Yearly Archives: 2009

When it Comes to Creating Jobs, Ohio Means Business

Originally Posted on Unleash the Monster, a Monster Government Solutions blog On Unleash the Monster, we have talked extensively about a concept called the high-performance workforce. This concept is one in which labor statistics, training and advanced job placement programs and technologies work in unison to help attract new jobs and fill them with highlyRead… Read more »

Government Performance & the Tax Code

It’s time for the federal government to finally follow through on its long-unfulfilled promise to evaluate the usefulness of special tax breaks. Does the research and experimentation tax credit, for example, actually encourage research? Or does it simply enrich high-tech firms? Does the mortgage interest deduction increase homeownership, or does it only reward people whoRead… Read more »

Focus on Efficiency Phase 3: Implement and Prepare for Change

A previous post laid out the Focus on Efficiency Framework: Plan – Decide – Implement – Review – Repeat. If you’ve reached this stage, you’ve decided to implement your project. Implementing means just that: Implementing the plans you made back in the Planning phase. You’ll implement using traditional project management techniques like PMBOK or whateverRead… Read more »

Federal Eye Eye Opener: Tracking contractors’ potential conflicts of interest

Happy Monday! As the Obama administration nears some big decisions on the future of government contracting, it has for the first time proposed new rules on how some contractors should deal with potential conflicts of interest among their employees. The new proposed rules, issued Friday in the Federal Register, are aimed specifically at companies thatRead… Read more »

“The Stargate Trap”: From Politics to Implementation

Cross-posted from Wired to Share – In a new book that applies systems thinking to complex government initiatives, “If We Can Put a Man on the Moon … Getting Big Things Done in Government,” authors Bill Eggers and John O’Leary describe the moment that a public initiative translates from design to reality – the momentRead… Read more »

Too hard is the worst excuse

Untold hours are spent by web designers and developers to make sure their creations work in different browsers and platforms. They may curse and mutter and otherwise cast aspersions upon the creators of various browsers – in fact, I think it’s in the job description – but they do it. They research and experiment toRead… Read more »

Site Review – Transparent Jefferson County, Colorado

Cross-posted from The Design State. Well, it has certainly been awhile. I’ve been working hard at my day job, working toward my Master’s degree, working on my house, playing with my kid, working on a website for a local newspaper, writing about local government reform issues on another blog I run, and pretty much doingRead… Read more »

Increasing Competition Means Raising the Bar on Value

From The Acquisition Corner As part of the Obama Administration’s call for reform of the federal acquisition process, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently issued a second set of memos with guidance on increasing competition for better outcomes. These memos are a continuation of original OMB guidance released in July, which outlined waysRead… Read more »

Social Production as a Market Strategy – What We Can Learn From U2

Can social production build stronger market economies? Will we create compelling financial incentives and rewards with more social cooperation? “Social production” was cognitively described by Yochai Benkler in the Wealth of Networks. We often think of market and social production as mutually exclusive. We mentally pit financial outcomes against egalitarian “free” outcomes. A good exampleRead… Read more »