I personally am a big fan of the work being done by our friends at the Participatory Budgeting Project, and they made two pretty exciting announcements recently that we wanted to share with you. First, as an exercise in walking the talk, the PBP asked its donors to decide how they should spend the moneyRead… Read more »
Here’s a question. Say you are the facilities manager for a government building. How do you keep track of the operating status of all the equipment and infrastructure within the building? Would you know if a chiller was not operating at peak efficiency? Now, hold that thought… Wind the calendar back to 2008. Recognizing aRead… Read more »
If you’re a writer, that first blank page can be daunting. The blinking cursor awaits. What do you have to say? Do you really have what it takes to write a whole book? Yet, the same writer, when put in front of a friendly blog interface, will immediately start writing. After all, it’s just aRead… Read more »
The following is a brief look back over the last 20 years based on what I have seen senior executives do to enhance their leadership of organizations throughout the years. 1. Clarify expectations. Focusing on results equals creating a zone of focus. I’ve seen several leaders throughout the years, do a great job at clarifyingRead… Read more »
While the civilian agencies wrestle with improving their IT procurement—and watch as legislation like the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) makes the slow march through Congress—the Department of Defense is moving ahead with its own plans to streamline the process. The problems with defense acquisition are known and many: Cost overruns, schedule slippage, etc.Read… Read more »
Kansas City has one, and so does Washington, DC. Of course New York and San Francisco have one. Miami used to have one, but now it doesn’t. I speak, of course, about 311 maps: a data visualization that plots city service requests on a map of the area (sometimes run by city government, but notRead… Read more »
Even though we all use the World Wide Web every single day for both work and pleasure, most of us would be hard pressed to define exactly what it is, describe much about its history, and/or articulate details of its impact. This primer offers a quick introduction to all those things. Distinguishing the Web fromRead… Read more »
This is a guest post by Tom Steinberg, Director of mySociety, a not-for-profit social enterprise based in the United Kingdom. If the mayor of your city started talking about you in speeches, would you want to know? Or if the planning committee in your town started to talk quite a lot about your house, orRead… Read more »
Scarcity of resources. It is a problem that individuals and organizations attempt to solve on an economic, political, and social level on a regular basis. Contentment with wealth, power, or influence can be elusive yet motivating if managed properly. For the public sector, it is typically management of scarce resources that can enhance or hinderRead… Read more »
This is from my blog: blogs.infostrat.com Responding to a government RFP is often a guessing game, and the biggest guess that contractors have to make is the budget for a project. The unwillingness or inability to share a budget for a product or a service hurts both the bidder and the government purchaser. It leadsRead… Read more »