Federal Times: “Support for innovation is declining across the government, according to a report by the Partnership for Public Service released April 23. Federal employee answers to three innovation-related questions on the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey dropped from 61.5 out of 100 in 2012 to 59.4 out of 100, according to the report, produced in partnership with Deloitte. This chart, extracted from the Partnership for Public Service report, shows the slow but steady decline of innovation measures. (Partnership for Public Service) While 90 percent of employees surveyed report they are always looking for better ways to do their... (More >)
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens
Paper by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page :”Who governs? Who really rules? To what extent is the broad body of U.S. citizens sovereign, semi-sovereign, or largely powerless? These questions have animated much important work in the study of American politics. While this body of research is rich and variegated, it can loosely be divided into four families of theories: Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic Elite Domination, and two types of interest group pluralism –Majoritarian Pluralism, in which the interests of all citizens are more or less equally represented, and Biased Pluralism, in which corporations, business associations, and professional groups... (More >)
Five Reasons for Choice-Preserving Approaches
Cass Sunstein at Nudges vs Shoves: “Psychologists and behavioral economists have identified many sources of human errors, including self-control problems, “present bias,” unrealistic optimism, and limited attention. Building on these underlying findings, a great deal of work has explored the possibility of enlisting libertarian paternalism, or nudges, to make people’s lives go better. Nudges preserve freedom of choice and thus allow people to go their own way. But in light of behavioral findings, there has also been increasing interest in asking whether mandates and bans have a fresh justification.1 The motivation for that question is clear: If we know... (More >)
Digital Humanitarians
New book by Patrick Meier on how big data is changing humanitarian response: “The overflow of information generated during disasters can be as paralyzing to humanitarian response as the lack of information. This flash flood of information when amplified by social media and satellite imagery is increasingly referred to as Big Data—or Big Crisis Data. Making sense of Big Crisis Data during disasters is proving an impossible challenge for traditional humanitarian organizations, which explains why they’re increasingly turning to Digital Humanitarians. Who exactly are these Digital Humanitarians? They’re you, me, all of us. Digital Humanitarians are volunteers and professionals... (More >)
New York Police Twitter Strategy Has Unforeseen Consequences
J. David Goodman in The New York Times: “The New York Police Department has long seen its crime-fighting strategies emulated across the country and around the world. So when a departmental Twitter campaign, meant to elicit smiling snapshots, instead attracted tens of thousands of less flattering images of officers, it did not take long for the hashtag #myNYPD to spread far beyond the five boroughs. By Wednesday, the public relations situation in New York City had sparked imitators from Los Angeles (#myLAPD) to Mexico (#MiPolicíaMexicana) and over the ocean to Greece (#myELAS), Germany (#DankePolizei) and France (#maPolice). The images,... (More >)
Open Dialogue on Improving How to Do Business with the Federal Government
CIO Council: “We are looking for ideas on how to streamline and make other improvements in the way businesses of all sizes work for and with the U.S. Federal government. (Deadline for participation – May 5, 2014.) The purpose of the dialogue is to discuss improvements to the Federal contracting process. Through this platform, we will gather ideas and proposed improvements that can be accomplished through executive (regulatory, administrative, or management) action, as well as potential legislative proposals (new laws). The open dialogue is focused around three topics (campaigns). Each campaign is a unique aspect of the Federal contracting... (More >)
UK Department of Health: Citizen Space
Sarah Wood at the UK Department of Health: “We recently ran a survey of our internal DH Citizen Space users. Citizen Space is the digital tool that DH and a number of other local and central Government Departments use to run their consultations. Overall, our survey results were positive with staff reporting they had found the tool relatively easy to use and access. The survey did flag some internal issues eg. visibility of the tool in the Department, minor technical issues etc, which we’re planning to address through better promotion of Citizen Space and training, but on the whole... (More >)
The Right Colors Make Data Easier To Read
Sharon Lin And Jeffrey Heer at HBR Blog: “What is the color of money? Of love? Of the ocean? In the United States, most people respond that money is green, love is red and the ocean is blue. Many concepts evoke related colors — whether due to physical appearance, common metaphors, or cultural conventions. When colors are paired with the concepts that evoke them, we call these “semantically resonant color choices.” Artists and designers regularly use semantically resonant colors in their work. And in the research we conducted with Julie Fortuna, Chinmay Kulkarni, and Maureen Stone, we found they... (More >)
Twenty-one European Cities Advance in Bloomberg Philanthropies' Mayors Challenge Competition to Create Innovative Solutions to Urban Challenges
Press Release: “Bloomberg Philanthropies today revealed the 21 European cities that have emerged as final contenders in its 2013-2014 Mayors Challenge, a competition to inspire cities to generate innovative ideas that solve major challenges and improve city life, and that ultimately can spread to other cities. One grand prize winner will receive €5 million for the most creative and transferable idea. Four additional cities will be awarded €1 million, and all will be announced in the fall. The finalists’ proposed solutions address some of Europe’s most critical issue areas: youth unemployment, aging populations, civic engagement, economic development, environment and... (More >)
In Belgium, speed camera locations are crowdsourced from citizens
Springwise: “As much as local authorities try to, they aren’t able to stop every single civic infraction because they only have a limited number of eyes on the street. However, smartphones have already enabled councils to crowdsource details of law breaches, through apps such as Parking Mobility that let users log when a driver is using a disabled parking bay without a licence. Now the ikflitsmee campaign in Belgium has encouraged citizens to send in locations where they believe speeding is a problem in order for the police to invest in safety measures. Open until April 10, anyone could... (More >)
