People often seem surprised by the decisions local public officials make. It’s not uncommon to hear community residents say, “What the heck were they thinking about when they …???” Since I enjoyed the privilege of a lengthy career in local government, I was able to personally observe the process many local government bodies used toRead… Read more »
Leading cybersecurity experts (Richard Clarke, Dan Geer, Paul Kurtz, Jeffrey Carr) will speak at AIAA AVIATION 2013, being held August 12–14 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, Los Angeles, Calif. Hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the conference will address the risk of the evolving cyber threats to the world’s $2.2 trillionRead… Read more »
Over the last few years I’ve gotten a bit better at seeing things through, disciplining myself to overcome some bad habits, and stick with my habits that I’d like to hang on to. Today I thought I’d share a few of the things that I think are helping me accomplish that objective. The first ofRead… Read more »
Evaluations are becoming an important part of almost every government activity, especially the administration of grant programs. Many grant program evaluations use surveys to collect information from both benefactors and beneficiaries. For these surveys to be effective, they should follow a few simple best practices outlined below. 1. Brief, Smooth Introduction: This should provide theRead… Read more »
The Erie County Clerk’s Office (Buffalo, NY) spends $3,000 per year to purchase 10,000 pens. The office loses nearly 5,000 pens a year, due to customers walking off with them. The office has tried tying the pens to clip boards, but that still did not solve the problem. At 30 cents a piece, lost pensRead… Read more »
One of the things that I believe most organizations could do a better job of is explicitly understanding what decisions they need to make. Now most organizations certainly understand that they need to make decisions. They may also understand what information goes into those decisions fairly well. They may even have some standard reports availableRead… Read more »
Originally appeared in Forbes in partnership with the Skoll World Forum. Click here for the original article. Written by: Shrupti Shah, Ross Rocketto, and Rob Terrin Momentum is building for government to play a larger role in the impact economy, the ecosystem where social entrepreneurs who have sustainable business models to generate both profit andRead… Read more »
The other night I had the opportunity to go to the Inaugural Monumental Sports and Entertainment Business league event at Verizon center and I think it’s a really interesting and exciting concept. As happens in any medium to large city, you end up over time doing business with the same network of folks that youRead… Read more »
There is a lot of debate around whether or not the government should provide public goods. I believe a public good is one economic area where the government should get involved in private decisions because it represents a market failure. A pure public good is non-rivalrous, where the threat of another person utilizing it isRead… Read more »
This is one of two posts for the GTEC 2013 blog series where we are exploring what it means to be an Agile, Open, Collaborative and Mobile Government. My focus will be on the Cultural, Organizational and Policy Infrastructure that provides the foundation. This is a great time to be discussing these topics as theRead… Read more »