Rewarding Innovation In Government

Yesterday I read an article (http://fcw.com/articles/2010/03/09/white-house-prize-policy.aspx) by Doug Beizer that profiled the White House’s new policy on carrying out contests to spur innovation. I think it’s grand that the White House recognizes the power of using gaming and rewards mechanisms within an innovation setting; however, it challenges agencies to develop this with little direction asRead… Read more »

The February Open Government Directive Workshop

This article is co-authored by Lucas Cioffi and Alex Moll, co-organizers of the February Open Government Directive Workshop in partnership with the US General Services Administration, the National Academy of Public Administration, NCDD, and GovLoop. Summary and Purpose of the OGD Workshop The February 17th OGD Workshop in Washington, DC was a blast. We convenedRead… Read more »

Federal Eye: Eye Opener: Group warns of cutting DHS contractors

Happy Wednesday! A contractor industry group has warned that the Department of Homeland Security should closely study the size and scope of its contracting jobs before it “insources” positions to the federal payroll. DHS officials are reviewing its mix of private and public-sector workers after announcing last month that the department employs at least 12,000Read… Read more »

Database can Crack Missing Person Cases?

The Associated Press had a story this past Sunday regarding an online database (NamUs) that “promises to crack some of the nation’s 100,000 missing persons cases and provide answers to desperate families.” That’s some database! On further reading it becomes evident that the database isn’t really going to crack anything. How disappointing. Contrary to popularRead… Read more »

Is this heresy?

Do we need a non manifesto for innovation and, for that matter Gov 2.0 and social media itself? The innovation manifesto suggests that we do. What do you think of the formula Talk + Action = Zero. Explains a lot I suggest. The Innovation Non Manifesto Steve DOriginally posted on OZloop

Being innovative about innovation

From the Innovation Leadership Network an illuminating piece that highlights why we need to be innovative about innovation itself. I believe this applies to the public sector BIG TIME. What do you think? Steve D Originally posted on OZloop

How-To: Conference Tweets – So, you’ve just finished a conference, and don’t want to lose all those Tweets….

This weekend I attended the rather fantastic Open City Workshop in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. If you don’t know much about what’s happening in Edmonton, you should probably check out Adriel Hampton’s recent post on the critical mass for awesomeness that’s happening there. There’s a innovative team at work in Edmonton which is a great modelRead… Read more »

School Finance Data and HB10-1036

Note: this is a cross-post from my blog, http://sleepisoptional.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/school-finance-data The following is a letter I sent to member of the Colorado General Assembly regarding HB10-1036, which calls for school districts to publish financial data on-line. A good thing, but how the data is published in important. This issue is of importance in light of aRead… Read more »

Jennifer Schaus comments on SBA’s controversial womens procurement program; March 2010

Jennifer Schaus of Jennifer Schaus & Associates in Washington, DC – a boutique government consulting firm – comments on SBA’s controversial women’s procurement program, stressing the importance of relationship building in the government procurement process. March, 2010 http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=44698&dcn=e_tma

An Approach to Accessibility

As you may have heard last week, Google announced that they have added ‘Auto-Captions’ for all videos on YouTube. Google’s hope is to increase its user base and has chosen to focus its attention on accessibility with hopes that users with certain disabilities will leverage the site and find it useful. The reality is thatRead… Read more »