[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]
Subject: RE: [tgf] Issue 37 - Challenges facing government. Lines 19-23. Content - open
And me Regards Nig Nig Greenaway Government Division FUJITSU SERVICES Lovelace Road, Bracknell,
Berkshire, RG12 8SN Tel: +44 (0) 843 354 5637
Internal: 7302 5637 Mob : +44 (0) 7867 833147
Internal: 7383 3147 E-mail: nig.greenaway@uk.fujitsu.com Fujitsu Services Limited,
Registered in England no 96056, Registered Office 22 Baker Street, London, W1U
3BW This e-mail is only for the use of
its intended recipient. Its contents are subject to a duty of confidence and
may be privileged. Fujitsu Services does not guarantee that this e-mail has not
been intercepted and amended or that it is virus-free. From: John Borras
[mailto:johnaborras@yahoo.co.uk] Looks like a good
compromise to me. John From: Peter F Brown
[mailto:peter@peterfbrown.com] Hi: I’ve not said anything so far on
this issue, as I want to keep my editor role clear and distinct. However I do want to chip in now
as an individual TC member, so here goes: Firstly, minor typo: ‘a billion’
not ’22 billion’ living on less than a dollar a day (copy/paste problem from
the pdf file, that included the line number, 22) I understand the desire to be sensitive
to some governments’ positions but I think we have to be careful: the problem
with cultural/political relativism is that you end up not believing in
anything! ;-) The sticking point with the
original text is probably that it reads like a supposedly and universally
agreed set of policy goals – whether we like it or not there are policy makers
and governments out there who, for example, deny climate change and think
taxation is evil rather than a social good. I think we have two choices: -
either to draw a
line and commit to a series of explicit policy goals that we believe are
part-and-parcel of the TGF ‘mission’ (implying that ‘if you believe
transformational government is good, then you will also believe in…’); -
or we redraft the
statement to find some consensus that everyone would be comfortable with. Personally, I favour the first
and, outside of a standards setting, I would argue strongly for this. As an editor (and we are in a
standards setting!), I think that we should go with the second. However (and yes, there is
always a sting in the tail) the proposed revised wording from Joe and John now
incorporates as axiomatic that governments all want to ‘reduce the size
of the administration’ and ‘reduce taxes and fees’. There are many countries and
governments (and little old me) who will equally disagree with this, even in
the current climate. Taking the original wording as
my starting point I would propose: “All around the world,
governments at national, state, and local levels face huge pressure to do “more
with less”. Whether their desire is: to raise educational standards to meet the needs of a
global knowledge economy; to help their economies adjust to financial upheaval;
to help lift the world out of poverty when more than a billion people still
live on less than a dollar a day; to facilitate the transition to a
sustainable, inclusive, low-carbon society; to
reduce taxation; or to cut back on public administration; every government
faces the challenge of achieving their policy goals in a climate of public expenditure restrictions.” Peter From: John
Borras [mailto:johnaborras@yahoo.co.uk] Joe Thanks, now I understand the issue and I agree it is a
relevant one we should work round. So how about the following
slightly amended version of your proposal: All around the
world, governments at national, regional, state, and local levels face huge
challenges as a result of often seismic economic, political, social,
environmental, and other changes. These governments are called on to make
transformative changes in short timeframes. For example, national
governments are being called upon to make changes such as raising
educational standards to meet the needs of a global knowledge economy, helping
our economies adjust to financial upheaval, lifting the world out of poverty
when more than a 22 billion people still live on less than a dollar a day,
facilitating the transition to a sustainable, inclusive, low-carbon society,
and delivering these improvements while reducing the tax burden on our
economies. Whilst at the regional, state and local levels of government
the focus is more on reducing the size of the administration, reducing taxes
and fees, maintaining front line services, etc. Views? John From: Joseph
D. Wheeler [mailto:jdw@mtgmc.com] State, local, and federal government leaders in the US
would not line up behind all of the changes listed. To some, climate
change does not exist. TO others, world poverty is not their
problem. Some think that the financial upheaval should be left to market
forces. We would turn these leaders off at this point. They may be
looking for changes such as reducing the size of government or reducing taxes,
fees, etc. My offering tries to soften any negative reaction in the
current US culture by making changes listed simply examples. j Joe
Wheeler MTG
Management Consultants, L.L.C. (206)
442-5010 Phone (206) 849-7772
Mobile Helping
our clients make a difference in the lives of the people they serve. The
information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it
is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. If
you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material
from any computer. From: John
Borras [mailto:johnaborras@yahoo.co.uk] Joe Which exact words in the current version are the ones
that are causing you the problem? If we could focus on those then we
might find a quick solution. John From: Peter F
Brown [mailto:peter@peterfbrown.com] Joe: This
could be a tough one, as you state yourself, and finding the right balance
isn’t going to be easy. You’re right to bring it up. Open
for comment and discussion Peter From: Joseph
D. Wheeler [mailto:jdw@mtgmc.com] Lines 19-23:
Given the political trends in the US, this paragraph may be unpalatable to the
political leaders that may control adopt of this standard. I offer the
following suggestion: All around the
world, governments at national, state, and local levels face huge challenges as
a result of often seismic economic, political, social, environmental, and other
changes. These governments are called on to make transformative changes in
short timeframes. World-wide, governments have been called on to make
changes such as: ·
Raising educational standards
to meet the needs of a global knowledge economy; ·
Helping our economies adjust to
financial upheaval; ·
Lifting the world out of
poverty when more than a 22 billion people still live on less than a dollar a
day; ·
Facilitating the transition to
a sustainable, inclusive, low-carbon society; and ·
Delivering these improvements
while reducing the tax burden on our economies. Joe
Wheeler MTG
Management Consultants, L.L.C. (206)
442-5010 Phone (206) 849-7772
Mobile Helping
our clients make a difference in the lives of the people they serve. The
information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it
is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. If
you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material
from any computer. From: Peter F
Brown [mailto:peter@peterfbrown.com] Hi all: Following on from last week’s TC
meeting, the editors (Chris and myself) together with John, have had a couple
of further rounds of editing and discussion. We will proceed now as follows: 1. Once
we have received the formal template from the OASIS TC Administration, I will
prepare a first formal draft of the ‘TGF Primer’. We aim to submit this to the
TC by the end of this week; 2. This
first draft will contain ‘everything and the kitchen sink’ at this early stage
and contain a clear disclaimer that it is an early draft and that some/much of
the content will probably be moved to a separate, standards-track, document as
work progresses; 3. This
first draft will not include material that I am preparing for a ‘full’
terminology nor the draft of a reference model – we already know that this is
more likely to go in the ‘core’ standard deliverable, so I will leave it out of
the Primer, and come back to it at a subsequent TC meeting. 4. The
editors’ drafts will be paragraph and line-numbered and drafted in Word; 5. The
editors’ drafts will be posted to the TC document repository in PDF only
and all TC members will be notified by mail; 6. Any
TC member working on a substantial section of this or any deliverable will be
sent a copy of that section in an editable file (.doc, .docx, or .odf) and be
asked to conform with some filenaming rules. The editors will maintain complete
overview of all editable files and ensure that all stable versions are uploaded 7. TC
members will be invited to comment on the text (and every new draft thereafter)
by submitting a ‘New Issue’. All new issues should indicate the line number(s)
concerned; give a short title in the subject line (helpful for threading
subsequent discussions); and ndicate the nature of the issue (typo, editorial,
conceptual, textual, etc). All new issues will be captured in a simple
spreadsheet, the editors will comment and invite further feedback/discussion
from the originator and the TC; Detailed guidance will be sent out with the
first TGF Primer draft. 8. Based
on other TC’s, a large portion of issues are dealt with easily between
submitter and editors between meetings – this means that TC meetings can
concentrating on discussing and resolving the major issues of concern. 9. The
editors will submit the issues list, updated, to each TC meeting, with
recommendations for discussion. 10. Generally,
a new draft will be prepared in the days following each TC meeting and the
cycle above will repeat. I hope this helps! Cheers, Peter Peter
F Brown Independent
Consultant Transforming our Relationships with Information Technologies Blog pensivepeter.wordpress.com LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/pensivepeter Twitter @pensivepeter P.O. Box 49719, Los Angeles, CA 90049, USA Tel: +1.310.694.2278 |
[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]