The Annual Report

[Warning: This is a rather personal and pretty self-indulgent post I’m afraid; check back another day for pearls of digital wisdom] I blame Paul Graham. A few years ago, his essays started a lingering train of thought that I didn’t necessarily need a job, I needed an income. Just over a year ago, I putRead… Read more »

The Long Tail is in the Zeitgeist

I’m a fan of the long tail. You may recall that I’ve already mapped both internal communications and the public sector adage of “fearless advice and loyal implementation” along the long tail distribution; and while those maps have value, they are just a subset of examples of a much larger phenomenon. We are fast becomingRead… Read more »

Another Nice Thing About the New Utah.gov

The newly-relaunched Utah.gov is getting rave reviews from across the Open Government community. Here’s one more reason to like it: Not only do they list all upcoming public meetings and public hearings online, they also allow citizens to create their own “Public Notice Widget”, a custom notification filter. Not sure if this feature was partRead… Read more »

Geneva’s Great Land Adventure

Several months ago, I read some blog posts about frustration with Gov 2.0 not doing enough and a few other posts with offers from people interested in working for free for experience. The two seemingly unrelated topics got me wondering: How could our city use Gov 2.0 to offer job opportunities to people just lookingRead… Read more »

The Federal Government Can Learn a Few Things from a New State Government Website

Have you checked out the new Utah.gov yet? According to the press release, the site gets 1.2 million unique visitors a month and last year “processed more than 25.1 million secure electronic transactions through the official state website, mobile-optimized services, automated phone system, and point-of-purchase systems at retail outlets statewide.” Here’s a quick 2 minuteRead… Read more »

The Program on Intergroup Relations Publications

The Program on Intergroup Relations (IGR) is a social justice education program on the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus. As a joint venture of the College of Literature, Science, and Arts and the Division of Student Affairs, IGR works proactively to promote understanding of intergroup relations inside and outside of the classroom. Multidisciplinary coursesRead… Read more »

Governing The Commons

Governing The Commons (Google Books), a 1990 book by Elinor Ostrom, of The Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, presents an approach to avoiding the ‘tragedy of the commons.’ She presents 8 criteria (see below) that are associated with sustainable management of “common-pool resources,” which are non-excludable in physical accessibility (suchRead… Read more »