By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. In Public Dialog and the 2009-H1N1 Influenza Epidemic I discussed one of an increasing number of Federally sponsored efforts to reach out and engage with the public on a variety of important public policy projects. Other examples include the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Dialogue on the Quadrennial HomelandRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. The Executive Office of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s U.S. Preparations For the 2009-H1N1 Influenza is a long and sobering document. Dated August 7, 2009, the report discusses a long list of critical issues and recommendations that need to be addressed now. Among other things, theRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. Jason Miller’s report Kundra says government’s approach to consolidation has been ill-suited includes this statement by Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer: “I’ve talked to CIOs, buyers, business unit leaders across the government, and one of the biggest challenges is that if they want to provision services they have toRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. True story: “We only had 4 days to respond. They wanted a fixed price bid,” my colleague told me over the phone, sighing. A week before I had responded to his hasty proposal text request in the middle of developing a report for one of my own Federal clients. IRead… Read more »
On my own blog I’ve posted How Transparent is the new FDA Transparency Blog? I’ll be interested in comments here or there since the issues that the FDA will need to resolve are examples of what many other agencies will need to deal with as they make their processes more transparent to the public. InRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. I’m almost finished building my list of state government stimulus reporting web pages. Next week I’ll begin a more detailed state by state review of what these pages reveal about how “open and transparent” states are being about how they use ARRA money. Below I discuss why I’m doing this,Read… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. The Obama Administration has made it official: spending Federal stimulus money is being scrutinized and reported on very carefully and in great detail. This is called “oversight.” The organizational and publishing infrastructure for doing this are evolving rapidly. At the Federal level the public web portal is Recovery.org. Experienced no-nonsenseRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. Vivek Kundra, Washington DC’s own CIO, has been appointed Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO). According to a Washington Technology article, Kundra “… plans to make the massive volumes of government data that isn’t sensitive available to the public through a new Web site, www.data.gov. With more data available to theRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. Author’s note: this is a republication from the author’s web site located here. The report Six Practical Steps to Improve Contracting by Dr. Allan V. Burman, Adjunct Professor, George Mason University, is based on a series of discussions co-sponsored by The IBM Center for the Business of Government and GeorgeRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald The new Administration’s Recovery.gov web site has gone “live.” The President has a brief introductory video, an initial timeline of events is provided, the public is asked for input on the impacts of current economic conditions via “recovery stories,” and an appeal is made for input to the activities of theRead… Read more »