This article was originally published on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s online MPA program blog, Inside the MPA@UNC. — When people think of bureaucracy, thoughts of rules, regulations, “red tape,” or slow-moving actions may come to mind. But there can be benefits to bureaucratic approaches to management, and these benefits can resultRead… Read more »
Discussing innovation within the Federal Government typically brings to mind images of Todd Park and Vivek Kundra or the TSA IdeaFactory and DARPA. This is not the common face of innovation for many Federal leaders. Federal executives lead innovative organizational changes from process improvements to new acquisition strategies regularly. I want to know what lessonsRead… Read more »
I phoned a bank today. It was a call I didn’t need to make and which created no value for me. The bank may or may not care about that. It was a call which the bank didn’t need to receive and which cost them money they didn’t need to spend to deal with. TheRead… Read more »
Declining local government budgets drive a need for innovative solutions to reduce operating costs Local government budgets for municipalities, cities and townships are shrinking at a staggering pace. Declining property and business tax revenues are impacting local governments ability to provide basic services to the public. As a result, budget planning directors and business analystsRead… Read more »
Learn How the Supreme Court Works This week, the United States Supreme Court is hearing arguments about whether the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Republicans call it “Obamacare” and claim that it reforms health care. It does no such thing. PPACA does not change the way doctors treat patients. It changesRead… Read more »
This topic has been coming up a lot lately. I wrote about it a few weeks back: Social Tools Do Not a Process Make. A lot of people are overly focused on technology as a solution rather than a tool that can be used to re-enforce good policy, procedures, etc. (Read=Process) Fellow GovLoop-er, and communicationsRead… Read more »
There is a terrible misconception that once a vendor obtains a government contract money will somehow come rolling in… FALSE. The time consuming process of obtaining the contract is not the hard the work, it is the post award process. To generate revenue for your business you need to have a strategy prior to obtainingRead… Read more »
The non-profit, non-partisan Americans Elect aims to flatten the US Presidential nominating process and the duopoly of the two party system. By leveraging cyberspace to ’open up’ the nominating process (traditionally controlled by political forces and parties), Americans Elect enables the voting public to directly nominate a candidate online, for the US Presidential ballot inRead… Read more »
Back office procedures to operate an awards program- are they based on politics or best practices?
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has provided government agencies with great opportunities to spend money on their local projects. The President’s new initiatives also require accountability. With these new expectations in place, it would not be prudent to spend the funds wildly. However, as is often the case, the funds will only existRead… Read more »