Posts Tagged: innovation

Increase Your Innovation’s Chances for Success

Two books that I read recently have given me a few insights into making innovation work. As you well know, innovation is the hot topic in government today as we face shrinking budgets, demands for better citizen engagement, and the challenge of openness. There is a good deal of emphasis on producing innovative ideas butRead… Read more »

2012 Digital Counties Winners Announced: Sussex County, NJ

The Center for Digital Government and the Digital Communities program has announced the winning counties in this year’s survey competition to identify leaders in the digital field. Four winners were named in various population categories. These four leading communities implemented new initiaties this year that created positive results and cost savings for, despite scarce funding.Read… Read more »

2012 Digital Counties Winners Announced: Dutchess County, NY

The Center for Digital Government and the Digital Communities program has announced the winning counties in this year’s survey competition to identify leaders in the digital field. Four winners were named in various population categories. These four leading communities implemented new initiaties this year that created positive results and cost savings for, despite scarce funding.Read… Read more »

2012 Digital Counties Winners Announced: Fairfax County, VA

Yesterday, the Center for Digital Government and the Digital Communities program announced the winning counties in this year’s survey competition to identify leaders in the digital field. Four winners were named in various population categories. These four leading communities implemented new initiaties this year that created positive results and cost savings for, despite scarce funding.Read… Read more »

NextGen Topic: Civic Engagement & Open Innovation 7/26 @ 1:15

The application of technology to government has evolved into an incredible environment of creative change. Just as Tim O’Reilly predicted, now is the age of government as a platform. Raw open data is being made readily available to the public, which has created new applications, tools, and ways to access information and services. The ThursdayRead… Read more »

Seeing the Building Wave: Using Challenges to Spark Innovation in Government

By Joseph Semsar, Associate Consultant Last week, I had the pleasure of listening in on a joint conference call between the National Association of State Chief Administrators (NASCA) and the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO). The call marked the first time these national organizations — which both work to make state governments moreRead… Read more »

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a technique commonly utilized by software designers and programmers to amass enough financial support to create a new application or tool. However, in its most essential form, crowdfunding combines the spirit of collaborative innovation with the economic muscle to produce tangible results, and therefore can be applied to other industries and pursuits withRead… Read more »

Balancing Innovation and Cost-Cutting

Why are workers keen to cut costs? In an economy when many companies have abandoned hiring, those who still have jobs find themselves overworked, but keen to keep their paychecks. As a result, many companies have begun using innovation management software to pick the brains of their employees to come up with ways to shortenRead… Read more »

Intellectual Ergonomics: “Thought Breaks”

According to comedian John Cleese, the only way to be truly creative is to have “boundaries of space, and boundaries of time.” He argues that in a frenetic, multi-tasking world, innovation can only take place in an environment where the unconscious is allowed to explore thoughts without fear of interruptions. This downtime has helped himRead… Read more »

Creativity on the Clock

Can inspiration be regulated? This may sound like an oxymoron, but the idea of developing a predictable cycle of innovation is exactly what software company Ovo promises it can do. The company says that it can create “sustainable, repeatable innovation processes and [implement] software applications to enable the processes.” As our lives become increasingly mechanizedRead… Read more »