Starting Right, Finishing Strong: Discovering the Power of Innovation for Releasing Relevant Analytics

Description

REI Systems and the Johns Hopkins University's Center for Advanced Governmental Studies invite you to attend the Government Analytics Breakfast (GAB) Webinar. The Government Analytics Breakfast Forum brings together professionals from academia, government, and industry to discuss advances in data-driven decision making in the public sector. This webinar will feature Stephen Lowe, chief technology officer at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who will discuss the power of innovation for releasing relevant analytics.

Many are calling for more innovative, creative advances in the practices of public administration. Today's societal, economic, technical and other transitions demand action, and ironically, action is frequently associated with assuming a machine mentality. Whereas the rigor of a machine offers apparent stability and persistence, these qualities alone do not lead to the kind and degree of change human beings must engage to solve public problems in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. However, by first understanding our governance conversations and customer experiences through the lens of innovation, as a core function of the organization, we may build a channel for capturing the uniquely human aspects of policy and administrative insight. The innovation channel, or pipeline, provides a deliberate space for critical thinking and ensures the analytic questions we ask of data, events, behaviors, etc., are relevant and material to our goals. Furthermore, an innovation first orientation shifts the popular knowledge worker emphasis from that of consumers to an identity as contributing producers of public value, which more accurately embraces a maker community mentality of "craftspersonship." This session explores case-based lessons learned, examples of best practices, and implementation of critical thinking maturity assessment tools.