Alex Benay is the Chief Information Officer Government of Canada and an open and relentless advocate for digital government innovation. He is also the author of the new book, “Government Digital: The Quest to Regain Public Trust,” so we asked him to share his thoughts on the role of the CIO, Canada’s proactive move to technology modernization, and what it means for government to go digital.
To win in the Regulatory Era, founders, funders, executives, and policymakers will need to get smart about regulatory hacking.
In “Peace Through Entrepreneurship: Investing in a Startup Culture for Security and Development,” former State Department staffer Steven Koltai makes the case that world peace can best be achieved through nonmilitary means, especially entrepreneurship that leads to global job creation.
For public communications and engagement enthusiasts, Government Issue is a great coffee table book and perhaps point of inspiration for government leaders to re-think how to better communicate with constituents.
Whether you’re an agitated activist frustrated with the current state of politics, a civic hacker, government technology entrepreneur or public servant trying change the foundations of democracy from inside or out, “You’re More Powerful Than You Think” is an accessible guide for helping us all rethink what it means to have power and how to obtain it.
I finished reading Charles Duhigg’s latest book, “Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business,” and in it are two great government-related anecdotes around motivation and agile thinking.
Civic hacker icon Mark Headd has written a book to help government officials best engage with community technologists.
I finished Bill Eggers latest book, “Delivering on Digital: The Innovators and Technologies That Are Transforming Government,” and highly recommend to public sector technology practitioners, especially governments who don’t have the resources to contract with a high-end consulting firm to build out a holistic strategy on their own.
I’m reading Bill Eggers’ new book, “Delivering on Digital: The Innovators and Technologies That Are Transforming Government,” and wanted to share that it’s now available for purchase.
Former Chicago and District of Columbia transportation head Gabe Klein highlights eight lessons leaders should follow when building innovative approaches to better cities in his book “Start-Up City.”
For those who want to learn how government can become more engaged institutionally, both internally and externally, “The Open Organization” is the blueprint.
Grant cites two government originals, Central Intelligence Agency analyst Carmen Medina and U.S. Navy lieutenant Josh Steinman, who both worked to change traditional thinking within two large bureaucracies.
After reading Ashlee Vance’s new Elon Musk biography, I find myself wondering whether we should really worry about bad government websites, and instead chalk them up as inspiration for those who will change the world.
Continuing on my book cleaning spree, I wanted to highlight a few web product design and development books I’m getting rid of that are helpful for anyone focused on providing government digital services.
I’m doing some spring cleaning and parting ways with a number of my beloved government-focused books. Before I do, I wanted to share the ones I’m letting go of that I highly recommend to those involved in re-thinking the way government works, and its changing role given the way the world is evolving.
Much like “green” has done for the sustainability movement, the term “smart cities” has brought as much skepticism as enthusiasm for an ambiguous, over-marketed term used to describe the end product of the new urbanist movement.
Dave Eggers’ latest novel, “The Circle,” offers not-so-subtle social commentary on the increasing role technology companies play on our lives, for better or worse, and how our relationship with them could potentially impact what it means to be a citizen.
Finally finished reading Jason Hibbets’ “The Foundation for an Open Source City,” a must-read for anyone interested in building a strong civic community, whether you’re an elected official, public servant or citizen.
A Q&A with “The Solution Revolution” co-authors William D. Eggers and Paul Macmillan.
Jason Hibbetts is a great guy and a true leader in the open government community, and he is asking for your support in helping fund the first 500 copies of his upcoming book, “The Foundation for an Open Source City.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of a more structured approach to community with respect to the civic technology movement, which is why I picked up Brad Feld’s ‘Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City.’
There’s been a great deal of discussion around the value of civic apps contests, and now there’s a book for that.
I’ve been meaning to post something about Next Generation Democracy: What the Open-Source Revolution Means for Power, Politics, and Change for a long time now, but just haven’t had the time.
Stephen Goldsmith’s new book, The Power of Social Innovation: How Civic Entrepreneurs Ignite Community Networks for Good, written with Gigi Georges and Tim Glynn Burke, offers tools for innovative government and nonprofit professionals to develop and scale their new solutions to public problems. The book is based on Goldsmith’s experience as chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service for nine years under Presidents Bush and Obama, mayor of Indianapolis, and Professor of Government at Harvard Kennedy School. Relying also on interviews with more than 100 top leaders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors, The Power of Social Innovation features illustrative case studies of civic leaders and entrepreneurs and the catalyzing role each plays in transforming a community’s social service delivery systems. The excerpt below—taken from Chapter 5 “Animating and Trusting the Citizenâ€â€”highlights innovative ways that private citizens, nonprofits and government officials are using digital media to “crowd source†or otherwise engage their communities in decision making and actual participation in solving their shared challenges.
Looking back over the history of the United States, it is not just remarkable to see how 13 former colonies of the British Empire could come together to form what became the longest continuously functioning government in recorded history, but it is also incredible that such a durable government was set up as a republic. Until the United States, history records few examples of even moderately successful republics, and even those moderate successes were aided by factors external to the specific system of government employed. How, then, did the framers of the U.S. Constitution succeed in creating a republican-style government where so many had failed?
The federal government should fire me. Like the thousands of other contractors who develop software for government agencies, I am slow, overpaid, and out of touch with the needs of my customers. And I’m keeping the government from innovating.
In recent years, the government has become almost completely dependent upon contractors for information technology (IT). So deep is this dependency that the government has found itself in a position that may shock those in the tech industry: it has no programmers of its own; code is almost entirely outsourced. Government leaders clearly consider IT an ancillary function that can be offloaded for someone else to worry about.
If Gov 2.0 is the public servant Sisyphean task du jour, then If We Can Put a Man on the Moon … Getting Big Things Done in Government is the stocking stuffer of the season.
Authors William D. Eggers and John O’Leary wrote ‘If We Can Put a Man on the Moon …’ to answer one question:
What happens if you look at large government undertakings from a process perspective?
Two preview chapters from Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice are available for download. The book, available January 2010 from O’Reilly Media, is a “collection of essays, interviews, and case studies provides a multi-faceted and nonpartisan account of government as it becomes more transparent, collaborative, and participatory.”
Preview chapters include ‘Disrupting Washington’s Golden Rule’ by Ellen S. Miller and ‘Visualizing Policy and Politicians’ by Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg.
A new book, State of the eUnion: Government 2.0 and Onwards, is now available free for download. The book, a compilation of essays from 34 Gov 2.0 thought leaders, will soon be available in print through Amazon and elsewhere.
Free PDF download: State of the eUnion: Government 2.0 and Onwards
