Weekly Round-up: October 29, 2010

Gadi Ben-Yehuda

• It Came from 2005: (Government Social Media activities, that is!) Here's an interesting timeline of government social media activities.
• The Administration believes the problem of online trust has no government solution, reports Fierce Government IT.
• The CDC has published a social media toolkit.  
• OSTP has created a committee on Internet and privacy policy.
• How to respond to negative criticism in online forums: Slate's Farhad Manjoo counsels hotels (and by extension, any retailer) on responding to bad reviews on TripAdvisor.  But his advice is good for public-sector as well; basically, he argues that managers should respond directly to criticism, taking their lumps and offering to make things better (and then following through!)
• Finally: PopVox Beta is released!

• Industry IT Fix-It Panel. The big news this week has been the TechAmerica Foundation’s industry panel report on improving IT project management to increase chances of success. Read the “GTO-21” report here!
• Program Management. Steve Kelman of Harvard, blogs about how political appointees tend to undermine large IT projects because of constant turnover. . . and he proposed a “Continuity Award” to new appointees who don’t reflexively junk whatever their predecessors were doing!
• Grand Design. Frank McDonough, retired from GSA but still actively engaged, reminds us that the problems and solutions associated with program management are not new. He recently resurrected a 1988 piece, summarizing the six keys to avoiding Grand Design failures in developing IT systems.
• Dr. Dave. Did you know that David McClure, associate director for GSA’s Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies has his own avatar and blog? Here’s a recent entry about no-cost policy-compliant social media tools. He’s worth bookmarking!

Dan Chenok

• Innovative support for innovation: Facebook, Amazon and Zynga invest in a fund to help entrepreneurs develop applications and services for a new era of the social web.
• Gender differences on a new medium: Federal News Radio 1500 AM: Do women understand Gov 2.0 better than men?
• New focus on consumer privacy policy

Business of Government Radio Show: Caswell F. Holloway  

The Business of Government Hour features a conversation about management with a government executive who is changing the way government does business. The executives discuss their careers and the management challenges facing their organizations. Past government executives include Administrators, Chief Financial Officers, Chief Information Officers, Chief Operating Officers, Commissioners, Controllers, Directors, and Undersecretaries.

Caswell F. Holloway was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to lead the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.  Cas says that he "think[s] about performance every day. How are we performing as a utility? How do we define success across the agency? It’s really important to define what success means, and then measure it."

Each week, The Business of Government Hour interviews government executive who are changing the way government does business. The show airs four times a week on two radio stations in the DC Metro Area. If you can't wait, though, we also put it online. You can also search our audio archives for your favorite interview.