Weekly Round-up: June 10, 2011

Gadi Ben-Yehuda

• More than a Twitter Account: Just what qualifies a person to lead a social media program or team for the government? Jeff Levy has been asking GovLoopers about the skills and experiences that make a good candidate.  (Of course, this class might not hurt!)
• Wikipeida Experience Seems to Help.  The National Archives has hired its first liaison to Wikipedia - a graduate student in history and archives management (and a prolific Wikipedia editor).
• A Wiki Approach to Improving a Twitter Account: The folks running @WhiteHouse have asked for help in improving their feed.  Here are my three suggestions: use more hashtags, respond to your followers, get more people to tweet for you.  Read my rationale.
• A Wiki Approach to Draft a Constitution?  The Guardian reports that Iceland is crowdsourcing its Constitution.

John Kamensky

Government-Only Performance Symposium. If you are a government employee, are you planning to attend the Performance Symposium co-sponsored by the Defense Department and the governmentwide Performance Improvement Council? It’s a three-day affair, June 28-30, in Landsdowne, Virginia. If you don’t need to stay overnight, it’s $61/day. Here’s the registration form and the agenda. You need a registration code from your agency’s performance improvement officer. Top-notch speakers from DOD, OMB, and Congress are confirmed.

Mix and Match Deficit Reduction Plans. The Peterson Foundation gave grants to six different non-profit organizations from different ideological perspectives, challenging them to develop solutions to the budget deficit. Their plans were “scored” by independent experts (retired OMB and CBO analysts) to ensure they were comparable. Here’s a link to a comparison of the plans, “Solutions for America’s Future.” These do not include “official” plans, such as the Bowles-Simpson plan or the Cong. Paul Ryan plan.

From the Department of Big Thinking. Here’s a report from the World Economic Forum, “The Future of Government: Lessons Learned from Around the World.” The report focuses on the concept of FAST government, where FAST sums up the key characteristics of effective government across the globe in years to come: Flatter, Agile, Streamlined, and Tech-enabled. It observes that “the future of government is less and less in the hands of governments alone.” The report is even endorsed in Tweets by Don Tapscott!

New Report, New Acronym: XBC. A new report by Harvard and Deloitte coin a new acronym – XBC – which stands for “Cross-Boundary Collaboration.” Cheesy, but that aside, this new report, “XBC: Creating Public Value by Unleashing the Power of Cross-Boundary Collaboration,” is worth the read. It gives concrete example, including how it is used to connect, to innovate, and to execute programs. Even just the appendix on the typologies of networks is worth the download!

Dan Chenok

• IT Reform at 6 months -- agencies making progress.
• DHS Guidance moves agencies forward on continuous monitoring for cybersecurity.
• IT Program Manager: now an official job series.

The Business of Government Radio Show: The Business of Government Magazine: Spring/Summer 2011

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.

The Spring/Summer 2011 Business of Government Magazine covers topics ranging from transforming the National Airspace System to managing homeland security resources, educating today’s information leaders, and transforming government operations.  Forums, perspectives, and interviews of government executives clarify and extend our understanding of the work they champion and the efforts they lead.

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.