How IBM does the Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE)

There is an experiment at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to change how government works. The idea is to stop measuring how much time an employee spends at the office but rather to measure how productive the employee is. The employee sets their own working hours and negotiates with their supervisor on what theyRead… Read more »

Looking for social media measurement tips

The government of Canada has recently put together a group to come up with techniques and best practices to measure social media in the public sector. We’d like to see what other governments are doing to measure their use of social media–whether it’s quantitative or qualitative and what kind of performance measurement frameworks are beingRead… Read more »

Video: Malamud on Law.Gov: America’s Operating System, Open Source

Video is now available for Carl Malamud’s address entitled Law.Gov: America’s Operating System, Open Source, given at Gov 2.0 Expo 2010, on 27 May 2010, in Washington, DC, USA. The address details new findings about copyright restrictions on legal materials in the U.S., and offers an update on the progress of the Law.gov legal openRead… Read more »

Happy Memorial Day

On Memorial Day we must all remember that the story of America’s quest for freedom is inscribed on her history in the blood of her patriots. Poet Maya Angelou reminded us how important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes! So take some time during your long weekend to visitRead… Read more »

Visualizing Legislation: Software Tools

A number of software applications and platforms are now available for creating visualizations (i.e., graphical depictions) of legislation. Here are some of them: Compendium — an argument mapping application, distributed free-of-charge — has been applied to legislation (see pages 129-132) by participants in the EU’s LEX-IS Project. (See the description in Loukis et al., UsingRead… Read more »

Does performance measurement only work on paper?

Data doesn’t make decisions; people do. Data can inform decisions. I say this in response to the person who told me this week that performance measurement, like accountability, “only works on paper”. Well, if your performance measurement strategy only works on paper, than it isn’t working at all. Here are a number of factors aboutRead… Read more »

5 Social media tips for city government

Congratulations! Your city has made the decision to engage in social media as another tool to connect with citizens. You set up your community on Facebook and Twitter, and now you’re wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into. I’ve learned a lot through the City of Reno’s adventure with social media, and I have some tipsRead… Read more »