Weekly Round-up: March 01, 2012

Gadi Ben-Yehuda

It's spring (meteorologically), when many people are thinking about getting engaged.  By which I mean: citizen engagement, employee engagement, and engagement in and through social media.

• A Ladder or a Continuum.  On the blog Bang the Table, Cripsin Butteriss dusts off his papers on citizen participation and shares Sherry R Arnstein's "Ladder of Citizen Participation" which Butteriss later adapted to a much more 21st-Century sounding "Continuum of Participation"
• Engagement Leads to (Employee) Happiness.  Camille Tuutti, writing for Federal Computer Week, reports on consulting firm Blissingwhite’s Employee Engagement Report 2011. The report shows that engaged employees are more satisfied with their jobs and that trust in managers and executives is correlated to engagement.
• Tweeting and Tracking.  If you're not using Social Bro to analyze your followers, stop reading right now and get it.  And while you're at it, here are ten more tools to optimize your Twitter activity.
• Top Ten? How about 14!  Information published a slide show of it's Top 14 Government Social Media Initiatives

Dan Chenok

• GAO renews focus on reducing duplication in government programs.
• Contract spending flat in 2011.
• Agencies need to set rules to protect data in the cloud.
• NIST Security guidance changes to address cloud, mobility.

John Kamensky

• GAO Reports on Duplication, Overlap and Fragmentation. GAO has released its second annual report on instances of programmatic duplication, overlap or fragmentation.  It also compiled a status report on the progress the Executive Branch made over the past year in response to its first report early in 2011.  Interestingly, OMB issued a 20-page response, describing in some detail, the efforts it had undertaken that it felt were not properly reflected in GAO’s assessment.  At a hearing where GAO testified on its report (a 50-page testimony!), Sen. Tom Coburn, who had introduced the legislative requirement that GAO conduct these studies, testified that a large portion of the inaction is due to Congress being “the main offender.”

  Federal Times offers a good summary of the GAO reports, but the originals are more fun for wonks. 

• Encouraging SES Mobility  The Partnership for Public Service released a report on the extent of mobility of career senior executives and found that nearly half of the 7,700 current members have been in their current position throughout their career as an executive.  This finding is counter to the original intent of the SES corps.  Cong. Jim Moran, who spoke at the Partnership’s event to release the report, vowed to introduce legislation to make mobility a mandatory component of their jobs.  Such legislation is already pending in the Senate, introduced last year by Sen. Joseph Lieberman.
• Postal Service Projects a $14.1B Loss in 2012.  While the public complains about the potential loss of Saturday mail service and the closures of under-used small post offices, the Postal Service sees looming doom in its budget, with an $18.2 billion annual loss by 2015.  The Postal Service released its latest 5-year “Plan to Profitability” and warns that trying to fix its problems using a piecemeal approach won’t work.
• Federal Property Maintenance Costs – A Lot.  Okay, so property maintenance can be seen as a big yawner in policy circles, but it is also big bucks in budget circles!  Federal Times’ Andy Medici writes that the federal government spent $30.7 billion in 2010 – up $1.5 billion from 2009.  Medici writes: “Agencies spent on average $5.30 per square foot annually to operate owned space and $15.00 to operate leased space.”

The Business of Government Radio Show: Michael C Kane

Federal News Radio 1500-AM
Mondays at 11 a.m., Wednesdays at 12 p.m., Fridays at 2  p.m.

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.

Michael C Kane, the Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) for the Department of Energy, is responsible for strategically aligning the agency's workforce to its missions through effective management of human capital policies and programs.

Broadcast Schedule: The show airs Monday, March 05, at 11 a.m., Wednesday, March 07, at noon, and Friday, March 09, at 2:00 PM on Federal News Radio 1500AM WFED

If you can't wait, though, you can listen to (or download) this week's program and all our previous interviews at businessofgovernment.org and by searching our audio archives.