Yearly Archives: 2009

The Cost of Transparency

Last week I wrote the following post on the Association of Government Accountants (AGA) website and thought it would be of interest to you. Accountability and transparency are two concepts on everyone’s minds (and blogs) these days, thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act). Accountability has been around for a while; itRead… Read more »

Federal Eye: Food (Safety) Fight

Lawmakers have proposed several competing measures in recent weeks to reform the nation’s food safety efforts and pump more money into the Food and Drug Administration, the nation’s primary food safety inspection agency. While the ideas have sparked a government-wide “food fight” over turf, ideology and funding, they come as the recent salmonella outbreak involvingRead… Read more »

My Journey Through Twittersphere

The first time I ever heard of Twitter was about a year ago through a facebook newsfeed pulled from my friend Peter’s status that read: “I am twittering.” Twittering? Too much coffee? Work deadlines? Big date? I soon forgot about the slightly strange choice of word and went back to my facebook perusing. A fewRead… Read more »

The Crewe Astronomy Club

Virginia State Parks offer many wonderful events and programs all throughout the year. Many of these programs are free or very moderately priced which helps in today’s economy. I was lucky enough to attend one of these events at Pocahontas State Park this weekend when the Crewe Astronomy Club came to hold an educational programRead… Read more »

The Kansas Secretary of Transportation is bloggin’!

Kansas Transportation Secretary Deb Miller used her first blog post on K-TOC to explain her no-earmarks policy. I’m not competent to assess how innovative this is; maybe these days there are all sorts of state cabinet officials out there blogging the whys and wherefores of their policy thinking. But I’m thinking probably not. There’s beenRead… Read more »

“Ask Your Government”: Web 2.0 facilitates dialog between Citizens and Federal agencies

Check out the new blog by Ed O’Keefe (washingtonpost.com) “Ask Your Government,” where U.S. citizens ask questions and Federal agencies have the opportunity to provide answers using video clips that are imbedded within the blog. The NIST Weights and Measures Division and Metric Program were just featured http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/03/ask_your_government_when_will.html Excerpt: The latest answer comes in responseRead… Read more »

Let them write columns

Yesterday’s UK policy paper Working Together – Public Services on Your Side includes some encouraging noises about greater interaction with the public online and greater access to information – what some people call Government 2.0: “Renewed and reformed public services are the key to strong communities and a more socially mobile society. We will putRead… Read more »

Project of the Week – “Around the Corner”

Over the past year or so, blogs in the federal space have become more common and are increasingly being used to share information and ideas both internal and external to the agencies. Some great examples are Air Force Blogspot, Navy CIO, and NASA Blogs. OMB Director Peter Orszag just started a blog and the ObamaRead… Read more »

How Will U.S. Government Procurement Processes Handle the Stimulus Spending Surge?

By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. The Obama Administration has made it official: spending Federal stimulus money is being scrutinized and reported on very carefully and in great detail. This is called “oversight.” The organizational and publishing infrastructure for doing this are evolving rapidly. At the Federal level the public web portal is Recovery.org. Experienced no-nonsenseRead… Read more »