During a recent conversation with a peer and Master of Public Administration student, I realized there is a predicament in municipal administration. For soon-to-be MPAs, there is concern among some who would like to be city managers but are not interested in the...
In a May 2012 Wall Street Journal article, Leslie Kwoh warned that the term “innovation” was at risk of becoming cliché. To support her observation, she provided a number of examples, the most astonishing of which was a 64% increase in the number of times the word...
Hiring the wrong people costs too much. Here’s how to activate a recruiting process that will attract the right people to your talent bench? No business can afford a bad hire, or to retain employees who don’t perform because the cost of poor talent management...
It’s that time. Baby boomers are finally leaving their desks behind and signing up for AARP. A lot of these Boomers worked for the US Government and everyone knows that “government job” equals cement gray tile floors, cement gray desks, cement gray chairs, and cement...
Most local governments have been struggling with cash-strapped budgets and forcibly cutting within agencies and programs. These tight budgets and cuts may lead to poor infrastructure, a decreased access to services and programs, and ultimately, inadequate economic...
How many of us are fully engaged in our community? Do we simply see something wrong with our neighborhood and complain about it to our family or do we try to figure out how to get it fixed? When we hear of a law being proposed that don’t agree with (or do!) do we...
When I was in college in Liverpool I was fortunate to befriend one of those people that are all too rare in the world. Everybody loved Peter Morgan. His infectious likeability became the social lynch pin of our entire year group. His pranks were both ingenious and...
As humans we are comfortable with the familiar. We like big brands and name drop with pride (consciously and subconsciously). Exclaiming, “I drive a Mercedes insured by Geico, with music synced to my iPod, while sipping a can of Coke” is much different than declaring,...
Fact: There is a culture of contract management and acquisition within the federal government, state government and private contractor and vendor organizations, both domestic and international. But what is that culture? And, how is it defined? When you examine the...