Inducement Prizes, Contests, and Challenge Awards

Inducement prizes – as opposed to “recognition” prizes such as the Nobel or Pulitzer prizes – are a growing element of how government is trying to spur innovation in solving tough problems both inside and outside the government, notes Annie Lowrey in a recent Washington Post article. Why? Because prizes are effective. Under the rightRead… Read more »

The Federal Coach: New Year’s Resolutions for the Federal Manager

‘Tis the season to set some New Year’s resolutions. Like many ofyou, I usually focus my resolutions around traditional topics likelosing weight, getting fit, spending more time with family or helpingothers. No one can argue with those, but this year why not consideradding some management goals to your 2011 resolutions? I’ve added someprofessional goals toRead… Read more »

Making StatsCan Data Free: Assessing the Cost

Regular readers of my blog will know that I’ve advocated that StatsCan’s data – and particularly its Census data – should be made open (e.g. free, unlicensed, and downloadable in multiple formats). Presently, despite the fact that Canadian tax dollars pay to collect (a sadly diminishing amount, and quality of,) data, it is not open.Read… Read more »

City of SF takes its master address system open source

Reposted from CivicCommons.org, by Karl Fogel We’re pleased to announce that San Francisco’s Enterprise Addressing System has now been open sourced! EAS is a web-based system for managing the city’s master database of physical addresses, tied to Assessor’s parcels and the City’s street centerline network. We posted a short screencast of EAS in action aRead… Read more »

Welcome new NCDD members!

The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation gained 74 great new members in the last few months: 67 individual members and 7 organizations. Please welcome the following new members to the network! If you’d like to connect with any of them, search for them in the NCDD members network to find their contact info andRead… Read more »

ADL’s Future Learning Experience Project

Today marks the first day of Advanced Distributed Learning’s (ADL’s) Future Learning Experience Project, a major new effort from ADL that returns our organization to its roots in Applied Research & Development in the learning technology space.For those unfamiliar with what ADL is, it is an initiative out of the Office of the Secretary ofRead… Read more »

The Final Hoop – Big THANKS to HR Director, HR Analysts, & Other Local Government Reps

While I am on a major roll right now writing this dissertation, I did want to stop to say THANK YOU to every single local government representative I have spoken to. I have been so amazed and thankful for the warm welcome and kindness that I have received from each and every person I’ve spokenRead… Read more »

5 Questions: Curator Joanna Marsh on Alexis Rockman

The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s latest exhibition is Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow. the staff of Eye Level, American Art’s blog, sat down with the show’s curator, Joanna Marsh, to talk about the artist and his artworks. Alexis Rockman; The Pelican; 2006 Oil on wood Courtesy Elizabeth Schwartz, New York; © Alexis Rockman; PhotoRead… Read more »