cnewmark

Springtime in Cole Valley

Townsend's Warbler, flowering tree already losing petals.

(click for larger)

Lung Cancer: The Bold and Beautiful Perspective

Hey, my dad died of lung cancer when he was very young, and I was only thirteen.

Please consider watching The Bold and the Beautiful on February 7 on CBS to learn more about lung cancer.

Lung Cancer is the biggest cancer killer, killing more than breast prostate, colon and ovarian combined. More than 50 % of those diagnosed are non-smokers or have quite more than 10 years ago.

Meryl Bralower, a 5 year lung cancer survivor, who I have known for the last 10 years will be featured along with other real life cancer survivors,  Michael Weitz, MD,  Associate Director Emergency Services, Saint Johns Health Center in Santa Monica, San Francisco Opera singer Zheng Cao and Desperate Housewives's Kathryn Joosten ( Mrs McClusky).

Beth Noveck, a major contributor to Open Government, returns to teaching law

Hey, Open Government covers a lot of ground; it's about how a democratic government gets the job done increasingly well. That's been a big challenge in an environment where there had been no incentive for gov't workers to provide good customer/citizen service.

Open government includes disclosure of what's going on inside government, where the money goes, really tough getting there having started from a culture of secrecy. Beth's work, along with a very strong team including Aneesh Chopra and Vivek Kundra, has disclosed a lot. Check out what's on data.gov. (Disclosure: I'm on the board of Sunlight Foundation, for real the leaders in transparency and accountability, and I've seen how hard it is to get real data.)

This new trend in government also means listening to citizens and government workers to get things done better. The Department of Veterans Affairs has embraced this, listening to employees, and has started to considerable improve customer service for veterans. Specifically, that includes improved claims processing, online chat to help filling in claims forms, easy access to electronic health records, and specific process improvements like calculating benefits for hearing loss. (Disclosure: I'm on the board of the Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America, and have worked with the VA on the employee ideation process.)

Here, Beth's also working with a strong team, like Peter Levin, VA CTO, and Todd Park, HHS CTO.

A lot more's happening, particularly involving better customer service through multiple agencies. Me, I'm a nerd, an alien in Washington culture, but I can really appreciate how much Beth and others have accomplished in an environment which resists change.

Beth has been one of the core people inspiring Open Government and related improvements all over the US and beyond. She continues to do, and is playing a genuinely historic role, that including blogging like Turning Rule Writers Into Problem Solvers: Creating a 21st Century Government That's Open and Competent by Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review.

Photo by Joi Ito.

Happy (belated) squirrel appreciation day!

Seriously...

Too much time with this guy ...

Pigeon control courtesy of Mr Cooper?

Well, I like my pigeons, but too many and there's a hygiene issue. (Consider the poopage.)

Well, this Cooper's Hawk here might be the real solution, seen here visiting my home office Sunday afternoon. He's a fan of pigeon sushi, and has about doubled in size since last seen.

(photo courtesy of the gf.)

Angry Birds Peace Treaty

The Knight News Challenge, Jon Stewart, and the country's immune system

Okay, the deal is that trustworthy media really is the immune system of our country, as Jon Stewart just reminded us:

If we amplify everything we hear nothing.

The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker and perhaps eczema.

or alternatively, trustworthy media should be "the immune system of democracy" as someone else blurted out.

The Knight Foundation has been working on this for years, getting very serious about four categories for the Knight News Challenge '11: Mobile, Authenticity, Sustainability and Community

Mobile. The mobile phone, with 5 billion units in use, has become an important tool for news. Knight Foundation is interested in projects that use mobile devices to produce, deliver, consume share and otherwise engage with news.

Authenticity: We went back and forth on how to describe this: trust, reputation, integrity and credibility were other terms we considered. We’re hoping to identify promising ideas for helping citizens negotiate our oft-chaotic media world. How can we help news users to better evaluate the validity and trustworthiness of news and information? How can we better filter and assess the credibility of what we read and watch? We were motivated to choose the topic by a sense that there’s a lot of energy around the topic— Craig Newmark, for one, has been thinking out loud on these issues.

Sustainability. New ways of conducting and consuming journalism may require new ways of paying for it. We’re open to ideas for generating revenue as well as ways to reduce costs. A lot of people have been thinking of this for a while now, including some prior News Challenge winners— we’re hoping to contribute more to new efforts to address this problem.

Community: This is designed to jump-start work on technologies and approaches that haven’t arrived yet. Unlike the first three categories, submissions in Community must have a focus in a geographic place.

Trust is the new black.

Innovation and real culture change at HHS in Washington

Health and Human Services is the Federal department which plays an increasing role in our lives regarding better and better health care.

They're a large organization, over 68,000 people, a lot like any big company, needing to change their culture, the way they work. The theme is that the rank and file knows what's going on and how to work better, and now we have the technology to get all that and make it real.

The hard part is making this the normal and usual way the organziation works. After smart suggestions are made, the boss needs to commit to making the improvements happen, and then... the organization must repeat the listening and action cycle forever.

The big culture change is that this becomes the expected and normal way of doing things. (It's the organizational version of "rinse, lather, repeat.") (Yes, I'm not as funny as I think I am.)

I'm not doing this justice, but it's really a big step towards fixing Washington by learning from the private sector.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is also a really big deal in this regards, has already been successful with more to come.

HHS is focusing a little differently, being very explicit at telling its teams that this is real and that way things are going to happen. Even better, the deal is to find proven innovation and to replicate and scale it up.

HHSinnovates is an awards program that helps recognize and reward new approaches to fulfilling our mission that are developed by HHS employees. Equally important, it provides a platform for sharing innovations across the 300-plus programs in our Department. It recognizes successful innovations - and it’s even meant to recognize innovative ideas that don't quite work out as expected, but that help move the ball forward.

Our first cycle of HHSinnovates, conducted earlier this year, was a significant success:

-Over 100 innovations were nominated last spring, with entrants coming
from every Operating Division as well as other offices of the Department.
-Nearly 50 semi-finalists were placed on the HHSinnovates intranet site.
-All employees were then invited to vote for their selections.
-Almost 10,000 votes were cast.
-In August, Secretary Sebelius recognized the top six vote winners, and made her own pick of the top three innovations.

HHSinnovates says to every employee: "Innovation is welcome! In fact, it's a key part of your job!"

Here's Todd Park, the CTO at HHS, explaining this way better than I have:

Disclaimer: you've seen Todd and I announcing this, where we conclusively demonstrate our mutual nerdliness, and you probably remember I'm also helping the Veterans Affairs folks with their innovation efforts, though my contributions are microscopic.

Help quitting smoking and the LGBT community

Hey, the folks at American Legacy Foundation are the real deal, set up by lots of states as part of a settlement deal with the tobacco companies.

They run the Truth campaign, trying to prevent addiction among the young.

If you're a member of the LGBT community, here's a little more:

Stress is a major trigger for most smokers and a significant factor in prompting both straight and gay people to smoke more, delay quitting or to relapse.  The LGBT community is particularly hit hard, puffing away at a higher rate than other segments of American society.

BecomeAnEX.org offers online support groups for LGBT members, check out Gay and Lesbian Quitters of Steal: http://community.becomeanex.org/pg/groups/647878/gaylesbian-quitters-of-steel/