Blog
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The release of a new book, “If We Can Put a Man on the Moon . . . ,” by Bill Eggers and John O’Leary, helped set the stage for the National Academy of Public Administration’s annual meeting that centered on management issues related to health care reform.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Government Executive’s Alyssa Rosenberg hits the nail on the head in her Fed Blog today, “How Health Care Would Be Run.” Her piece looks at the increased role of the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Senate version of the bill. The House...
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
I am not a tech-toy pioneer. It was two years before I logged onto my company’s instant message system because I thought it would create ADD symptoms (it didn’t). I just got a Blackberry a few weeks ago (yes, Blackberry, not iPhone) because I lost my...
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The Senate confirmed Dan Gordon as the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Office of Management and Budget. He comes highly recommended by Steve Kelman, a former holder of this job who was acclaimed as an innovator. The...
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Yes, it is cloudy and raining this week, and the media has been reporting a glut of stories about cloud computing already. But the IBM Center has released a new report “Moving to the Cloud: An Introduction to Cloud Computing in Government” that is targe
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Harvard Kennedy School professor Stephan Goldsmith recently shared an insight he learned: “It is always tempting to set arbitrary goals to drive organizational change. Like most temptations, this one should be resisted. . . . I fell into this trap in...
Friday, November 6, 2009
The fuss surrounding the release of the first full report on the use of Recovery Act money last week reminded me of an experience I had in 1980 while working for a congressional oversight committee. We had received an annual report with program data...
Friday, November 6, 2009
I’m back from my first visit to Saudi Arabia. I can’t say I saw any camels, but I did seen plenty of McDonalds and Starbucks! Conference participants were treated royally and we were treated with great hospitality, including an outdoor banquet with...
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
David Osborne, of Reinventing Government fame, keynoted today's session at the Saudi conference on public administration. He said there are two sets of reforms running in parallel across the globe today. The first focuses on getting the basics right:...
Monday, November 2, 2009
I'm in Riyadh this week, blogging from afar at a conference on public administration. The exotic is in the small things – Google comes up in Arabic with the scroll bar on the left and there's an arrow painted on the ceiling of my hotel room pointing...