Building a Federal Workforce that Looks like America

It’s been two years since President Obama signed the Executive Order on Diversity and Inclusion in the federal workplace. As we all know, organizations and organizational culture take a great deal of time to change. This is especially the case for government agencies, which are often over a hundred years old. Today, I attended anRead… Read more »

Five Steps to Building an Evidence-Based Culture in Government

OMB’s guidance to agencies on the development of their FY 2015 budgets promises that “OMB will issue a separate memo at a later date that encourages the increased use of evidence and evaluation, including rigorous testing of innovative strategies to build new knowledge of what works.” This encouragement comes on top of a foundation alreadyRead… Read more »

Useful Thinking About Big Data

Ever wonder why “Big Data” is referred to in terms of somebody’s solution, tool, application, utility? And why that doesn’t offer much value to you? You know there must be some value…otherwise why all the noise? The best way to define Big Data is in terms of how you are currently using it. You aren’t?Read… Read more »

How to Tweet Like a Mars Rover

This was originally posted on the Measured Voice blog. This robot is probably better at Twitter than you. Photo from NASA. NASA gets to take credit not only for blazing trails into outer space, but also for developing some of the first great examples of social media voice. In May 2008, Veronica McGregor, social mediaRead… Read more »

Small pieces loosely joined

If you don’t want to read the whole of this post, there are two simple actions to take: Go to the new Public Sector Blogs site, admire it briefly, then subscribe to updates by RSS or by email, according to your fancy Follow @PubSecBlogs on twitter which tirelessly tweets updates in real time. These eachRead… Read more »

How Local Government Decisions Are Really Made

People often seem surprised by the decisions local public officials make. It’s not uncommon to hear community residents say, “What the heck were they thinking about when they …???” Since I enjoyed the privilege of a lengthy career in local government, I was able to personally observe the process many local government bodies used toRead… Read more »

An Organizational and Leadership Debacle: Is it Time to Audit the IRS?

The IRS has never been the most popular kid in the lunch room. The current IRS scandal shows an agency experiencing organizational and leadership issues. I suppose they provide a necessary function, but who hasn’t complained bitterly in the spring about the amount of money and time it takes to meet their demands? I’ve beenRead… Read more »

Aviation 2013

Leading cybersecurity experts (Richard Clarke, Dan Geer, Paul Kurtz, Jeffrey Carr) will speak at AIAA AVIATION 2013, being held August 12–14 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, Los Angeles, Calif. Hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the conference will address the risk of the evolving cyber threats to the world’s $2.2 trillionRead… Read more »

Separation of Church and State: Myths and Facts

The Founders Tried to Protect Us From Religious Extremists America’s founders deliberately kept god out of our Constitution because they didn’t want a theocracy. But many Americans now try to force all of us to practice their faith, and prevent some from practicing different faiths. Nothing is more un-American. James Madison and Gouverneur Morris wroteRead… Read more »