Weekly Round-up: September 21, 2012

Gadi Ben-Yehuda

• Chicago inviting more input. Residents of Chicago can now open and track service requests tot he city using www.cityofchicago.org/311. The tool also accepts pictures, so both the city and other residents can see exactly what needs to be addressed. ENews Park Forest has the details.
• NPR seeks better input. In an interesting move, National Public Radio listeners asked for the organization to moderate its comments more forcefully, and their request was honoered. Is tighter moderation of comments the only (or best) way to raise the level of discourse?
• EPA, Air Force, help employees respond to input. These flow charts, one by the Air Force, other by the EPA, guide employees who think that a social media message merits a response, but aren’t sure.

Dan Chenok

• White House details impact of sequestration.
• GAO gives agencies good marks on e-government progress.
• Federal IT leaders predict significant savings from migrating to the Cloud.

John Kamensky

• Scorecard on Obama Impact on Government Management. “Federal News Radio evaluated 23 ideas and initiatives the Obama administration put its performance and management muscle behind over the last four years. We ranked 10 as ‘effective’ (green), seven as ‘more progress needed’ (yellow), and decided six were ‘ineffective’ (red) to reveal an inconsistent legacy of major wins, missed opportunities and large-scale busts.”’
• GAO E-Gov Act Assessment. According to Federal Computer Week: “Ten years after the E-Government Act was passed, federal agencies have made considerable strides adopting most provisions. Yet, a new report from the Government Accountability Office says more work is needed with some of the key areas of the legislation.
• One-Year Snapshot of Progress on Open Government. A year ago, President Obama released an Open Government Partnership Action Plan. A coalition led by OpenTheGovernment did an assessment of progress, with its Executive Director Patrice McDermott noting: “The progress report we are issuing today is a snapshot that shows the impressive amount of effort the Administration has put into fulfilling its commitments, and how much work is left to be done in just a few months. The report we release in January will represent the civil society’s assessment of whether the Administration met the letter of the commitment.”

The Business of Government Radio Show: Kshemendra Paul

Federal News Radio 1500-AM
Mondays at 11 a.m., Wednesdays at 12 p.m.

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.

Kshemendra Paul is the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE), with government-wide authority to plan, oversee the build-out, and manage use of the ISE. In his role, he also co-chairs the White House’s Information Sharing and Access Inter-agency Policy Committee (ISA-IPC).

Broadcast Schedule: The show airs Monday, September 24, at 11 a.m., and Wednesday, September 26, at noon, on Federal News Radio 1500AM WFED

If you can’t wait, though, you can listen to (or download) this week’s program and all our previous interviews at businessofgovernment.org and by searching our audio archives.