Posts Tagged: featured blogger

Getting More Women in City Hall: Leveraging Private-Public Partnerships for Equity

I was hired as the first female Chief Innovation Officer in the country in early 2013 and I have to admit I think that is pretty cool. However, I am also very much aware of the gender gap that I see around me in meetings at City Hall and with community stakeholders. Often it isRead… Read more »

We Talk the Diversity Talk, But Does Your Agency Walk the Walk?

Most agencies have policies to facilitate diversity and sensitivity. Showing awareness or activism in this area may even be a part of your performance review. But be honest: do these policies really ensure that we walk the walk and truly embrace diversity in the workplace? Workplace diversity is a really fashionable topic these days. ItRead… Read more »

A Recipe for Change

We have all heard the phrase “Change is Good.” But is it? Change can be good; however, making a change without regard for those affected by it, is a recipe for trouble. When a leader tells employees about a change instead of involving them in the change, a team’s work quality, morale, and motivation suffers,Read… Read more »

Millennials & Gov: Where’s the Love?

Uncle Sam continues to face a quandary over how to attract a new generation of young people to public service. One perplexing problem is how to rebuild plummeting trust in government among the all important millennial demographic, also known as Generation Y. This generation will ultimately comprise a majority of the U.S. labor force, yetRead… Read more »

Life Lessons Applicable to the Public Sector

Collectivism is a core concept in public service. In my last post, I introduced the concept of leading without a title (insert hyperlink to that blog post). So much of our personal development happens outside the office. Our life experiences, personal lives and hobbies paint a picture of our values, ethics and interests. Reflection isRead… Read more »

open311 Use Cases

Exciting new advancements are taking place in the world of open311, which is a data standard that various applications can be built on. A number of open311-compliant open source and commercial applications allow data to be easily shared and used by each other, such as CRMs, mobile reporting apps, and other web interfaces displaying reportRead… Read more »

Protecting Public Health with Smart Data

From clean water supplies to the polio vaccine, the most effective public health interventions are typically preventive interventions and policies that help stop a crisis before it starts. However, predicting the next public health crisis has historically been a challenge. Thanks to new technologies, we innovate age-old public health workflows and methods of analysis. WeRead… Read more »

Can You Retrofit Your Colleagues for Digital?

It is a fairly standard challenge to be asked to make an organisation ‘go digital’. Or more specifically make the people working there use digital tools and engagement techniques. At an interview one of the most common question is ‘can you give an example of how you got the press office/senior management/policy officials to goRead… Read more »

Are Private Contractors the New Federal Workforce?

Last Sunday was graduation day at Duke. In our Master of Public Policy program, over half of the graduating students are employed, and over half of those employed are going to work for government consulting firms. Their salaries are about 20% higher than those who are working in government jobs, and they have been impressedRead… Read more »