Dan Chenok

Over the past decade, the federal government has systematically increased the use of evidence-based, data-driven approaches in decision making, sometimes called “Moneyball for Government.” These efforts embrace traditional fields such as program evaluation, but now include the use of open data, business analytics, and social and behavioral sciences for describing problems, predicting needs, and testing new approaches.

Innovation plays a key role in government transformations at all levels. Over the past several years, governments have increasingly established chief technology officers, chief innovation officers, chief data officers, entrepreneurs-in-residence, and simi­lar roles to promote new approaches to innovation.

Today, the IBM Center for The Business of Government is pleased to release the report, Mitigating Risks in the Application of Cloud Computing in Law Enforcement, by Paul Wormeli, Executive Director Emeritus, IJIS Institute.

Over the coming weeks and months, perhaps no issue will dominate the attention of leaders in Washington like reaching a deal to address the “fiscal cliff”.  The components of these discussions are well-known:  sequestration if a budget deal does not find sufficient savings to reduce the deficit over the next 10 years, tax increases across a range of areas, a looming debt ceiling deadline in early 2013, and the need to pass the annual 2013 budget as opposed to the current continuing resolution. 

 - to move to a new model of managing activities from a cross-program view, leveraging resources to more effectively serve a citizen or business.

We intend to look at a variety of emerging trends, offer innovative approaches to address challenges today and tomorrow, and update a number of widely read reports from prior election cycles.  We hope to engage in a dialogue with government and industry leaders, and welcome broad and deep discussion going forward.

In the last several years, the focus on innovation as a core driver to government performance and transformation has increased significantly.  The role of Chief Technology Officers, and new positions of Chief Innovation Officers and new Innovation offices in a number of agencies, pose challenges for leaders regarding how best leverage this burgeoning areas of expertise.  In that light, the Center for The Business of Government is enhancing its focus on innovation as a key element in helping government solve hard problems.

Kevin C. Desouza’s “Challenge.gov: Using Competitions and Awards to Spur Innovation,” examines the cross-government electronic platform, Challenge.gov, through which agencies can pose problems and challenge the public to provide solutions.

Cutting-edge government leaders are constantly seeking new and innovative ways to solve public problems. The opportunity facing government managers is to find these new approaches.

 to meet very specific needs.

The concept of corporate responsibility covers a broad spectrum of corporate “give back” including governance, social responsibility, philanthropy and, most recently sustainability.  Generally, corporate responsibility focuses on an individual organization’s relationship with its community, stakeholders, and customers, and the way in which it contributes to the world around it beyond profit and shareholder value -- sharing and contributing to something bigger than the immediate economic well being of the organization. 

Much attention is being paid to Federal budget shortfalls -- but state and local government, who are the agents of management and delivery for many essential programs that benefit the public, face a major challenge in maintaining sound public services with a dwindling resource base.