Getting in the Know

By Sarah Ruen Blanchard

https://www.vitesse.com

Administrators and public policy leaders often have a natural inclination to keep up on “the news” – local, state, national, and international. I’ve compiled my Top Eight sites for getting the latest news on government and policy issues. (Why eight instead of ten? Well, I primarily only use these eight, and they offer more than enough news to satisfy any wonk).

1.       National Public Radio (NPR)

Radio is my preferred news medium because it minimizes exposure to gratuitous and sensationalized content. Public radio offers an unbiased, rich information resource. I enjoy both the national and state affiliate programs. (Unfortunately a longstanding NPR program of particularly high caliber, Talk of the Nation, is soon to be cancelled).

Find it online: www.npr.org, www.cpr.org

Find it on Twitter: @nprnews, @totn, @COPublicRadio

2.       The Economist

If your career includes a national or international focus, The Economist offers an unmatched global perspective that rarely disappoints, and offers intriguing, easy-to-read articles.

Find it online: www.economist.com

Find it on Twitter: @TheEconomist

If I didn’t hear it on NPR or read it in The Economist, I probably read it on a Twitter feed.

3.       POLITICO

Whether you’re located in Washington, D.C. or you just have a need to keep up on national politics and legislative happenings, POLITICO is in the know.

Find it online: www.politico.com

Find it on Twitter: @politico

4.       Denver Post

If you don’t follow your local newspaper, you should! Print news may be a dying art form, but the news business is thriving in e-mediums. The Denver Post delivers customized breaking news alerts straight to my inbox every day.

Find it online: www.denverpost.com

Find it on Twitter: @denverpost

The next two don’t require much explanation – they’re the primary source for all news, but I find their Tweets particularly informative.

5. Reuters

Find it online: www.reuters.com

Find it on Twitter: @Reuters

6. Associated Press

Find it online: www.ap.org

Find it on Twitter: @AP

The last two are my go-to sources for energy news.

7.       E&E News

If you work in the energy field, this is the one news subscription service you need to invest in.

Find it online: www.eenews.net

Find it on Twitter: @EEPublishing

8.       Bloomberg NEF

Bloomberg acquired New Energy Finance in 2009. I first came in contact with a BNEF reporter in 2011, he was very professional and well-informed and I’ve been following their reporting ever since.

Find it online: www.bnef.com

Find it on Twitter: @BloombergNEF

If you decide to pick up any of these Twitter, RSS, HTML, print, or radio news sources, let me know how you like them! Find me on Twitter: @sruenb

Ministerium Super Se: Reflecting Upon Oneself to Enable Service

http://www.salesprogress.com

By Sarah Ruen Blanchard

The Latin phrase ministerium super se translates to “service above self.” Civil servants and government leaders have always understood this mantra, but there’s more to it than a commitment to the public good. We cannot deliver on service if we ignore the importance of reflection and care for oneself.

We ask our leaders to be personable, energetic, and proactive, in addition to being generalists and specialists that deliver efficient and effective solutions for our citizens every day. These qualities sought by the public service are lofty, but it is a selfless commitment to others that drives successful public administrators.

As managers, we must trust proven pathways that enable collaborative processes, allowing us to free up our frenetic field of vision to focus in on the decisions that are within our span of influence and control. Without creating these opportunities for thoughtful examination, we lose sight of what innovations we could otherwise offer to our field due to fatigue.

With frugal public budgets, staffing constraints, and limited access to the latest technological services, it can seem that time is not a commodity of abundance. Yet, time is always elusive; and self-reflection and continuous learning is the only way that we can lend tempered, thoughtful, and caring judgment to our daily tasks.

“Service above self” is the mantra of our profession, and self-reflection enables our commitment.

On Deck: Election Reform in America

During President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address he announced “a nonpartisan commission to improve the voting experience in America.” He didn’t fully explain what the problems are with the “voting experience,” but one can surmise some of the features of our electoral process deserve attention:

• Low Voter Turnout. Approximately 52-62 percent of eligible voters have participated in recent presidential elections, and participation in Congressional elections is typically lower.
• Voter Demographics Not Reflective of the Electorate. The majority of voters in recent elections have been married, white people. While the U.S. made notable strides in reaching a representative voter turnout in 2012, the demographics are not yet representative of the eligible electorate.
• A Negative, Costly Campaign Enterprise: The Federal Election Commission revealed that the 2012 presidential campaign cost the country $7 billion; and only one of more than 300 registered candidates requested public campaign funds. We need to evaluate what this significant shift means for voters, particularly in light of voters’ feeling that the 2012 campaign was more negative than usual.
• Antiquated Voting Process. You can open a bank account and transfer funds online, submit your taxes online, and renew your
  

  http://blogs.scientificamerican.com

  vehicle registration online, but you can’t vote online. There’s nothing wrong with taking time out of your day to do your civic duty, but 37 percent of voters participated in the 2012 election before Election Day. Voter fraud will always be a risk no matter what system we employ, but are you going to tell me that American ingenuity can produce 3-D printers and cloud computing, but not secure online voting?

• Miscalculation of Votes. No one wants to relive Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000); enough said.

The President was right to not spend precious airtime dwelling on these challenges and others. That will be left to the Commission.

We certainly can’t, and wouldn’t want to, force people to vote, but we also haven’t made the process “user-friendly.” What I would like to offer are two suggestions for the President’s Commission on Election Administration—suggestions for not only improving the American experience on Election Day (which is purported to be the Commission’s focus), but also for supporting civic participation by easing candidate evaluation and the burden of the campaign process.

Performance Scorecards: Yes, this is tricky because too much of public service is politicized. However, I like to think that there are nonpartisan measures of performance for which any elected official could be held accountable. These statistics should be made clearly visible to voters from an unbiased source (I believe those do exist somewhere). Just a few examples, but I’d like to know the percentage of votes for which my Congresspersons were present on the floor; the number of times they abstained; and the number of bills they introduced that were passed in Committee or brought to the floor for a vote. While votes and bills are not the definitive indicator of a job well done, they are certainly two of the key activities we might reasonably expect our elected officials to participate in as part of their job. Another idea: since none of the candidates want public campaign funds, perhaps we can use that money to fund a nonpartisan entity to be the delivery portal for this information – that’s critical – we need one unequivocally accurate and trusted national source for this scorecard as a resource for voters. (If this already exists feel free to let me know @sruenb).

iVote App: There’s got to be an app for that – there’s an app for everything. Can someone please deliver online voting so that we can get on with the business of why we hold elections? This type of e-solution would be likely to improve voter demographic data analysis capability that could yield additional efficiencies across the campaigning and electoral process. Shouldn’t a goal of electoral reform be to reduce the costs (financial and technical) of becoming an elected official? There’s so much focus on the process of an election that our officials are having a hard time focusing on the reward of an election—getting to do their job.

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Community of State: Where the Legislative Action Is

teapartytribune.com

By Sarah Ruen Blanchard

The 112^th Congress (2012-2013) is undeniably a do-little Congress. This is not news if you’ve been living on planet Earth. What is news are the understated, progressive actions that so many state governments have made to advance public policy in recent years in the absence of strong federal legislative leadership.

Just before President Obama initiated his 23 Executive Orders on gun control, and long before the U.S. Congress began to put pen to paper on this issue, New York State legislators passed the most comprehensive gun control legislation in the country.

In the absence of comprehensive national energy policy, nearly 34 states have enacted a renewable portfolio standard (or goal).

Governor after governor in their 2013 State of the State addresses have noted new funding for education reform after eleven years have lapsed since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed.

These state policies are mere examples of the ways in which states are eclipsing the federal government in implementing meaningful measures for the public benefit. Even under immense budgetary pressures, states are doing more with less and embodying the ‘efficient, effective’ government model.

While there is wide speculation that each of these important domestic issues will be addressed in the second term of Barak Obama’s presidency it remains to be seen when Congress will act, and what the real, or perceived, value in those actions will be to those outside the Beltway.

What examples of state legislative leadership and regional collaboration have you witnessed in recent years focused on shared national challenges? Let’s start a conversation. @sruenb #federalism.

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Sarah Ruen Blanchard is a member of ASPA’s Colorado Chapter. She is the Policy Analysis Manager for BCS, a government consulting company, in Denver, Colorado. Prior to joining BCS, she served as an International Relations Specialist at the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. She has a BA in Political Philosophy from Cornell College; and received her MPA, with an Award for Academic Merit, from the University of Miami in 2006. She also served as the Secretary for the South Florida Chapter of ASPA during 2005-06.

Madam President? Leadership in Asia, the U.S.

This week, South Koreans elected Park Geun-hye to be their first female president.   Throughout her campaign, Ms. Park noted her sex as an asset for the position of leader the fourth largest economy in Asia. Yet, as the country’s economic growth slows and the intentions of the young, new North Korean dictator begin to unfold, Ms. Park faces significant challenges as she begins her term in office. She is, however, in good company among other rising women leaders in Asia:

In 2011, Thailand also elected their first female Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra. Interestingly, Ms. Yingluck earned her Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Kentucky State University.

India’s first female president, Pratibha Patil, just completed her term in July 2012. More women have begun serving as government leaders in India following a Constitutional amendment in 1993 reserving one-third of the seats in India’s village governing bodies for women.

The Philippines has had two female presidents, including politically-charged Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo serving most recently from 2001-2010.

One cannot leave out mention of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s only female Prime Minister, who served two terms in the late 80s / early 90s, and may have served another if not for her assassination in 2007 just before the 2008 election. (Aside: Pakistan is in South Asia, though often referenced as part of the Middle East).

China—Asia’s largest economy and one of the world’s largest economies—has long been uncomfortable with the idea of female leadership. One of the most well-known women leaders in China was Jiang Qing (“Madame Mao”), who took her own life in 1991, during her imprisonment for atrocities of the Cultural Revolution. Recently, worries have surfaced about the dynamism of the wife of the new Communist Party Leader, Peng Liyuan. The new First Lady is a singer-model-TV personality, and is well-known to the Chinese people, which is worrisome to the conventionalist party leaders. Nonetheless, women are engaged in Chinese politics and hold government positions, but do not often ascend to the highest ranks.

As the largest economy in the world, the United States is woefully behind in appointing women to the  highest office in the nation, though there has already been speculation that 2016 will deliver a female candidate for office. According to Reuters, “Catalyst research showed that sponsorship is critical to advancing women, as is the commitment of current leadership.” Though this research focuses on women in corporate leadership roles, there is clear applicability to government and political roles as well. “Sponsorship” involves influential professionals propelling the success of female achievers. Many of these aforementioned women leaders in Asia received “sponsorship” from their politically-prominent families and husbands – a trend that could grow in the U.S. as political royalty franchises, such as the Kennedys, Clintons, and Bushes, continue to weigh heavily on voters. Whether or not this is the most appropriate means for women to gain positioning for influential offices, for the time being, it seems to remain a prerequisite for having the opportunity in many parts of the world.

 

Public Administration and Marketing

By Sarah Blanchard

Yes, These Words Belong in the Same Sentence

marketingsystemblueprints.com

If you work in a public sector organization and are thinking that you may need some marketing skills don’t feel depraved. Marketing is not a profit-driving force aimed at manipulating the populace.  For the purposes of our work as public administrators, marketing is no more than having an industry recognized set of tools for conducting stakeholder outreach, disseminating public information, and ensuring the efficient and effective distribution of public benefits.

The type of marketing skills I’m referencing are not those related to campaigning and public relations for political candidates, but rather those needed by federal, state, and local officials aiming to better serve the public good.

Public administrators should not be faulted for lacking important marketing skills when the agencies that employ them are not recruiting professionals with these skills and when the discipline of marketing does  not immediately connect with public sector professionals to demonstrate the applicability of these skills to their work.

There are several challenges to integrating marketing principles into public sector professions. One is speed. Historically, governments do not operate in a particularly time-sensitive environment and often do not have the freedom to act quickly within bureaucratic systems.

Another challenging aspect of public sector outreach is the desire of political leaders to apply ‘spin’ to otherwise a-political marketing messages. This not only dilutes the value of otherwise informative messages for the public, but also diminishes the motivation of administrators to even pursue outreach.

Additionally, the public is a vast and infinitely diverse target market. Developing marketing and outreach approaches for individual target segments may seem daunting, but that’s part of the skill set needed by public administrators. Training in marketing can yield capabilities for identifying who your primary stakeholder types are, where to “find them”, and how to develop pathways for interacting with them that lead to desired outcomes.

Lastly, justifying the costs of marketing activities in government is challenging, though no more or less so than in the private sector. The important thing to do is to track outcomes through whatever measures are most meaningful to key decision-makers.

Successful marketing in the public sector does not, of course, result in increased profits, but it offers us the ability to:

• Expand engagement with the communities we serve;
• Increase support for and participation in important government initiatives;
• Build partnerships that leverage resources and boost economic development; and
• Demonstrate the effective use of taxpayer dollars.

Even with these projected benefits, marketing skills are still undervalued by government employers; but public administrators looking to expand their impact in our profession should seek opportunities to flex their marketing skills and continue bring our government into the 21^st century (let’s not pretend that we’re fully there yet!)

Public Administration Degree Holds Promise amid the Strained Higher Education Bubble

By Sarah Blanchard

Let’s start with the facts:

1. The average cost for tuition, room, and board for a private college is more than $32,000 per year.
2. Tuition rates are increasing by more than 5% per year.
3. The average Bachelor’s degree graduate leaves campus with more than $20,000 in debt; a Master’s degree student departs with more than $55,000 in debt.
4. The average salary of a young adult with a Bachelor’s degree is $45,000.
5. More than half of all young adults with a degree are currently unemployed or underemployed.

These facts are undoubtedly alarming and are impacting the decisions that many soon-to-be and current college students and their families are making about the way in which they’ll pursue prosperity in America in the coming years. The higher education bubble is about to burst. Colleges are getting less public funding and families are struggling to offer their children the opportunities afforded by a college education.

But this is America, the land of opportunity – home to an individualistic philosophy that yields ingenuity and perseverance. Since our founding, we have faced a myriad of unique political, social, and economic challenges that emerge over time.

Today, however, we have widespread access to data and information about socio-economic factors that can easily be sensationalized to incite self-doubting fraught that holds hostage the creative and ambitious spirit of our populace. Although instant access to information can lead to these unfortunate side effects, it remains one of the most valuable and significant advancements propelling our society in recent years.

In addition to the facts noted above that indicate steep challenges ahead for higher education and employment in the U.S., there are also indicators of opportunities on the horizon – particularly for students of public policy, public administration, government affairs, and political science.

The median household income in the U.S. is just over $51,000 a year[i] , but the average salary of a political scientist is nearly double that at more than $100,000[ii].

In addition to the healthy income that those in our profession are enjoying, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management indicates that the field of public administration, among others, is “highly dependent on baby-boom workers” and that “retirements could rise considerably in the public administration and educational services industries” as we move towards 2016.[iii]

Initial forecasts had indicated a sharp increase in baby-boomer retirements beginning in 2005-06, but many have delayed retirement due to economic constraints resulting from poor market performance of 401(k) and other retirement investments, as well as the increase to the social security retirement age that began to take effect in 2000.[iv]

Thus it’s not unrealistic to think that the full effect of the anticipated mass retirement of the baby-boomer generation is yet impending; and that as those changes take place in the next 5-10 years, there will continue to be opportunities for graduates in public administration.

Photo Caption: eduinreview.com, thecommonwealth.org

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[i] http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

[ii] http://education-portal.com/articles/Average_Salary_of_a_Political_Science_Major.html

[iii] http://aging.senate.gov/crs/pension36.pdf

[iv] http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/IncRetAge.html

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[i] http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76

[ii] http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2012-06-13/college-costs-surge/55568278/1

[iii] http://www.finaid.org/loans/

[iv] http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=77

[v] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/53-of-recent-college-grads-are-jobless-or-underemployed-how/256237/