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B&G REPORT.
The B&G Report features newsy items relating to a wide variety of state and local government management topics, including state and local performance audit, state and local performance management, government budgeting, state and local human resource issues, and a variety of other public sector issues.
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greenebarrett
3 min read
GENERATION Z: ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL
In conversations that we’ve had lately with people in human resources and elsewhere in government, we’ve found ourselves repeatedly...
greenebarrett
3 min read
DO YOU LOVE CITIES TOO?
We love cities. Though we moved out of Manhattan a few years ago for the little town of Bethel, Connecticut, we’ll live the rest of our...
greenebarrett
4 min read
WHEN CORRUPTION HITS SMALL CITIES
Walter Winchell, one of America’s most popular syndicated gossip columnists and radio commentators from the 1920s through the early 1960s...
greenebarrett
3 min read
WHY DO PEOPLE LAUGH WHEN WE TELL THEM WHAT WE DO?
When we attend social gatherings like weddings and are seated with people who don’t know us, one of the obligatory first questions...
greenebarrett
3 min read
NINE TIPS FOR IMPROVING MEETINGS
Over more than 30 years of covering state and local government, we can’t recall ever talking to a public sector manager who loved going...
greenebarrett
4 min read
THE ACADEMIC-GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS GAP
We spend a lot of time talking with government practitioners and a lot of time talking with academic researchers. We’ve often wondered...
greenebarrett
3 min read
OUR RESPONSE TO RESPONSE TIMES
When it comes to many vital public services, including police, fire and EMS, one of the primary – and sometimes the only – performance...
greenebarrett
4 min read
THE PERILS AND PRICE OF SPEEDY COMMUNICATIONS
We remember the exciting day when we bought our first IBM PC and a printer for $7,500 back in 1981. (Yes. You read that number right.)Â ...
greenebarrett
3 min read
WANT TO WRITE SO THAT OTHERS CAN USE WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN? HERE’s YOUR CHANCE!
In 1799 when Napoleon was bearing down on Egypt a stone slab was discovered that came to be called the Rosetta Stone. It bore text in...
greenebarrett
5 min read
WHY MANY STATE AND CITY RANKINGS DEFY REALITY
Back some years ago, when we first started to evaluate management capacity in states, counties, and cities for the now defunct Financial...
greenebarrett
3 min read
TOO MUCH DATA – TOO LITTLE TIME
Typically, when we hear about a city or state choosing not to gather more potentially useful data because it’s too time consuming, we...
greenebarrett
3 min read
FAILURE AS A KEY TO SUCCESS
We’ve just been catching up on one of our favorite podcasts, Freakonomics Radio, and came across a wonderful conversation with Samuel...
greenebarrett
3 min read
TASK FORCES: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
A few weeks ago, we wrote an item for this website about the executive orders that were pouring out of the offices of the nine most...
greenebarrett
2 min read
THE BLACK WEALTH DATA CENTER
A little over two years ago, as we were researching an IBM Center for the Business of Government report about lessons learned from the...
greenebarrett
4 min read
WANT TO GET YOUR STORY OUT? SIX TIPS FOR STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS
Over the course of years, we’ve given speeches about a variety of topics -- ranging from human resources to performance management to...
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