Acquisition

Open Source Government Transparency Projects

A whole cadre of folks inside and outside government are awash with figuring out how to address the government transparency question brought on by the President’s Transparency and Open Government memo. At the end of last weekend’s TransparencyCamp, Clay Johnson, Director of Sunlight Labs, brought up the issue of bringing open source developers into theRead… Read more »

Federal Eye: USDA Contractor Disputes Charge of Political Favoritism

The man singled out during Wednesday’s White House press briefing as the beneficiary of a now-terminated contract with the Agriculture Department today disputed any suggestion that he was awarded the contract because of connections to the Bush administration, and cited his decades-long career as an agricultural economist as the main reason he earned a six-figureRead… Read more »

Federal Eye: Bill Would Separate Census From Commerce Dept.

House Democrats will unveil a measure Tuesday that splits the U.S. Census Bureau from the Commerce Department and makes it an independent government agency similar in design to the National Institutes of Health or NASA. The proposal comes in the wake of Republican allegations that the Obama administration is attempting to politicize the census byRead… Read more »

TransparencyCamp: 97 Tweets from 100 Pages of History

I couldn’t make it to TransparencyCamp, but it sounded fabulous. I did wade through 100 pages of Twitter Search history (as much as it keeps). Here’s what I came up with, for what it’s worth. Unlike my other summaries, while this is in chronological order, more or less, the fact that there were a lotRead… Read more »

Can Government Procurement Be Streamlined By Using Collaboration Technologies and Social Media?

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 »

Six Practical Steps to Improve Contracting

Contracting issues will be on the front burner of the Obama administration, and the stakes are large. With the passage of the Stimulus Bill, having an effective federal contracting function will be critical to the success of the Bill. While many observers see the current federal contracting system as broken, the seminar participants identified aRead… Read more »

Iowa Lawmaker Wants One School Superintendent Per County

Iowa lawmaker wants one school superintendent per county DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa lawmaker wants to limit the state to one school superintendent in each county. Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, says the administrative costs being carried by school districts is too high. He says there are nine superintendents in Polk County andRead… Read more »

Making Recovery.gov first step toward smart regulation

(This post appeared originally in the Huffington Post, Feb. 23, 2009. Reprinted with permission) The Obama Administration created Recovery.gov as a critical stimulus component, taking a “don’t trust us, track us” approach to assure funds are distributed quickly and fairly and “recipients and uses of all recovery funds are transparent.” It will also provide cluesRead… Read more »

Would appreciate suggestions on what gov 2.0 topics you want to learn more about

Hi GovLoopers 🙂 I am strongly considering submitting a speaking proposal to The National Association of Government Webmasters for their upcoming conference. While there are various subjects I could pitch and speak to, would like to know what suggestions you have on perhaps what topics you believe are most helpful to learn more about. OutRead… Read more »

Federal News Radio Interviews Author David Van Slyke on Complex Contracting Challenges

This morning, Federal News Radio interviewed David Van Slyke about his report, “The Challenge of Contracting for Large Complex Projects: A Case Study of the Coast Guard’s Deepwater Program.” For more information and to hear the interview, visit this web page: http://www.businessofgovernment.org/publications/grant_reports/details/index.asp?gid=328