“Selling” public service to Millenial consumers: Are we in a new sort of competition with the private sector?

A fascinating paper by Winograd and Hais, and published by the Brookings Institution this morning, discusses some striking differences in what appeals to Millenials, compared to earlier birth cohorts, and it got me thinking. http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/05/millenials-upend-wall-street-corporate-america-winograd-hais The authors’ focus is principally on the corporate side of things, and consumer behaviour, discussing what they believe is aRead… Read more »

Houston, We Don’t Have A Problem: Space Made Safe

More than a half million pieces of space debris are orbiting the earth, at speeds up to 17,500 miles per hour. Clearly this debris is a safety concern for astronauts aboard the International Space Station, but it also threatens to damage or destroy spacecraft and critical military, intelligence, communications, weather and navigation satellites. Richard RastRead… Read more »

Building a Government Data Culture

“‘Are people innately altruistic?’ is the wrong kind of question to ask. People are people, and they respond to incentives.” – Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner (SuperFreakonomics) One of the most important things an open data directive can accomplish – whether it takes the form an informal policy, an executive order or an open dataRead… Read more »

Public Servant as Servant Leader

I was struck last month by a story I read in The New York Times. The Prime Minister of South Korea announced he was stepping down after 302 lives were lost in a ferry disaster. In that article, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won is quoted saying “when I saw the people’s sadness and fury, I thoughtRead… Read more »

Lean Scope Project Management: Project Management for Highly-Innovative Projects

I will present my Lean Scope Project Management methodology on Wednesday to the Project Management Institute’s Government Community of Practice. On Thursday, I will release a YouTube video explaining Lean Scope Project Management. I look forward to the comments of project management practitioners and human-centered design practitioners. The origin story of Lean Scope Project ManagementRead… Read more »

Risk, Failure, and Honesty

This post originally appeared on cpsrenewal.ca. Last year Nick and I went down a long rabbit hole on the idea of the faceless bureaucrat (see: Embracing Authenticity Means Embracing Complexity). There’s a maxim that bureaucrats are rightly anonymous, in that it facilitates professional, non-partisan advice, but I’ve been wondering if the foundations on which thatRead… Read more »

The Bricks and Mortar of Digital Transformation

Successful digital transformation in organizations is built on a foundation of strategic goals and objectives.The building blocks are leadership, governance, digital competencies, education and training, and change management. An organization’s culture is the mortar that connects and binds everything together. All organizations will be transformed by social and digital technologies – it’s a question ofRead… Read more »

Leading Edge: How to out pace your competition

Transitions happen in every organization. Consequently, the results include co-workers and leadership leaving to join new offices on a regular basis. Some call it staff turn-overs or others view it as “staying power” if you decide to not move on. Sometimes when people leave to take on new opportunities, it is because they out paceRead… Read more »

How important really is open government to Australians?

The United Nations is currently running a very interesting global consultation asking people about the six issues that matter most to them. Named myWorld2015 (vote.myworld2015.org), the consultation has attracted over 2.1 million responses from around the world. Of these, there have been 14,896 responses from Australia (viewable through the data page) – and it isRead… Read more »

Data journalism and the European elections

I’m following a Mass Open Online Course (MOOC) on data journalism organized by the European Journalism Centre at the moment. This week’s assignment required students to find four examples of data journalism and to say briefly: What does each story do? How was it created? How is it illustrated? What technologies were used to createRead… Read more »

Yearly Archives: 2014