Starting next week things are going to get busy for a few days. I’ve a number of upcoming talks and would be interested in feedback, stories, ideas for any and/or all of them.
Future of the Public Service: I will be doing a series of lectures/seminars on the future of the public service for Health Canada in Vancouver, Ottawa, Edmonton and possibly Montreal or Toronto in mid-march. I’ve got a number of ideas and themes I intend to talk on – technology, generational change, and open source – but am of course always looking for others.
If you have a story or an article suggestion please do pass them along. Personal stories of frustration and angst, or conversely success and empowerment, in the public service are always deeply appreciated.
US NOW panel: I’ll be part of a panel discussion at a screening of Us Now, a documentary that tells the stories of online networks that are challenging the existing notion of hierarchy.
When: FEB 20th 2009 — 7pm
Where: SFU Harbour Centre — Room 1900
You can register (for free!) here.
Northern Voice: Finally, I’ll be doing a presentation with Rebecca Bollwitt on Dealing with angry comments, Trolls, Spammers, and Sock Puppets at this year’s Northern Voice.
Northern Voice is a two-day, non-profit personal blogging and social media conference held annually in Vancouver.
When: February 20th and 21st
Where: Forestry Sciences Centre, 2424 Main Mall, UBC main campus
You can register for Northern Voice here.
Thoughts, ideas, articles and other inspirations on any or all of these are always welcome!
eaves.ca 
David,I have a good list of stories; you choose…- working with UNESCO & WikiEd in building Open Educational Resources- working with Memorial University in faculty development toward using Open technologies and approaches- working with ICBC in crossing organizational boundaries with Communities of Practice and Social Media- International collaborations with Commonwealth of Learning in developing ICDL curriculum- Others is you want…Might be best to have a skype conversation (peter.rawsthorne) and you record to MP3… IMO most effective use of time
David,Future of the Public Service stories: That the Govt should share data and everybody use it ( the 2005-6 TTC story) is a solid example. The Bowen roads tool thread is a little different: an example of ground-up data production that impacts governance. As I worked on this project with 2 others, I can give details on this if you like.
If you're talking about the future of the pubic service and especially Health Canada then I'd suggest they need to get oriented to climate change adaptation. Australia is a sobering reminder. There is significant work that's been done by some Health Canada staff and other departments but its very silo-ed and needs to become a planning lens.There was an excellent, if terrifying, conference in Washington State this week largely focusing on the Health agencies and general public service preparation. Decent write-up in the Seattle P-I: “State not ready for 'climate refugees' — Scientists warn of migration, sickness” Link is here:http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/399958_clim…And worth noting that the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness which hosts the annual World Conference on Disaster Management is doing this year's chinwag on “A Climate for Change.”
Hi Dave,A few things you might want to emphasize in your public service talk:1. Recruitment. I know you know all about this, but it's a HUGE issue. Huge. I've only been around this world for about 8 years, but in that time I've heard countless times how the emerging retirements are going to increase the need for public servants etc etc. (you know the drill). However, save for a couple marginal programs, I've seen little change in recruitment processes and timelines. Instead, people just go around the system, which isn't fair for those who don't know how to navigate it (and counter to the spirit of the creation of these processes to begin with). This beast needs to be slayed.As an aside, I'd also be interested in how these needs correspond by job type. At these senior level talks, people, I think, have an image of policy wonk-types in Ottawa, where I'd imagine the true needs are much wider and require varied recruitment techniques (i.e., not just going to universities). Neat piece in the HBR from awhile back on how Southwest goes about recruiting flight attendants that might be a good example of thinking outside the box.2. The Accountability Act. With the world economy in a tailspin and gvts in a position to do some extremely important work, wouldn't you think tons of people would be storming to work there (like Google and the internet?). There are a number of reasons for this, but one of the major impediments in Ottawa is the AA. It's provisions make it practically impossible for someone to leave a job, say, at a bank, to come work in Finance to figure out how they're going to actually get these infrastructure dollars flowing from two budgets ago, never mind the most recent one, and return to their original job. Terrible, terrible legislation that served a political purpose and, unless altered, will weaken/eliminate the ability anyone who might want to come into gvt to do so for a period of time and then return to their previous career. The best thing any gvt who claims to believe in public service could do would be to repeal or revise that legislation.3. Culture. I don't need to go on about this, but you're example about the mailroom at the Globe and Mail as compared to the public service cannot be emphasized enough. Maybe some open data projects will nudge things in the right direction, but the challenge is wider and will require changes in mgmt communication, team structures and composition and likely many other things that I'm not nearly smart enough to know about!!