Video courtesy of TED.com Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has become one of the primary advocates for access to public data and its conversion to useful forms through innovative software applications. In this video, he showcases a number of examples developed by public and private agencies. Collaborative decisions require sound technical information […]

Image credit: Martin Bangemann – Fotolia.com Stephanie West Allen recently posted an informative article at Brains on Purpose on neuroscience research about the ways in which brains of people in different cultures function in distinctive ways. References to her own earlier posts, especially What’s Universal in Mediation, as well as the work of Geert Hofstede […]

Facilitation is too often an underrated art. Both the practice and its practitioners are often characterized with some disdain as all process, no substance. Yet, everyone knows facilitation is necessary for tough meetings when the room is expected to bristle with tension, and a lot of skill will be needed to get a good result. […]
Some Rights Reserved by Web2Expo at Blip.tv Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, presented his idea of cognitive surplus a couple of years ago, but it seems especially relevant to the current push toward open government, most notably by the Obama Administration but also by public agencies at […]

Image credit: fortunatas – Fotolia.com In response to the Open Government Directive, federal agencies have been meeting its many deadlines, though the quality of the results at this early stage has been uneven. Next is the April 7 deadline for publishing the Open Government Plans that will guide long-term implementation for each agency. A February […]
The collaborative approach to water resource planning has been growing over the past 15 years, especially where urban, agricultural and environmental needs are straining the local supplies. Like many other public water managers, the Sonoma County (California) Water Agency faced a decline in groundwater supply throughout the Sonoma Valley as pumping steadily increased because of […]