Brookings Press Blog

Darrell West and Beth Noveck to Speak on Government 2.0 at the National Archives

On Thursday, November 5, the National Archives in Washington, D.C. will host the Fifth Annual William G. McGowan Forum on Communications, Technology, and Government. Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at Brookings and the author of Digital Medicine, will chair a panel discussion on “Web 2.0 Technologies and Participatory Democracy.” The other participants will include Beth Simone Noveck, U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government, and author of Wiki Government; Mark H. Webbink, visiting professor of law, New York Law School, and executive director, Center for Patent Innovations; Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder, Public Knowledge; and Jason R. Baron, director of litigation, National Archives and Records Administration.

- Learn more about the event

Virtual Book Tour: "The People Factor"

View an interview with Linda Bilmes

The Harvard Kennedy School Library runs an excellent series on its web site, offering a virtual book tour of titles by faculty members. Currently featured on the tour is an interview with Linda Bilmes, coauthor with Scott Gould of The People Factor. Check out the video clip for in-depth commentary about this book on strengthening public service in America.

- Learn more about The People Factor

- Check out The People Factor blog

Darrell West to Lead Discussion on Digital Technology and Health Care

On Thursday, October 8, Digital Medicine author Darrell West will moderate a policy forum at the Brookings Institution on “Consumer-Driven Medicine: How Digital and Mobile Technologies Can Improve Health Care.” Ellen Blackler, executive director of public policy for AT&T, and Dr. Karen Rheuban, medical director of the Office of Telemedicine at the University of Virginia Hospital, will join West to discuss the role that digital and mobile technologies can play in creating a more personalized system of health care that both improves quality and reduces costs.

- Register for the event.

- Listen to Darrell West’s conversation with David Kibbe and Rebecca Roberts on The Kojo Nnamdi Show, WAMU 88.5 FM.

Government goes ‘wiki’ in the 21st century

Beth Noveck, U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer, launches discussion on emergent online democracy

In an event hosted by the Markle Foundation, Beth Simone Noveck, author of Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful, led a 50-plus person discussion in New York City while the rest of the world connected via satellite to the MacArthur Island conference amphitheater in Second Life. This could very much be the model for modern government in the near future. Noveck, who is the Obama administration’s deputy Chief Technology Officer for the Open Government initiative, led a 30-minute discussion on ways the public can use emerging technologies and social media to govern, address, and solve problems more effectively. With the rise of multimedia networks such as YouTube, Twitter, and even blogs, Noveck believes that government can also tap into the emerging resource that connects the government to more citizens and broadens the prospects of open government.

In a visionary, yet pragmatic way, Wiki Government explains how the vision of a true democratic government can be transformed into reality and reveals the ways an innovative government can tackle the needs and opportunities of the 21st century.

- Learn more about Wiki Government

- Read articles on the event from the Markle Foundation and Second Life

HOPE VI and the New Promise of Public Housing in America’s Cities

Book launch hosted by current HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and former secretary Henry Cisneros

Among lessons learned, HOPE VI has taught us that replacing public housing with vouchers isn't always the best option for displaced families. “Many of them ended up in new ghettos of Section 8 because they took the path of least resistance and because landlords were unscrupulous and piled people on top of each other to get the money,” said Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under President Bill Clinton. “In some cases we didn’t improve people’s lives as we could have done,” he added. Today, current HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan faces many of the same challenges.

On July 14, the current and former HUD secretaries teamed together to host a discussion on the next steps for urban revitalization and opportunity. Secretary Donovan announced new funding for the current HOPE VI program and outlined the future of Choice Neighborhoods.

In the new book From Despair to Hope: Hope VI and the New Promise of Public Housing in America’s Cities, Cisneros and co-editor Lora Engdahl document the evolution of HOPE VI, one of the most ambitious urban redevelopment initiatives yet. The authors also chronicle the major federal effort to replace desolate public housing with mixed-income communities, and discuss the lessons learned.

- Learn more about the book, From Despair to Hope

- Read articles on the event from CQ Politics and Next American City

Steven Kelman and Henry J. Aaron: Authors in the News

In the realm of research, Washington Post writer Joe Davidson asserted that many studies on how to improve the federal government “plow the same ground and can be as dull as a worn rug.” However, in the July 8 article “Leaders Who Succeeded – And Those Who Didn’t”, Davidson cites one recent study led by Steven Kelman, author of Unleashing Change: A Study of Organizational Renewal in Government for its innovation. The study, titled “What It Takes to Change Government” [pdf], breaks new ground by examining failed, rather than successful, government leaders. Kelman and others found that failed politicians “spent too much time hobnobbing with other bigwigs and not enough time with people on the shop or office floor,” according to Davidson.

On the same day, the Washington Post published an article titled “In Retooled Health-Care System, Who Will Say No?” regarding the ever-evolving health care debate. One of the largest questions looming seems to be, as staff writer Alec Gillis puts it, “In a country where ‘rationing’ is a dirty word, who will say no?” In his study of the issue, Gillis turned to Henry J. Aaron, co-author of Can We Say No? The Challenge of Rationing Health Care. According to Gillis, Aaron said that “real cost reform would mean giving all physicians incentives to leave behind the fee-for-service model for accountable care networks,” a transition that could take some time. Asserting the reality of the situation, Aaron claimed, “We're just not going to be able to all have everything . . . regardless of cost.”

- Learn more about Unleashing Change

- Read Joe Davidson’s article “Leaders Who Succeeded – And Those Who Didn’t”

- Read "What It Takes to Change Government," the report co-authored by Steven Kelman [pdf]

- Learn more about Can We Say No?

- Read Alex Gillis’ article “In Retooled Health-Care System, Who Will Say No?”

Beth Noveck interviewed on government transparency

Author discusses transparency as means of driving innovation with Government Technology

With the White House blog publishing new posts nearly every day and the accompanying Twitter feed boasting more than 670,000 followers, it seems that the “open government initiative” may be succeeding. In a July 6 interview with Steve Towns, editor of the news collective Government Technology, Beth Noveck discussed local, state, and federal governments’ current transparency efforts in a digital age. Noveck, author of Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful, cited the blog and Twitter feed for the Office of Science and Technology Policy as one example of the successful integration of technology and government issues. On the simplicity and ease with which governments can utilize technology, Noveck had the following to say:

“Many of these tools are cheap. They're free. They're easy to maintain. It's just a matter of being ready and willing to put a toe in the water and say, ‘We're going to try this, and we're going to see what works for us and really try to adapt new innovations.’”

- Learn more about Wiki Government

- Read and watch the full interview with Beth Noveck

What will America do without skilled workers?

The People Factor cited in the Federal Times

“A survey of federal agencies commissioned by Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, discovered that between 1997 and 2000, federal agencies spent about 1.9 percent of their financial payroll on training, while the private sector spends 4 percent and leading organizations even more,” stated a recent article in the Federal Times. With the economic slowdown, there is heightened need for skilled workers in the United States, but with the continuous downsizing of even the wealthiest firms, companies are tempted to downsize their human resources also. But is this truly possible? What repercussions await a great country with workers of little skill? The People Factor: Strengthening America by Investing in Public Service, by former Commerce Department Assistant Secretary Linda Bilmes and W. Scott Gould, deputy secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, addresses the issue.

So what can America do to increase its number of skilled workers? The People Factor argues that the country cannot prosper without a strong, highly functioning federal work force to manage the government. Bilmes and Gould call for a $10 billion investment to improve recruiting, better training and enhanced management of the federal workforce predicting that the investment will yield $300-$600 billion in productivity gains.

In an age where human resources remain the most important factor for global growth, The People Factor urges the nation to invest in its greatest resource—public service.

- Get more information on The People Factor

- Learn about America’s “people factor” in the full article by Tim Kauffman of the Federal Times

Reforming the Primary Process: Author Elaine Kamarck shares perspective

“Democratic Change Commission” hosts Kamarck at public meeting

It’s an off year between presidential election seasons, so the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee have begun to discuss, once again, the many issues entangling the presidential primary elections. According to a Washington Post article on Sunday, June 28, Primary Politics: How Presidential Candidates Have Shaped the Modern Nominating System author Elaine Kamarck added her own opinion to the debate at a public meeting held by the “Democratic Change Commission.” Speaking before an audience of political elites, Kamarck suggested that superdelegates be eliminated from the primary process, a controversial stance that garnered a mixed response. From the article, Kamarck argued that “the selection of presidential nominees is now a public process and has eliminated the need for elites who could assert themselves in the equivalent of a back-room role.”

Kamarck’s Primary Politics, which explores how the presidential primary process became the complex, often confusing system that it is today, will be published this July.

- Read the Washington Post's "There They Go Again: Fixing the Primary Process"

- Learn more about Primary Politics

What happens when mayors take charge of schools?

School governance in the city

Public schools have been a source of contention when deciding who controls what in school districts. The Economist and The Detroit News take advice from Joseph Viteritti, editor of When Mayors Take Charge: School Governance in the City, in their reports on mayoral control of public schools. When Mayors Take Charge investigates cases of mayoral control in New York, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C. The Economist's "Mayoral control of schools in New York: Political prisoners" asserts that “lawmakers in Albany are not thinking about New York’s children or any of their constituents at the moment.” Correspondingly, The Detroit News comments in "Mayoral control of Detroit schools debated" that “parents and constituents are frustrated with what they perceive to be the incompetence of the 11-member school board they fought to elect, ending the 1999-2005 mayoral control.”

Viteritti pools insight from leading experts on how to tackle the factors behind the development of mayoral control and possible ways to improve the system as well its prospects for the future. He is the Blanche D. Blank Professor of Public Policy at Hunter College, CUNY. He previously served as special assistant to the chancellor of schools in New York and as senior adviser to superintendents in Boston and San Francisco. He was also recently the executive director of the Commission on School Governance in New York.

In When Mayors Take Charge, the urgent problem of low-performing urban schools is expertly sliced and diced by a band of historians and political scientists. Policy elites and street-level reformers need to know that mayoral control does matter to democratic participation and managerial efficiency but not necessarily to students' test scores. —Larry Cuban, Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University

- Learn more about When Mayors Take Charge

- Read the articles from The Economist and The Detroit News