The GAO released a new report yesterday called Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue. It could start a very productive conversation or become a political football. Those of us who have worked in government, believe in organizational collaboration, change and innovation have seen many redundant and duplicativeRead… Read more »
Tweet Did the Greek Monks Destroy the Country or was it Lack of Government Transparency? Reviewing some of the older pieces on the true greek tragedy (in economic terms) and finally read through the whole of the great Vanity Fair article by Michael Lewis (“Beware of Greek s Bearing Bonds”). The detail in the articleRead… Read more »
Tweet Wisconsin Public sector Workers Fight for their collective bargaining rights I have been through some very interesting times as of late, the kind of things that make you think about who you are, what you fight for and your position in the order of things. I have absolutely incredible friends and family that helpRead… Read more »
The Texas Gov 2.0 Camp has been happening yesterday and today and I was lucky enough to be on an email string where I learned from Steven Polunsky, Director of the Senate Committee on Business and Commerce for (Texas State) Senator John Carona that they are engaged in some innovative transparency initiatives in the TexasRead… Read more »
I started my government career as a street-level bureaucrat. In the summer of 1990 I was a paralegal intern for the Richmond, Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy. This was a public defenders office that covered four counties and my job was to interview the clients that had been arrested and jailed. I would spend theRead… Read more »
For over a year now, I’ve been meeting almost every week with a guy named Adam Schultz and his team at Change & Course. He’s been offering some great insight on how to improve GovLoop and it just dawned on me this week that you’d probably benefit from the lessons I’m learning, too. With thatRead… Read more »
Who Owns My Neighbourhood? is a cool new project from Kirklees Council. Supported by NESTA, according to the blurb it: …is a service that helps local people take responsibility for the land, buildings and activities where they live and work. Basically, you bung in a postcode from the Huddersfield area and it plots who ownsRead… Read more »
I succumbed to the hype and joined Quora last week. Two weeks before that I joined Academia which is a social networking site for academics. Friday night I joined Eegoes because they promised to help me organize my rapidly-expanding universe of social networking sites. I had a great time building profiles, looking for people toRead… Read more »
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about collaboration and Game Theory. More specifically I’ve been examining and re-examining the Prisoner’s Dilemma in hopes of learning more about how transparency affects collaboration, and I think I may be on to something. Primer Game theory attempts to mathematically capture behaviour in strategic situations (games). The prisoner’s dilemmaRead… Read more »
Note: I am on vacation this week, so I have the time to write blog entires (like this one) that are not reflective of the opinions of my employer. These thoughts and their form are entirely my own. Last October, I wrote “if agencies’ social media sites were like phone numbers, Josh [Shpayher] looked aroundRead… Read more »