Why a Blog?

David Osborne — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 21:42:00 +0000

Public Works is pleased to introduce its new weblog, “Orange Alert” For those who are new to this genre, a blog is an online journal of sorts, featuring frequent entries and commentaries of varying length. We hope to use this blog as a way to make sense of emerging public policy news, research, and experience, as well as to add new facts and insight to on-going policy discussions. To the extent that our commentary provokes readers to weigh in and add other facts, insight, and new ways of thinking, all the better.

By their nature, blogs are more spontaneous and off-the-cuff than traditional journalistic commentary. Our postings will be as factual as possible, but our opinions and initial conclusions likely will evolve over time, as those opinions and conclusions are questioned, analyzed, and challenged and more facts become available. Our approach could be summed up by something astronomer and philosopher Carl Sagan once wrote: “The best antidote to a fallacious argument is a better one.” Or, if you’d prefer Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s take: “You may be entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to your facts.” At any rate, the whole point of operating a blog, wiki, or other form of online community forum is to gather facts and opinions through a collaborative process in the hope of getting to some form of the truth faster, more efficiently, and more effectively than if we all pontificated from the depths of our ignorance and expertise in isolation.

We hope readers and thought leaders like you will take any of the ideas presented here, do your own cogitating, and refine, if not clash, with our facts, analysis, or ideas in a way that gets us all closer to more productive and truthful outcomes. And who knows? Given our client base, some of your ideas may wind up finding their way into policies, programs, and budgets in jurisdictions around the country.

We hope to be interesting enough to provoke you to come back frequently for updates and discussion. If you are unable to check in that frequently, please sign up for our electronic newsletter, which will include highlights from Orange Alert and a link to it.

Thank you for reading, and by all means, jump in. Public policy is dynamic and collaborative and should not be considered a mere spectator sport!

About Public Works

Andy Brack — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 14:50:00 +0000

Public Works provides public policy research and analysis, organizational development, and management consulting to government agencies, think tanks, and non-profits across the country.

Our mission is to help governments and policymakers develop groundbreaking policy initiatives and programs while achieving their objectives efficiently and cost-effectively.

Most consulting firms have myriad ways to spend the public's money. At Public Works, we focus on ways to help the public sector spend less and do more - producing, measuring, and improving desired outcomes. Our program ideas have been called "novel" and "ground-breaking." And we are helping governments across the country turn these ideas into realities.

And that's how, at Public Works, we're making good ideas work for the better.

Policy Update from Public Works

Why a Blog?

About Public Works