Obama administration officials are meeting this afternoon with more than 50 chief executive officers from companies such as Facebook, Craigslist, Yelp and OpenTable to discuss how the government can better employ technology to make government more efficient and responsive.

The White House selected the participating companies because they've shown innovation and a drive to succeed, federal Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients said during a Jan. 14 conference call. Zients hopes to bring that passion for innovation to federal agencies.

"Too many federal government processes are rooted in the 1960s and 1970s. Anyone else would have been out of business by now," Zients said.

Obama and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag will deliver opening remarks. Attendees will then break into three groups: streamlining government operations, transforming customer service and managing technological returns on investments.

The administration will release a modernization plan based on lessons learned at the summit. Zients said there is no timetable for the plan's release. The plan will have "significant public feedback components," he said.

Obama's fiscal 2011 budget, to be released in early February, will set goals on how agencies should adopt technology to improve agency performance, Zients said. "The marrying of those goals to the CIOs and the departmentwide technology plans will make sure we're focused on the right priorities," he said.

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