Almost two weeks have passed since the Internal Revenue Service first publicly admitted to singling out conservative groups. What we know: In short, the IRS targeted certain conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for extra scrutiny at beginning in 2010, according to an inspector general’s report. Lois G. Lerner, the agency official who oversees tax-exempt groups,Read… Read more »
Benjamin Franklin famously said that “time is money.” But does government know how to implement this maxim seriously? Now there is a new study that shows how they can do it! Last week, President Obama signed a memo directing agencies to modernize their construction permitting and review processes in order to: “advance the goal ofRead… Read more »
One of the keys to a successful open data portal is to make it useful for the end user. Citizens and developers should be able to understand data sets without needing a PhD. I’ve been following the progress of Raleigh, North Carolina’s open data initiative, which launched a beta of their data.raleighnc.gov portal in MarchRead… Read more »
All politicians talks about their support for and the importance of small businesses. Every campaign season I hear new candidates and incumbents talk about lowering taxes and creating a one stop center to make life better for small businesses. Very few government officials go beyond this lip service and take a serious look at addressingRead… Read more »
The last month I’ve given a talk entitled “Do More with Less”in a number of cities across the country. In the talk, I offer 13 ways agencies can “Do More with Less.” What’s interesting is the #1 most popular idea I present is always “Fire the C Team” My simple thinking is this: We canRead… Read more »
Breakthrough, disruptive innovations do not happen every day and in general are not the daily focus of innovation at organizations. In his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma,”Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen coined the phrase disruptive technology to describe an innovation that displaces an established technology. He acknowledges that most innovation in organizations is “sustaining”Read… Read more »
Federal, State, and Local Governments Working Together When the Private Sector Falls Short As Ira Koretsky shared in his blog post today, Bike to Work Day was May 17th. In the post, he noted that the event attracted a record-breaking number of participants with over 14,500 registered riders from the greater Washington Area. That’s aboutRead… Read more »
Turning data into decisions, it sounds obvious but for large organizations compiling, formatting and interpreting vast amounts of data can be almost impossible. But Army Lieutenant Colonel Bobby Saxon and his team have created a system that does just that for the Army. It’s called Enterprise Management Decision Support System (EMDS). For his work Lt.Read… Read more »
So, for my non-canadian readers, there is a significant scandal brewing up here in Canadaland, regarding a senator, who claimed certain expenses he was not allowed to (to the tune of $90,000) and then had that debt paid for by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff (who has now resigned). This short paragraph in anRead… Read more »
Back in the old days – the receptionist would tell a visitor: Oh, he’s not busy – he’s on the phone! ‘Doing business’ then was meeting with others, writing correspondence, or compiling proposals and reports. Early on, the phone was more novelty than tool – it was seen by many as personal entertainment with aRead… Read more »