Does Increasing Government Transparency Help or Hurt Professional and Trade Associations?

By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. Does increasing government transparency help or hurt professional and trade associations? Here are two answers: 1. Government Transparency Helps Associations. By making government actions more visible to the public, the need for specialized associations of individuals and organizations is increased because: Groups with specialized knowledge are more able than membersRead… Read more »

How do you recognize and reward your people?

Messages about our upcoming “Best in Class Competition” (BICC) are going out at work. On the Coast Guard side of my life, I see folks taking a hard look at the Coast Guard Innovationprogram and considering how they can take part. These are both great programs in the two places where I spend my professionalRead… Read more »

Privacy and The Thousand Tiny Knives

In privacy management, it’s the major data breaches that grab the big headlines. In personal brand management, it’s the high profile embarrassments resulting from carelessness, ignorance and poor judgment that capture public attention. Janine Krieber, Nathalie Blanchard, Stephen Fry, Tiger Woods… who’ll be next? Not you, certainly. For most of us, risks to our privacyRead… Read more »

Further adventures in social media. (Aaaargh!)

I spent the morning live-tweeting an appearance before a state Senate committee by Kansas Secretary of Transportation Deb Miller. KDOT has proposed a new 10-year transportation plan for Kansas; Secretary Miller appeared before the Senate Transportation Committee to explain some of the highlights of the proposal. Her testimony continues tomorrow morning. I’ll be tweeting itRead… Read more »

Why Open Source CMS is Important

The Web Managers Roundtable is presenting Open Source Content Management Systems: Panacea or Pandora’s Box? A Critical Evaluation of Open Source Content Management & Lessons Learned from WhiteHouse.gov’s Open Source Initiative on April 25th. Event Summary Disclosure – Julie, who runs the WMR has been a protégé for over 15 years, and Tony Byrne, theRead… Read more »

Rewarding Innovation In Government

Yesterday I read an article (http://fcw.com/articles/2010/03/09/white-house-prize-policy.aspx) by Doug Beizer that profiled the White House’s new policy on carrying out contests to spur innovation. I think it’s grand that the White House recognizes the power of using gaming and rewards mechanisms within an innovation setting; however, it challenges agencies to develop this with little direction asRead… Read more »

The February Open Government Directive Workshop

This article is co-authored by Lucas Cioffi and Alex Moll, co-organizers of the February Open Government Directive Workshop in partnership with the US General Services Administration, the National Academy of Public Administration, NCDD, and GovLoop. Summary and Purpose of the OGD Workshop The February 17th OGD Workshop in Washington, DC was a blast. We convenedRead… Read more »

Federal Eye: Eye Opener: Group warns of cutting DHS contractors

Happy Wednesday! A contractor industry group has warned that the Department of Homeland Security should closely study the size and scope of its contracting jobs before it “insources” positions to the federal payroll. DHS officials are reviewing its mix of private and public-sector workers after announcing last month that the department employs at least 12,000Read… Read more »

Database can Crack Missing Person Cases?

The Associated Press had a story this past Sunday regarding an online database (NamUs) that “promises to crack some of the nation’s 100,000 missing persons cases and provide answers to desperate families.” That’s some database! On further reading it becomes evident that the database isn’t really going to crack anything. How disappointing. Contrary to popularRead… Read more »

Is this heresy?

Do we need a non manifesto for innovation and, for that matter Gov 2.0 and social media itself? The innovation manifesto suggests that we do. What do you think of the formula Talk + Action = Zero. Explains a lot I suggest. The Innovation Non Manifesto Steve DOriginally posted on OZloop

Recent Articles on GovLoop