Stephen Goldsmith

Recent Articles

• The Lessons of the 2009 Elections
• Nov 5, 2009
• News stories from many national reporters suggest the 2009 elections amount to a statement about the Obama presidency. Maybe, but in mayor and governor races local...

• Expensive Elections
• Nov 4, 2009
• In Atlanta and Houston, mayoral races failed to produce a candidate with a majority, meaning both cities will have to conduct costly "runoff" elections between...
• 1 Comments

• Outsourcing, Insourcing, Rightsourcing
• Oct 21, 2009
• If you outsourced your angels, would more of them dance on the head of a pin? It's a nonsense question, of course. Here's another: What...
• 2 Comments

• Massive shortfalls in Massachusetts
• Oct 20, 2009
• Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick recently announced plans to lay off up to 2,000 state workers, as the Bay State joins the growing list of states in...
• 1 Comments

• Tough Choices
• Oct 20, 2009
• All public managers are aware of the Washington Monument ploy--where the agency faced with a deficit threatens to close an iconic or critical public activity...

• Jonathan Walters on the Culture of Innovation
• Oct 19, 2009
• Jonathan Walters of Governing magazine has been writing about state and local innovation for more than 20 years. He recently sat down with John O'Leary, executive...
• 1 Comments

• Making Data Sharing Possible
• Oct 15, 2009
• A few years ago Harvard Kennedy School recognized the Department of Justice Global HTML project that simply by defining data protocols dramatically improved the ability...

• The Difficult Path to Electronic Health Records
• Sep 29, 2009
• They will produce better outcomes. But building this 'network of networks' will be complicated.

• Putting Citizens First
• Sep 29, 2009
• The notion of organizing government services around customer needs has been around for a long time--but mostly in the form of a hoped for goal...

• Information for Innovation
• Sep 23, 2009
• Last week, Harvard Kennedy School through its Innovations in American Government Awards Program recognized a group of government programs for their contribution to the public...

• Some Good News for a Change
• Sep 14, 2009
• Anyone looking for inspiration would have found it at the Innovations in American Government Awards dinner, held tonight in Washington DC. I wish I could...

• Six Public Innovations Honored
• Sep 14, 2009
• Without innovation there is stagnation. While much of the media focus belongs to those public endeavors that belly-flop, the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and...

• For Labor Day, a few words from organized labor
• Sep 7, 2009
• In honor of Labor Day, we are happy to share with readers a column from Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union....