Posts Tagged: local

Spend Your Present Preparing for Your Future

Young Government Leaders (YGL) and GovLoop present the NextGen Public Service Awards for superior public service and achievement. The 4th Annual NextGen Public Service Awards will be given at the 2014 NextGen Award’s Ceremony, which will kick off the NextGen Training Summit on July 23rd in Washington, DC. We have 18 finalists in six differentRead… Read more »

Operating Your Organization Like a Democracy

Young Government Leaders (YGL) and GovLoop present the NextGen Public Service Awards for superior public service and achievement. The 4th Annual NextGen Public Service Awards will be given at the 2014 NextGen Award’s Ceremony, which will kick off the NextGen Training Summit on July 23rd in Washington, DC. We have 18 finalists in six differentRead… Read more »

Is Open Data Sustainable in Your Community?

Which comes first, open data or open government? This question was posed at the Sunlight Foundation’s recent TransparencyCamp. The two-day event featured various outbreak sessions and thought-provoking messages from industry professionals. You can view additional coverage of the event here, “ICYMI: TransparencyCamp Event” and here, “Improving Data.gov: Insights from Sunlight Foundation’s Transparency Camp“. One ofRead… Read more »

The Weakest Link & What To Do About Them

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain. William James To information security professionals, having a strong chain of policy, practice and architecture is indeed, life. The human factor is always the weakest link in any information security program. Why is that? People are our greatest asset!Read… Read more »

On freelancing

The giant of local government social media at the coalface, Dan Slee, has gone freelance. I’m not sure why I’ve not written up Dan as one of my digital heroes here before, because he certainly is one. He’s the kind of innovator it’s hard to dismiss – someone with deep journalism and government experience, Zen-likeRead… Read more »

What are Your Chances of Becoming New York’s Next Traffic Accident?

London’s doing it. And now it’s New York’s moment to systemically address traffic-related injuries and fatalities. Pedestrian fatalities have dropped by over 75% in London since the late 1980s, and this is because of stronger laws. Transport for London estimates that cameras at high-crash locations and other precautions prevent 500 deaths or serious injuries eachRead… Read more »

2014 Data Innovation Day Report: Lessons for Building a ‘Smart City’

“All of a sudden it is cool to be a data geek.” Spoken enthusiastically by Tim Paydos of IBM, these words perfectly encapsulated the mood of Thursday’s 2014 Data Innovation Day. The conference, now in its second year, is a product of the Center for Data Innovation, a non-partisan think tank that researches the growingRead… Read more »

Confronting Institutional Inertia

Recently, Matthew Burton, former Acting CIO and Deputy CIO of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, posted an excellent series of blog posts documenting his experiences and lessons as a CFPB IT executive. While the technical details and personal insights are the most valuable aspects of his posts, I’d like to focus on a couple ofRead… Read more »

What’s the Best Way to Transform and Modernize Cities? The Debate in The Economist

I love debates, whether it is Lincoln vs. Douglas, Biden vs. Ryan, or Harry Potter vs. Twilight*. Listening to experts challenge each other’s views teaches us about a topic and makes us rethink preconceived notions. At the end of a debate you may not have changed your mind. But a good debate, at the veryRead… Read more »