The A Spot

As many of us know, one of the challenges advocates often face abroad (if not in the U.S. as well!) is a lack of receptiveness among government bureaucrats to the participation of citizens in public administration.    In Ukraine, as one example, government has not historically been of the people, by the people, and for the people.  Cabinet Ministries whose ostensible purpose is to provide social services have no experience with treating citizens as clients – on the contrary, citizens are often nothing more than problems, flies in the ointment.  Government bodies and processes are not designed to be transparent, but obscure and invisible to outsiders, discouraging or preventing interference. 

Getting government to take citizens seriously requires a significant change in mindset, as well as a whole host of skills and tools unfamiliar to career officials.  Despite the challenges, over the last couple of days in Kyiv I’ve seen some real and exciting opportunities for change.

(more…)

Idealware has come up with another good article on - A Few Good Tools for Sharing Files with Distributed Groups. I was happy to help Laura out with this article and provide some examples from my experience working with coalitions and geographically distant teams of consultants. We are often faced with how to collaborate effectively over long distances and produce a high quality product with input from the widest range of participants possible. The technology we use is just one variable in the equation but getting it right can help get us over big social and cultural collaboration hurdles.

Read the full text here. A key excerpt appears after the jump…
(more…)