I had an opportunity to meet Katie D Paine on July 22nd at an Open Government and Innovation conference in DC. Katie specializes in public relations and measuring their effectiveness. Her commanding presence underscored her depth of knowledge, and her open and friendly demeanor in a one-on-one situation proved to me that she practices whatRead… Read more »
Master Plans are tricky. Take a look at Le Corbusier’s Master Plan for Paris here. The best design happens when the design is the result of organic limitations. I told a professor I was having a hard time reconciling my love of order with my love of nature. How is it, I said, that IRead… Read more »
If you have experienced a successful outcome from a collaborative initiative, you understand what the commitment can achieve. However, most people have experienced unsuccessful collaboration, thus they come into projects with biases and pre-conceived low expectations for success. The job of the process facilitators is to manage those notions and foster real collaboration within theRead… Read more »
Explaining What You Do Have you ever been out in public and people ask “what do you do?” Of course you have. It’s one of the standard questions when meeting someone new. Being a public servant it is always funny to answer that question. When growing up, my father worked for the IRS. So whenRead… Read more »
Back around year 1990 I remember my amazement at learning that Iceland had the largest router network at around 50 routers of any European business or government. There was a pretty sensible explanation around the low density of the population and the realisation that a step change in the country’s economy as well as socialRead… Read more »
Happy Friday! Two leading federal workers unions want lawmakers to keep their hands off the program that provides health-care coverage to federal employees, arguing that any potential merger with a larger public health care program would jeopardize health coverage for federal workers. Senate Democrats may soon strike a deal to create a program establishing severalRead… Read more »
I have been a social media/networking advocate for the past year. I have really enjoyed seeing all the ways government has opened up and embraced using social M/N tools to enhance their communications with their constituents. However, many governments are still in the beginning stages of figuring out how to use the tools, create aRead… Read more »
Updated 5:48 p.m. ET The State Department will not renew the contract of the private security firm that guards the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, follows allegations of sexual misconduct by the company’s guards and potential weapons shortages at the embassy. A senior State Department official confirmed the contract that ArmorGroup North America’s contract would notRead… Read more »
With the DoD lagging behind in the adoption of social media in general, to include social networking, it is not an area ripe for research. Yet, with growing interest and a handful of innovative projects picking up steam, we have a need to apply what has been done on the commercial sector without much understandingRead… Read more »
Jon Fullinwider, former CIO for the County of Los Angeles, blogs about why IT projects fail in this multi-part blog series. This entry addresses the “project plan” or lack of. An interesting article from someone with a lot of public sector IT experience. http://blog.govplace.com/2009/12/why-it-projects-fail-%E2%80%93-part-4-the-project-plan/