2010 has been a tough year for state and local governments. From furloughs to layoffs to cutting services, the budget situation is dire. It’s pretty simple when you have a budget shortfall. You have two options – cut costs, increase revenue. Most of the focus has been on cutting costs but I think there shouldRead… Read more »
Gregory D. Jones has published a comment entitled Electronic Rulemaking in the New Age of Openness: Proposing a Voluntary Two-Tier Registration System for Regulations.gov, Administrative Law Review, v. 62, no. 4 (2010), pp. 1261-1286. Here is a summary: This Comment argues that a voluntary two-tiered registration system that acknowledges the role of interest groups inRead… Read more »
OK, holidays are nearing an end; and I’m back to thinking about government communications and customer service. What a year it’s been! Great progress in some areas, like social media. Modest progress toward our long-time goal to make top customer tasks easier to find and use. Not much progress at all (in fact, slippage) inRead… Read more »
Vice Dean John G. Palfrey of the Harvard Law School recently gave a lecture entitled The Path of Legal Information, on 9 November 2010, at the Harvard Law School. In his lecture, Dean Palfrey proposes the development of an open, interoperable system of digital legal information, and describes possible consequences of such a system forRead… Read more »
FedinsiderTrying to change the government is like running up a hill that gradually gets steeper. The going gets more difficult and eventually you tire out. Two years since President Obama was inaugurated, his team managing the government itself has been stable. And it enters 2011 still having pretty good momentum. The one big change wasRead… Read more »
Prizes and competitions provide one way to stimulate innovation and tap “solver communities” that may not have been leveraged previously when considering some of our nation’s grand challenges. As I wrote this past summer, both on my featured jennovation series on Govloop and the Phase One Consulting Group Transformation in the Federal Sector Blog, thereRead… Read more »
Hola and Feliz Navidad from 35,000 feet as I blog on my return flight from Bogota, Colombia where I return with sunburn, coffee and new perspectives after working with the government of Barranquilla to combat devastating floods in the country. Exactly one week after witnessing the Army Corp of Engineers’ giant levee plug in Vicksburg,Read… Read more »
No real blog this week from the Government Man. It is time to wish all of my friends, followers (and critics) a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (as politically incorrect as that wording might be today). No blogs, no comments and no postings today. No biting political satire, no outlandish stories or sports analogies,Read… Read more »
Last week a disturbing headline crossed my computer screen: B.C. RCMP zaps old news releases from its website 2,500 releases deleted because they weren’t translated into French 1) The worse of all possible outcomes This is a terrible outcome for accountability and open government. When we erase history we diminish accountability and erode our capacityRead… Read more »
Interesting article at Defense Systems “We’re not embracing the issue in its totality,” said Larry Clinton, president and CEO of the Internet Security Alliance, at the forum. “Right now, the private sector is in charge of securing critical infrastructure, and the government’s job is compliance. They have fundamentally misunderstood the relationship that needs to developRead… Read more »