New York is the latest US city to announce a municipal ID service like in San Francisco and New Haven. There has been extensive coverage of the challenges other cities have faced and the potential to help marginalized groups like the homeless, undocumented immigrants and foster children. What can we learn from the challenges otherRead… Read more »
One of my favorite leadership experts, Robin Sharma, proposes an interesting theory called “Leading without a title.” Sharma uses this concept to explain a new model of leadership versus the old model. The old model of leadership was based on command and control. It was believed that change and real impact could only be broughtRead… Read more »
I was struck last month by a story I read in The New York Times. The Prime Minister of South Korea announced he was stepping down after 302 lives were lost in a ferry disaster. In that article, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won is quoted saying “when I saw the people’s sadness and fury, I thoughtRead… Read more »
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 »
In the almost two dozen years that I’ve had the honor of working with Federal agencies providing Organizational Development consulting, I’ve been impressed with the quality of the people: their commitment to their jobs and the public they serve, and their interest in making broad leaps in innovation. In celebration of Public Service Recognition Week,Read… Read more »
As the Department of Defense scales back the number of active duty forces to the smallest sized military since World War II, thousands of military personnel will transition to veteran status. Each service handles the civilian transition differently and every service member’s experience is unique. One thing remains consistent across services: these men and womenRead… Read more »
What are the major levers for driving changes in government agencies? Traditional tools are statutory changes, budgetary controls, and executive orders. But one that seasoned government executives will use to drive change is control over delegations of authority. A recent report by the Partnership for Public Service on how several federal agencies created shared serviceRead… Read more »
Last week, the Federal Consulting Group (FCG) hosted the 2014 Government Customer Satisfaction Forum. The program was jam-packed with public sector and private sector experts, including: Ross Smith from the Office of Technology for the Veterans Administration spoke on his efforts to increase satisfaction of different tech-related interactions Dr. Forrest Morgeson with the American CustomerRead… Read more »
Innovation seems to be a big deal in governments around the world. But the Australian Public Service developed a formal action plan for innovation in 2011 and is rolling out a series of initiatives that are building the use of innovation into the government’s institutional framework. The current edition of The Public Manager describes theRead… Read more »
At this year’s UK digital communications event, “Reaching More People: Transforming Public Service Delivery with Collaborative Communications”, staff from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the UK’s tax authority (think IRS for the UK), spoke about their agency’s efforts to reach more people in a more effective way in their presentation, “Central Government Success Story: HMRC”.Read… Read more »