Some state governments are not making it easy for their elected officials or their citizens to see where money is being spent and what results are being achieved. Consider this latest example. The actual name of the state has been omitted, as it would be a terrible embarrassment to its statewide elected leaders, its legislature,Read… Read more »
As a career counselor, I get a lot of eye-rolls when I talk about self-assessment as a part of the career development planning process. And yet, when I ask my graduate students what they do best, they don’t have very descriptive words. “Multitasking” or “problem-solving” or “building strategies”—interesting concepts but not particularly useful in jobRead… Read more »
Leaders (and everyone reading this is a leader irrespective of title or duties): sweat the small stuff. Notice details and pay attention to the invisible dynamics around you. In our ever-evolving world, yesterday’s intern could be your future boss. Chuckle at your peril… Much has been written about situational leadership, including the excellent theory positedRead… Read more »
Let’s put this as neutrally as possible. People interact with public services. Now, here’s a simple question: what should we call those people – and why? Perhaps it’s not such a simple question after all. They – we – are many things. We are patients, customers, passengers, swimmers, clients, taxpayers, claimants and more (as wellRead… Read more »
There is a big push on Open Data initiatives since this enables organizations to share data with partners and also build new innovative solutions. Open data maximizes value creation built on structured and unstructured data. Open Data initiatives should be based on technologies that can collect and cleanse data in a standardized manner so thatRead… Read more »
Moderator Trey Hodgkins (far left) and panelists from left to right: Richard Beutel, Kevin Cummins, Aaron Wasserman and Angela Styles. “Taxpayers deserve a government that harnesses technology to better serve the people.” I would be surprised if anyone disagreed with this profound statement from former Missouri governor Matt Blunt. Citizens expect their government to spendRead… Read more »
They’re known as hackers, fraudsters, cheats, criminals, pirates, delinquents, crooks, and now…baseball players? One of our recent speakers in the webinar, A Smarter Approach to Counter Fraud, compared these hackers to MLB all-stars. Legend Ty Cobb holds the greatest career batting average ever with .366. That means he didn’t even hit the ball two-thirds ofRead… Read more »
During my time in National Defense University’s Advanced Management Program (41), I took a great course on the balanced scorecard technique. Generally speaking, it is a technique for senior management to measure how well strategic initiatives are performing. However, project managers can use the technique to help steer any project towards success. Balanced Scorecard BasicsRead… Read more »
Community engagement can be addressed from many perspectives; a wide range of coverage only strengthens the topic as a key value of inclusive democracy. In the past few months we’ve blogged about how Boston’s gamifying the process and getting youth involved, how engagement needs to be all inclusive, and how governments engage in events likeRead… Read more »
Remember when you didn’t know where the bathroom was located and asking just seemed to be announcing the obvious (that you needed to use it…right then)? How a new employee is treated in the early days with your organization lays a foundation that either brings them into the corporate culture or repels them. And theseRead… Read more »