Making Public Participation Legal launched at Brookings

Most of the laws that govern public participation in the U.S. are over thirty years old. They do not match the expectations and capacities of citizens today, they pre-date the Internet, and they do not reflect the lessons learned in the last two decades about how citizens and governments can work together. Increasingly, public administratorsRead… Read more »

DOJ CIO Luke McCormack Nominated for Lateral Move to DHS

Luke McCormack, a former chief information officer for the Department of Homeland Security‘s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, has been nominated to return to DHS as its CIO. He held the CIO role at ICE between 2005 and 2012 and has served as the Justice Department‘s CIO for one year, the White House announced Thursday.Read… Read more »

Get Ahead by Getting Uncomfortable

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” – Neale D. Walsch The only time you are actually growing is when you are uncomfortable. If you want to get paid more and promoted faster, you’d better get comfortable with being uncomfortable. You only get out of life what you put into it. If youRead… Read more »

Government Procurement Reform – It matters

Earlier this week I posted a slidecast on my talk to Canada’s Access to Information Commissioners about how, as they do their work, they need to look deeper into the government “stack.” My core argument was how decisions about what information gets made accessible is no longer best managed at the end of a policyRead… Read more »

Navy Officials Say There is a Submarine Shortage

According to senior Navy officials, there are not enough fast-attack and guided-missile submarines to meet the needs of commanders around the globe. These comments came at the 2013 Naval Submarine League symposium where officials said they might have to may delay the retirement of some Los Angeles-class submarines. “The submarines are needed because they provideRead… Read more »

Requirements development –the blocking and tackling of federal procurement!

The questions regarding Healthcare.gov and the role the federal procurement system leads this week’s “FAR and Beyond” blog back to one of the Thirteen Thoughts for 2013: Requirements development –the blocking and tackling of federal procurement! Just as blocking and tackling are the fundamental keys to winning football, sound requirements development is the key toRead… Read more »

Taking Responsibility for Failed Government Projects

The difficulties with Healthcare.gov have been a big topic of conversation here in Washington, D.C. The recent New York Times story on the contractors involved in building it and the hearings on Capitol Hill have raised some uncomfortable questions for me about our profession. The main one is: Can’t we take responsibility for anything? WhenRead… Read more »

Weekly Round-up: October 25, 2013

Gadi Ben-Yehuda Deloitte has some tips for aspiring Intrapreneurs. Intrapreneur Jay Nath writes about innovation and open data in the city of San Francisco. Journalist’s Resource has a fascinating read titled “Open government and conflicts with public trust and privacy: Recent research ideas” Related: 16% of Facebook users list “getting news” as a “major reason”Read… Read more »