Posts Tagged: government

GAO Report Signals Opportunity for Contractors in Agile Software Development

Applying agile software development methods to IT projects has been a hot topic as of late at the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The agency recently unveiled a report highlighting its 32 tips for applying agile development to help improve how the federal government will develop and implement IT infrastructure projects. Specifically, these tips focus onRead… Read more »

Media Relations: Shaping the Story — Part 2

In situational media relations, the perspectives of Government communicators and journalists (journos) may differ regarding conventional communications methods. Sometimes these differences are gaping on both macro and micro levels – that is, within Government agencies and news organizations. Evolution of the media landscape As the 21st century media landscape evolves at light-speed, with the increasingRead… Read more »

“Open Government” Wins Gold

If “most used phrase since 2009” was an Olympic event then “open government” would surely dominate. Olympic spirit and jokes aside, I wanted to pass along an excellent read from the Open Government Partnerships blog. In it, IdeaScale’s Jessica Day (and my awesome colleague) does a great job highlighting the tangible progress of open government,Read… Read more »

Innovation Labs in Government? Silicon Valley Comes to Washington

Recently, there’s been some debate about creativity – or lack thereof – within the Government workforce. However, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is taking a new approach to fostering innovation. OPM has brought (or bought) a piece of Silicon Valley into its Washington, D.C.-based headquarters. The Washington Post reports that OPM has created anRead… Read more »

Agencies Under Scrutiny to Provide Better Customer Service

Providing the highest level of customer service is paramount for any industry. For the federal government – whether it’s the I.R.S or the Department of Veterans Affairs – a diverse audience of citizens, military personnel and other government employees make the requirements of good customer service more complex than in other businesses. A new bipartisanRead… Read more »

Insights from Successful State Chief Administrators

By Kimberly Leichtner, Associate Consultant (MPA ’13) For the past several months, I’ve had the pleasure of getting an inside glimpse into the jobs of state chief administrators, the public officials who oversee the administrative and general services departments that provide critical business functions for their state. Over the last few years, Fels Research &Read… Read more »

Media Relations: Shaping the Story — Part 1

“Everything here is negotiable…” Those are the words of a Washington Post reporter in a recent email to key sources for a coveted front page article. Included in the email was a working draft copy of the story. The news outlet Texas Observer obtained copies of the emails and broke the news…that is, the newsRead… Read more »

Facebook Tabs and Apps Used by the US Military – Facebook Use Study (2 of 3)

Blog series originally posted at DK Web Consulting. Intro In today’s blog we will look at three main things about the US Military’s use of Facebook; (1) which Facebook tabs are popular, (2) how many tabs do military pages use, and (3) do these pages use tabs such as Hootsuite to assist in publishing. ForRead… Read more »

Open Government and Taxes

Atlanta recently thumbs downed a proposal to increase taxes to fund much needed transportation improvements. Although the tax hike would have been 1% and would have in theory created an economic boom in the area, the residents responded resoundingly that they don’t trust their government and wont give the government any more money. So areRead… Read more »

Government Reform: An International Snapshot of Progress on Performance Management (Part 1)

The World Bank held a series of seminars this past Spring on the state of the international public sector performance and results movement over the past two decades. I came away more encouraged than I had expected regarding advances in several developing nations – with implications for the more developed countries. The World Bank heldRead… Read more »