John Kamensky

As mentioned here a few days ago in blog entry on innovation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been given in fiscal year 2010, what seems to be a large pot of money and new authority to conduct a transformation initiative in four areas that have been historically underfunded in HUD as well as most other agencies:

Two departments received special authorities this past year that are intended to improve their abilities to manage. It will be interesting to watch to see how they use these authorities. If these agencies can demonstrate success, then there’s a good chance that Congress might extend these authorities to other agencies.

This is the time of year for predictions of what is ahead. Here’s a compilation of various predictions. Pick those that appeal to you!

Federal News Radio: Web 2.0 is Changing Government. In an interview in late 2009, editor Dorothy Ramienski came to the now-standard conclusion that “Web 2.0 and social networking tools are changing the way the federal government does business.”

Note:  The IBM Center recently released Seven Drivers Transforming Government, a series of essays exploring key drivers of change in government. It is based on our research and numerous insights shared by current and former government officials.  This blog is the second in a series of excerpts from each of the seven essays.

Guest blogger: Doug McGovern, Chief Technology Officer for Intelligence Programs, IBM Global Business Services

This panel was part of a Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) workshop held at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) headquarters in Springfield Virginia and was attended by industry, academia and Government. Keynotes were provided by several Government Senior Executives from the Intelligence Community.

John Kamensky

FEMA’s Resilience Reset. RouteFifty reports: “State and local governments should own the disaster recovery process by creating integrated, outcome-based mitigation plans like Puerto Rico post-Hurricane Maria, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator said Thursday at a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill.”

Guest blogger: Tim Stitely, IBM Vice President for Federal Healthcare

As the Former Chief Information Officer for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a civil servant for over 20 years from the level of clerk typist through the Senior Executive Service, I have seen many "Modernization" initiatives to optimize and otherwise change Government. Sometimes this is process-oriented or people-driven, and usually lands a lot on technology. The initiatives have come under many names, including Reinventing Government and the President’s Management Agenda.

John Kamensky

Disaster Response: Brings Out the Best in Feds. Government Executive covered the SES Rank Awards ceremony.  Both SBA Administrator Linda McMahon and Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Elaine Duke praised the dedication and response of thousands of career civil servants to the three major hurricanes in recent months.

“The key to motivation turns out to be largely within your control,” write Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer in the January 2010 issue of Harvard Business Review. How? “. . . scrupulously avoid impeding progress.”

Amabile and Kramer surveyed more than 600 managers, and then asked hundreds of knowledge workers to keep daily diaries to find out what was the top motivator of performance.

Following is an index of blog entries between the start, September 1, 2009, and the end of the year, December 31, 2009, organized around some major themes.

Web 2.0 and Social Media

Launching the BizGov Blog (09-01-09)

Blogs as Public Policy Forums (09-02-09)

Cloud Forecasting: A New Report (11-12-09)