Collaboration

President Obama’s Open Government Directive was released a week ago with lots of anticipation and a series of deadlines. Now agencies are moving quickly to develop their plans. A series of interesting resources are already popping up to help them:

Senator Mark Warner chaired another hearing of his Taskforce on Government Performance, on “Data-Driven Performance: Using Technology to Deliver Results.”

The Obama Administration’s chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra, testified. Here are some interesting excerpts from his statement:

The White House released its long-awaited implementation guidance for President Obama’s Open Government initiative, along with links to ongoing agency initiatives and a “Progress Report to the American People.” The guidance lays out actions and timetables.

The Center is pleased to announce the publication of its Fall/Winter 2009 issue of The Business of Government magazine. This issue focuses on a range of public management issues facing us today. Whether it’s the federal government’s response to the recent financial crisis, the H1N1 flu, or its movement towards greater transparency and accountability, we’ve gathered thoughtful perspectives from some of the leading practitioners and academics in the field.

The rumors continue about the impending release of the Obama Administration’s implementation directives for greater transparency, citizen participation, and collaboration. But thanks to the power of Twitter, I’ve learned that both the United Kingdom and Australia have released reports that begin to detail their approaches to greater citizen participation. These reports may serve as useful reference points when the Obama directive is released!

A series of presentations at the annual conference of the National Academy of Public Administration focused on the complicated management challenges all levels of government will be facing upon the passage of any health care reform legislation. As one participant noted: “There’s too much of a view that programs are self-executing and you just need more inspectors general and audits. . . that happened with the Recovery Act.” The consensus seemed to be that this assumption clearly won't work for health care reform!

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.

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 PalmPilot calendar and they don’t make them anymore. And I resisted a Twitter account because I thought it was silly, frivolous, and seemingly narcissistic.

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.