Communications

US Health Care: Why Privatization Is Inefficient – Part 3 of 4

The Industry of Illness It is a reality of our time that the same companies promoting health care products are also largely responsible for underwriting their research. Skepticism about this model of business has led to pharmacoeconomic studies of the popular antidepressants, which demonstrate a clear association between study sponsorship and quantitative outcome (Baker etRead… Read more »

Who’s Done The Best Job at Open Government?

For all you GovLoop Tweeters out there, we are asking the question, “Who is an exceptional example of Open Government?”, for tomorrow’s State of the Union for Technology forum, hosted by The Atlantic and featuring a keynote by CTO Aneesh Chopra (more info here.) Use hashtag #soutech, and if you are planning on attending, weRead… Read more »

Working The Back Of The Room

In this LinkedIn, Ning, Social Media reality, succeeding at face to face meetings and group meetings are stillvery important. On Dick’s Sales Model, I put “Events/Design,” which most people think means talking from the front of the room. Even though Julie once introduced me as a “loud and frequent speaker,” I get most of myRead… Read more »

Why I Tweet? Amplifying Messages & Obtaining Results

Disclaimer: The post below was originally sent to a mailing list of people that are less familiar with social media tools, hence the basic explanatory nature of how Twitter works throughout the post. Lately there have been many articles and interviews, mostly from senior leaders, explaining why they use social media tools. Most of thoseRead… Read more »

Facilitation and bringing the lurkers out of the shadows.

This post was partly prompted by Andrew’s discussion of lurkers here. Next week, the IDeA will be hosting an online conference on online facilitation – Facilitation Now! . ( I’m really pleased to be a contributor on Thursday the 25th in a session on online conferences.) I’m really looking forward to the conference because evenRead… Read more »

US Embassy in Uruguay reaches 4.000 fans in Facebook.

Two years after it’s launch, the United States Embassy in Uruguay Facebook page adds its 4.000 fan. This growing community of followers not only keeps up to date with all our embassy activities, but it participate and engage in activities that go beyond the computer limites. From the virtual world to the real world. We’veRead… Read more »

Speaking With One Voice – A Basic of Good Customer Service

A recent Federal Computer Week article began by saying that, for fun, I sometimes ask a question through various channels at a government agency to see if I get the same answer. Well, I’m not sure I’d call it “fun.” But I have done just that when preparing to teach a class – mostly toRead… Read more »

FOIA Meets Electronic Mail

Freedom of Information Act requests are swamping government. Governments have growing incentive to open-up, be transparent and publish their records (such as lots of email) directly on the web. If records are published, government doesn’t have to waste so much effort replying to FOIA demands. A case study is the municipality of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Social Media isn’t a Prerequisite for Open Government

This post originally appeared on my external blog,“Social Media Strategery.” Open Government/Government 2.0 is about more than wikis, open data, Twitter, Web 2.0, or social media—it is about the strategic use of technology to transform our government into a platform that is participatory, collaborative, and transparent. Sure, social media can help facilitate this transformation, butRead… Read more »