome than they would be if they litigated the case.

So, take a room with two attorneys and two individuals, how is that room different in terms of standard litigation, negotiation, versus collaborative law?
DiGIROLAMO: First of all, while it is possible to have what we call a four way meeting in the traditional litigation case this very rarely happens because we don’t have the same kinds of protections with respect to discussions remaining confidential. In the collaborative law process we have an agreement in the beginning that everything that is discussed is confidential. Also, we have transparency in collaborative law. In other words, both parties are obligated to give all of the information and not hold anything back. And that’s one of the major differences you would see. All the financial information, all of the information, is brought forth very quickly at the beginning the process. In litigation, people often try to hide things for a number of reasons.

Just the setting is, instead of it being in an arena where you have a fight, it’s more of a roundtable discussion where we have the same goals… we set the same goals in the beginning… which are normally to maintain the relationship for the children, if you have children involved, having a successful parenting situation moving forward after the divorce happens, and even when you don’t have children, trying to maintain a respectful relationship after the divorce occurs.

There’s an assumption that everyone is for the common good.
DiGIROLAMO: It’s not an assumption, it’s a commitment. It’s an important difference.

In the litigation situation where people are, maybe as you said, not as forthcoming about financial information. How do you know that? How do you know whether someone has been forthcoming in the collaborative law proceedings?
DiGIROLAMO: Well, let’s reverse the question just a little bit and say that in the litigation system there is quite a bit of cat and mouse in terms of getting information. There are ways that you can use in discovery, you can send interrogatories, you can depose the parties, you might depose their accountants, look at their tax records, but there are always things that one party might want to hide from the other. In the collaborative process, we try to bring forward all of the relevant information as quickly as possible to begin. If one of the parties is at all suspicious that the other person is not forthcoming, than we can bring experts in, and we do at times, to look over all the records, to talk to them. I suppose at one point if those questions cannot be answered to the satisfaction of the person who has the questions, then that would possibly result in the process breaking down. I haven’t experienced that. I’ve had some fairly complex financial situations in some of my cases and we were always able to get as much information as we felt we needed and we were satisfied that nothing was being held back.

In your experience so far in your practice, does the collaborative law process produce a faster end result?
DiGIROLAMO: Much faster. The only way that it could possibly be shorter in litigation would be if the people came to an agreement immediately and just signed the papers and got divorced. Normally, if it’s a complex case with issues that need to be resolved, it could take two, or even three, years to resolve those cases. The cases that we do in collaborative law normally, and there is no rule, the timing is set by the parties themselves, but normally six months to a year. It is usually significantly less than a year.

When Kundra assumes his role, he will decide which technologies the Obama administration will use to govern and how they will be deployed. Reportedly, he is a champion of multiple social network sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Presidents Obama made the following statement about Kundra:

“I have directed him to work to ensure that we are using the spirit of American innovation and the power of technology to improve performance and lower the cost of government operations.”

In a speech after his appointment, Kundra stated that he wanted to ensure the U.S. has “the ability to run an open, transparent, participatory and collaborative government” and that he would explore how government could use so-called “cloud computing”, involving much greater reliance on web-based resources.

He has also planned to create a data.gov website through which U.S. citizens would gain much easier access to official statistics and other government information.

Vivek Kundra was born in Delhi, India before immigrating, at a young age, to Tanzania. His family later moved to the U.S. when Kundra was 11 where he grew up in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

At the University of Maryland, Kundra earned a degree in psychology and a masters degree in information technology. Also, he has graduated from the University of Virginia’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership.

Kundra has been heralded as one of the top 25 CTO’s in the country and as the 2008 IT Executive of the Year by InfoWorld for his projects to drive transparency, include citizens in government processes, and lower the cost of government operations. Kundra has already made his mark as a freethinker, capabable of affecting change. He was able to instate Google Apps as the tool of choice for fire departments and other agencies.