In Defense of the Twitter Town Hall

On Wednesday, Umair Haque, well-known columnist and blogger for Harvard Business Review, shared a few thoughts on the then about-to-go-live Twitter town hall with President Barack Obama: AskObama Is a Meaningless Marketing Stunt His piece read roughly like this (selectively paraphrased for illustrative purposes): “… a tiny dose of digital dumbification… grumble grumble… a cynicalRead… Read more »

McMillan: Eight Rules of E-Filing

James E. McMillan of the National Center for State Courts has begun a new series of posts on court e-filing systems, entitled Eight Rules of E-Filing, at Court Technology Bulletin. (Click here for Part 2 in the series.) Mr. McMillan explains that in many U.S. court systems, “physical case files” continue to play a prominentRead… Read more »

Are more “super-sized cities” coming soon?

For years, people have talked about a phenomenon called “suburban sprawl” – what happens when cities tend to blend into each other along a stretch of road, making it difficult (if not impossible) to tell when you have passed into a bordering community. This is often said of the Chicago to Milwaukee corridor – bothRead… Read more »

Cooler heads prevail in heated Texas IT governance battle; the future of Texas IT under the new DIR

Deltek Sr. Analyst Chris Cotner reports. In my blog last month on Governor Perry’s veto of Texas House Bill 2499, the fate of the Department of Information Resources (DIR) and its pending sunset was largely unclear. “This veto is a clear shot across the bow by the governor indicating his keen and continued interest inRead… Read more »

SLA 2011: KM Cafe: Competencies and Careers

Thanks to Ken Wheaton, SLA PNW President-Elect 2011, Web Services Librarian, Alaska State Court System, for this guest post about the KM Café on Competencies and Careers held at the SLA 2011 Annual Conference & Info-Expo on Monday, June 13th from 4:00- 5:30 PM. Cafés and unconferences bring a new spin to conference attendance andRead… Read more »

GovBytes: Should Communities Be Forced To Share Fingerprints With The Feds?

David Raths of Government Technology reported recently on an interesting question: Should state and local governments be allowed to “opt out” of a controversial DHS program that automatically shares criminals’ fingerprints with federal immigration officials? The program, called “Secure Communities,” suffers from confusion about whether governments get to choose if they want to be involvedRead… Read more »

Day in the GovLife: Raymond Limon, Chief Human Capital Officer at CNCS

A Day In The GovLife is series that profiles people in interesting or unusual government jobs and gets the scoop on what it’s like to be in that role and how you can get there. Day In The GovLife Interviewee: Raymond Limon Job: Chief Human Capital Officer at the Corporation for National and Community ServiceRead… Read more »

What Google+ Means for You

#leftcontainerBox { border:1px solid #808080;float:left; position: fixed; top:40%; left:60px; z-index:1; background-color:#F0F4F9} #leftcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; clear:both; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; width:55px; height:60px; padding-bottom:2px; } #bottomcontainerBox { border:1px solid #808080;float:left; height:30px; width:100%; background-color:#F0F4F9} #bottomcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; height:30px; width:85px; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; } Photo Credit /www.techkeyla.com There has been a lot of hype in theRead… Read more »

Book excerpt: What does web 2.0 mean for the government?

Recently, the Dutch Civil Servant 2.0 books have been translated in English. Steve asked me to post some excerpts from my books on Govloop. This is the beginning of chapter 5 in the first book (from 2008!), where I try to project the web 2.0 change onto government, governmental organisations and civil servants. What doesRead… Read more »