Weekly Round-up: January 07, 2011

Gadi Ben-Yehuda

• True to the spirit of Janus, from whom January gets its name, Alex Howard takes a look backward and forward in his GovFresh article, “Defining Gov 2.0 and Open Government.”
• For those resolving to become more active on social media in constructive ways (say, because you read Cognitive Surplus and want to engage in more civic, rather than communal, online activity), here’s a good explanation of the social network Quora (h/t Cheeky_Geeky)
• Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene report back on a question they posed to readers: Should government employees have GPS devices attached to their work vehicles so they can be tracked? One sheriff has responded; the authors promise more responses to come.
• Social media: not effective in a vacuum. That’s the message from Dave Worsell in his post “Social Media: Don’t Believe the Hype.”

John Kamensky

• State Government Re-Design. Bill Eggers’ latest book, Letting Go of the Status Quo – A Playbook for Transforming State Government, is out! Eggers lays out five key areas new governors (and old) will confront in coming months, such as health care reform implementation and overhauling outdated state operations. He offers best practices from states that have been successful. And best yet: it’s a free download.
• Recovery Act Implementation: A Roadmap. Over the past year, Richard Greene and Katherine Barrett have chronicled the implementation of the Recovery Act across the states. They’ve interviewed key leaders and showcased important stories in a series of blog entries. Their blog has drawn to a close, but here’s a handy (and impressive) link to an index of their key entries.
• Data.Gov, Move Over! Now we have FedFlix, courtesy of the new Republican House – a video resource of House congressional hearings via C-Span that go back to the 100th Congress (or 1987 for those who use the Gregorian Calendar). [For background, see Carl Malamud’s post on O’Reilly Radar – GBY h/t @digiphile]
• GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 Explained. Here’s the beginning of a series of blog posts describing the key elements of the newly-passed updates to the 18-year old law on government performance. Provisions include the setting of new governmentwide priority goals and quarterly tracking of performance.

Business of Government Radio Show: Conversations with Authors: Dr. David Wyld, Dr. Vicki Grant, and Prof. Sukumar Ganapati

The Business of Government Hour features a conversation about management with a government executive who is changing the way government does business. The executives discuss their careers and the management challenges facing their organizations. Past government executives include Administrators, Chief Financial Officers, Chief Information Officers, Chief Operating Officers, Commissioners, Controllers, Directors, and Undersecretaries.

Exploring ideas to improve government effectiveness. We profile three recent Center reports with authors Dr. David Wyld on Cloud Computing in Government, Dr. Vicki Grant on Process Improvement in Social Service Delivery, and Prof. Sukumar Ganapati on the use of GIS in engaging citizens.

Each week, The Business of Government Hour interviews government executive who are changing the way government does business. The show airs four times a week on two radio stations in the DC Metro Area. If you can’t wait, though, we also put it online. You can also search our audio archives for your favorite interview.