Happy Friday! Most offices start winding down for the year on Friday ahead of the weekend’s anticipated snowstorm and the Christmas and New Year’s weeks. Amid all the parties, long lunches and other holiday cheer, some feds may wonder: When it comes to giving gifts at government offices, how much is too much? “Twenty dollarsRead… Read more »
I wrote on my personal blog about the state of blogging in public services in the UK. “I think we need a strong, vibrant blogging community in and around government providing some real analysis of what is happening, and some real thought-leadership in terms of what should be happening.” What is the state of theRead… Read more »
A previous post laid out the Focus on Efficiency Framework: Plan – Decide – Implement – Review – Repeat. In this post you’ll learn the importance of Reviewing the impact you’ve had on your organizations efficiency. You’ll Review at a pre-determined time which you set in your Planning stage. When exactly that will be, isRead… Read more »
The non-existing customer support of Best Buy / Geek Squad / Sony: Jan 11, 2009 – purchased Sony Vaio laptop with 2-year Geek Squad protection with Vista (XP was not available, but planned to replace with XP) Very soon was having problems with hibernating properly, which I attributed to Vista since I often had similarRead… Read more »
By: Jon Desenberg Jon Desenberg is policy director at The Performance Institute. To the dedicated performance and budgeting professionals in state and local government around the country: Remember, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The budget headwinds and the demands of reporting for the Recovery Act have made this the toughest in the 20Read… Read more »
Laurel Ruma and I have chosen a powerhouse (if I do say so myself) program committee to help us as co-chairs of the upcoming Gov 2.0 Expo in May 2010 in Washington, DC. It’s a fairly diverse bunch – check them out here. These are the people that will help us put together the keynoteRead… Read more »
I’ve had the very good fortune of working for some really good “emerging behavior” kind of leaders. You know the kind: those rare and wonderful people who seem to fundamentally believe that people wake up in the morning – they want to do the right thing; who don’t fancy themselves as the center of theRead… Read more »
Federal agency managers routinely talk about transformation and improving their infrastructures. For Federal Trade Commission (FTC) CIO Stanley Lowe, transformation of the infrastructure meant the infrastructure. In a building first occupied in 1938, that meant reinforcing floors and ceilings, adding new conduit, boosting power and putting in new racks, all without disturbing the appearance ofRead… Read more »
Recently, I’ve had a few discussions with friends regarding the current Senate health care bill. Is the death of the public option ok, since it got Medicare eligibility lowered to 55? That helps some people, right? More than are helped now, right? So that’s good, right? Wrong. We have apparently been subjected to the obstructionistRead… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner As collaboration tools, Gov 2.0, and other initiatives to encourage transparency and solicit input from stakeholders move forward, a pilot on this front met today to discuss implementing these ideas and creating further momentum via proof of concept. The Better Buy Project, as I discussed in a previous post, is aRead… Read more »