Meet Dan Hoffman! One of our incredible NextGen Public Service Award winners. His dedication to enhancing innovation at the local government level is truly inspirational. Read on to find out how you can become just as influential in your career!
There’s been a lot of attention paid lately to the 13 percent statistic: the portion of chief administrative officers in local governments that are women stands at 13 percent, roughly the same figure it was in the 1980s. It’s an important issue, and a complicated one, and I asked my colleague Jan Perkins for someRead… Read more »
Over the course of 10 years, Seattle has studied the possibility of creating a municipal-run broadband network seven times, most recently this year. Although it was determined in June that the cost would be lower than expected (somewhere in the range of $463 million to $630 million), city officials again rejected the idea, citing barriersRead… Read more »
Imagine a virtual place where people who work in the wider public sector could find and network with each other, collaborate and publish, share anything, create and join expert groups. A place where a public servant or health worker or councillor or local government officer or charity worker or trustee could find and connect withRead… Read more »
I’m a city manager. I’ll always consider myself a city manager. I work with other city managers and local-government professionals. But instead of working full-time for one municipality, we now help government leaders create the change their organizations need. Sometimes they need financial analysis or a strategic plan. Sometimes they want to improve their businessRead… Read more »
Whenever I think of county government, an annoying ear-worm of a song pops into my head. Backed by a twangy hoedown tune at odds with the county’s New York suburban character, the TV commercial for the Westchester County Fair sang promises of “Rides and attractions! Non-stop action! Shows! Animals! Fireworks, too!” Hokey summertime county fairs were my firstRead… Read more »
At the Alliance for Innovation’s recent Transforming Local Government conference, Virginia Beach was awarded a 2015 Innovation Award for its shared-service plan with Norfolk and Chesapeake. Too often, people weigh the cost savings and efficiency of shared services against the risk of job loss and political difficulties and conclude it’s just not worth it. In workingRead… Read more »
Have you ever attended a budget meeting hosted by your city council? You usually are shown PowerPoint presentations filled with pie charts detailing how funds are dispersed. And you have access to your city website’s complete budget breakdown, including the projected one for the next fiscal year. But it may seem as though local governmentRead… Read more »
Triggered by a range of experiences recently I thought I would reflect on my learning journey. So over the last few weeks I’ve been dipping in and out of my blog posts from the last 5 years and thinking about how things have or haven’t changed or even if some of the things that IRead… Read more »
Remember the potential public health threat back in 2005 regarding Avian Flu. Supposedly chickens in China had contracted a flu which was found to be contagious to humans? Worst yet the desease chickens were then infecting other birds – especially migratory birds. Scientists confirmed that birds from China do in fact migrate to the USRead… Read more »