Christopher Whitaker

I always like the analogy of the NASCAR driver and the crew-chief. At the bare minimum, as a driver you should at least know the basics of what’s going on under the hood. The more you know about the ins-and-outs of coding, the better prepared you are to understand what needs to be done when it comes to designing a website or a system.

That and…[Read more]

Part of this stems from governments having to layoff staff. There’s not a whole much you can do about balancing workload when you have less hands to do it with.
Plus when the government does want to hire, it can’t do it fast enough. The VA and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association are going at it because of lack of staff at the VA. (Full…[Read more]

I always argued that if you lay out a vison that’s clear enough, strong enough, and inspiring enough to get the right people into the right places – that the execution would never fail because of the strength of the team.

Unfortunately, very few agencies can lay out a vision like that and expect to attract the bad asses needed to make this level…[Read more]

From what I understood, this wasn’t just one facebook comment – he was organizing a facebook group called “Armed Forces Tea Party”
I think it’s important to recognize this difference.
A few months ago, a reservist showed up at a Ron Paul rally in his uniform, he was reprimanded but nothing serious. If he had gone in civilian clothes, and not…[Read more]

I still use a box monitor at work. We wont be getting flat screens for years. There is no way that we’d ever have the budget to use two monitors for every employee regardless of the productivity improvements

As I stated on Twitter, the phone that I use at my desk is so old they no longer make the parts for it. Technically speaking, my phone still counts as information technology because it connects to an ancient voicemail system. However, there is nothing “2.0” about it. My phone system predates Gov20, and probably pre-dates the commercial internet.

Nothing is getting fixed until we fix our procurement processes across government. There is no doubt that technology exists that is much cheaper than our current solutions, but the hoops we have to jump through when we make purchases makes it impossible.

Example One: http://blog.chicagolobbyists.org/2012/01/12/chicago-aint-ready-for-procurement-r…[Read more]

Open Source only works as a community. If nobody is helping to update the code, then the code won’t improve and will continue to have flaws.
With GitHub, there’s an ability to raise issues with code in order to let the author know there’s something the matter. There’s also an ability to clone the code, correct it, then push it back to the master…[Read more]

Trick question! When people leave my agency they don’t get replaced. Turnover is just another word for “Do more with less”

My agency, when it is allowed to fill slots back up, doesn’t actually get to interview anyone. Instead, a central management agency will do a test then a standardized interview. The manager will have no idea who they get and…[Read more]

Look, if the claimant went back to work then she may qualify for a new BYB, but at a lower WBA. The 607B indicator can’t be changed except by the central office which might choose to give her the BY option. IBIS won’t let you change that even if you’re an FOS.

Hey! Illinois managed not to get dead last! Please ignore how many governors are currently serving time in prison.

I would try and reach out to developers in your community that may want to work on a civic project. That’s the idea behind the Code for America brigades. Even if they just have a discussion with you, they may know a better way to accomplish what you’re trying to do.

The other thing is that it might be easier to make a web-app that’s mobile…[Read more]

The Pension is the #1 reason that Illinois is in such big trouble. There are several proposals to scrap it all together and convert us to 401(k)s.

The local press hates the pension and tends to be heavy handed in it’s coverage laying the blame squarely on the public sector unions.
The solution is to cut all departments by 9% – which will result…[Read more]

I’m with the State of Illinois. The legislature spent the entire pension fund, so now we’re a ticking time-bomb and the source of our credit woes. My goal for this year is to leave state employment and go someplace where my retirement will be a bit safter. I don’t expect the pension fund to be viable by the time I retire.

There’s really nothing else you can really do.

Hey fellow Chicagoan!
With as many people that follow the organization (particularly local media types, I’m sure there would be lots of people interested in coming to a BGA Tweet-up. If you need any help feel free to drop me a line. I’m excited to see BGA going in this direction!
For those that arn’t in Chicago, the Better Government Association…[Read more]

I’m the black sheep of the family because of my government service. I have no idea of what things will be like by the time I have kids old enough to start a career

I think Julie’s right though – with all of the budget cuts taking place I’m not sure anyone would want to join public service right now.

Procurement rules – It’s hard to use opensource/civic developer tools if the legal roadblocks are put up