Archive

REINVENTION EXPRESS

December 4, 1996 Vol. 2, No. 21

An Information Sheet for Federal Communicators, Managers, Workers, and Their Partners--Pass It On

Three Innovative Federal Programs Win $100,000 Prize

Three federal programs were among ten government programs that received a 1996 Innovations in American Government Award and $100,000 from the Ford Foundation in a ceremony in Washington, DC on December 3.

In presenting the awards, Vice President Gore reached out to "every government manager--every government worker, everywhere." He said, "Make it your job to reinvent government." (Full speech will be on NPR's Web site at http://www.npr.gov as soon as the transcript is available. Click on "News Room.") The federal winners are:

Consolidated Planning/Community Connections/Department of Housing and Urban Development--facilitates citizen participation in community development planning and replaces cumbersome reporting requirements. More than 1,000 pages of paperwork were eliminated for participating communities. Contact Karen Hinton at (202) 708-2690.
No Sweat: Eradicating Sweatshops/Department of Labor--helps prevent the exploitation of workers in the garment industry. It enlists the voluntary cooperation of industry leaders, maximizes the Department's enforcement efforts, and raises public awareness. The program has collected $8.4 million in back wages over the past three years. Call Suzanne Seiden at (202) 219-8305.
Consequence Assessment Tool Set (CATS)/Federal Emergency Management Agency--uses computer modeling system adapted from cold war defense research. It predicts damage and speeds the delivery of emergency aid to areas devastated by disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes by giving managers more timely and relevant data. Contact Mr. Adrian Linz at (202) 646-3349 or e-mail: alinz@fema.gov.

Selected from more than 1,550 applicants, the winning programs exemplify new models of government working effectively to provide innovative solutions to pressing social and economic problems. The solutions save money, streamline, services, help underserved populations, find novel uses for new technologies, or overcome bureaucratic gridlock. The program is sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Four other federal programs were among the finalists that received $20,000. The programs are Disability Services Team/Social Security Administration, Evaluating Oral Proposals in Major Government Procurements/Transportation, Federal Direct Student Loan Program/ Education, and U.S. Export Assistance Centers/Commerce.

The deadline for 1997 applications is January 8, 1997. Call (617) 495-0558. Full information on the program, including an application form that can be downloaded, is on the Web at http://ksgwww.harvard.edu/innovat/. We also link from http://www.npr.gov.

NPR's Web Site Is Named One of 1,001 Best

PC Computing Magazine (December 1996) named the National Performance Review's web site (http://www.npr.gov) as one of 1,001 Best. It was one of 14 federal sites selected. NPR's recently overhauled site is a government reinventor's cyberfriend. It has a search engine and more than 3,000 documents--everything from the latest reinvention tool box to the earliest NPR reports. It has databases on NPR recommendations, reinvention labs, and Hammer Awards. It also has links to reinvention documents all over government. Contact Pat Wood at (202) 632-0223 or pat.wood@npr.gsa.gov.

New, Popular Resource Guide Is Online

One of NPR's most popular publications--Reaching Public Goals: Managing Government for Results--is on NPR's web site at http://www.npr.gov/library/papers/bkgrd/cover.html. This new resource guide is NPR's response to the growing demand from government at all levels for resources and information on accountability, performance, and managing for results. You may get a free, single hard copy from NPR's John Keith, (202) 632-0189; Fax--(202) 632-0390, or john.keith@npr.gsa.gov. You may purchase it in bulk from the Government Printing Office. The stock number is 040-000-00680-0 and the price is $7.50 each; non-US, $9.38. GPO offers a 25 percent discount for orders of 100 or more. Order by phone: (202) 512-1800, fax: (202) 512-2250; or Internet: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/sale/order001.html.

Blue Pages Reinvention Effort Gets Hammer Award

More than 200 federal employees representing 25 agencies received the Vice President's Hammer Award on November 15 for their work in the first phase of a three-year project led by the General Services Administration to make government blue pages listings more customer friendly. Today, most listings read like an agency's organization chart--with names of offices, not services. Within the next few months, 18 million households in 10 cities will see improved blue pages when new phone books hit their doorsteps, according to Dave Barram, GSA's Acting Administrator. This project is a "true partnership within the government and with all the major telephone companies across the country," said NPR's Greg Woods, who represented the Vice President at the ceremony.

GSA is looking for additional federal volunteers to work with about 30 companies that publish 6,200 phone directories over the nation. Contact Jack Finley at (202) 501-3932, e-mail: jack.finley@fed.gov or Bonnie Seybold at (202) 273-3440, e-mail: Bonnie.Seybold@fed.gov.

National Performance Review, 750-17th St., NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20006 To subscribe to Reinvention Express by e-mail, send an e-mail message to: Listproc@etc.fed.gov with this message: SUBSCRIBE EXPRESS-L FIRSTNAME LASTNAME. (Put three spaces: after the word "SUBSCRIBE," after "EXPRESS-L," and after your FIRSTNAME.) For fax , send your name, organization, fax and phone number to Pat Wood, FAX (202) 632-0390, phone (202) 632-0223, or e-mail: pat.wood@npr.gsa.gov. The Express is on NPR's web site at http://www.npr.gov. Click on "News Room."