Federal agencies have posted their Customer Service Plans, to comply with President Obama’s Executive Order, “Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service.” Agencies specifically were to create a signature initiative that improves online service. Many of them are pretty good. Check out all the General Services Administration has on its radar, for example. But whenRead… Read more »
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‘Rock Your Tech Report’ Aims to Give Contracting Officers a Leg to Stand on
Here’s an all-too-common occurrence: The government issues a Request for Proposals (RFP); companies respond with their proposals; the contracting officer (CO) requests a technical analysis of the proposals to help guide the decision… and the technical report that comes back, in plain terms, stinks. Sterling Whitehead, a contracting enthusiast who writes his contracting blog AllRead… Read more »
PA Times: Crowdsourced Ideas Make Participating in Government Cool Again
The PA Times, published by the American Society of Public Administration, has just issued a special edition called “From Bureaucratic to Cool: A Call for Public Service”. My article on “Crowdsourced Ideas Make Participating in Government Cool Again” describes how government agencies on all levels are turning to Open Innovation platforms to collect the wisdomRead… Read more »
National Dialog on Government Websites Is Over – What’s Next?
So the 2+ week National Dialog on Government Websites is over. It ended last night with 436 ideas, 1,663 comments, and 8,259 votes submitted by 992 contributors. If you didn’t get a chance to participate, the whole thing is archived for reference. Take a look – I think you’ll be impressed by the quality ofRead… Read more »
What Can Advertising Learn From PR When It Comes to Social Media?
Image Courtesy of Flickr user cgallent Public Relations vs. Advertising. Earned media vs. Paid media. Huge budgets vs. tiny ones. Advertising and Public Relations have been engaged in a love-hate relationships for decades. What’s more effective? What offers better ROI? How should they work together? Should they work together? For years, advertising has been theRead… Read more »
Courage to Do What We Know We Need to Do
We know what our customers want. We’ve known for years. We don’t need to keep asking them because the answer is the same. We know what to do to make customer service better. We’ve known that for years, too, because we’ve listened to and watched our customers. So why do 79% of the respondents toRead… Read more »
Regulations.gov: Public Service and Public Integrity
The White House announced a new opportunity for the public to get involved with the Open Government Initiative. In a recent blog post, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra and Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator, Cass Sunstein asked for public feedback “on ideas related to two of the key challenges – improving publicRead… Read more »
Research and Best Practices eNewsletter
Research Investment decision-making (12/2010) –The Investment Management Standard is theVictorian Government’scommon-sense approach to shaping investments and making investment decisions. The underlying principles of the Standard include: a focus on the investment benefits (as opposed to finding solutions to a problem), use of plain language, simple concepts and transparency. Transforming Government (07/2011) – Governments across EuropeRead… Read more »
Make Time to Lead
I first wrote a blog post called “Make Time to Lead,” more than 5 years ago; and I’ve written several variations on that theme since then. It’s a lesson I learned first-hand, as I managed HUD’s web program and co-chaired the Federal Web Managers Council. It’s easy to get so inundated in process that youRead… Read more »
Make a big difference with a little work – Set Service Expectations
Excellent service is important to all of us. It measures our success as professionals. It certainly influences our decision to be a customer. So how do we make sure it’s happening when each person could have a different interpretation of what “great customer service” actually means? You’ve all heard me talk about The Six EssentialRead… Read more »