SAVE Award 2011 Executive Office of the President

We need a SAVE network. We are a complex and diverse set of departments, organizations, agencies, committees, and boards that aren't networked. There is very little transparency into the operations, capabilities, processes, or practices of other government orgs and we assume that our experiences apply across the government.

The SAVE Award buys into the notion of a one-size fits all government and focuses on low hanging... more »

Ocean Council and Marine Mammal Center, maritime, etc could be reduced and combined.

Other Depts. such as Housing and Urban Development could be combined with Affordable Housing, Homeless,etc.

War on proverty hasn't resulted in reduced proverty,

Dept. of Education hasn't raised graduation rates, test scores in some areas - reduce or remove ineffective programs.

In the words of Toshiro Mifune, in Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai"... "The Farmers are corrupt. The samurai are corrupt... And, of course, the bandits are corrupt... So who are any of us to expect anything different?"

In the words of Amy Winehouse bring us "Back to Black." The budget was balanced & the Congress was Republican - so both sides / everyone was happy. Just a silly plea for economic sanity. :)

 

After Mr. Obama's 2nd term, of course.

I propose that the government adopt open source software. This is similar to entries 195,556, 5520, 5521, and 13838; however, they lack a strategy to realize this goal. Here, a strategy is proposed. The main hurdles that are faced in any effort to reach this goal are
1. Security questions
2. Compatibility questions.
The main benefits of this goal are
1. Huge cost savings
2. Control over compatibility and data-retention... more »

UCLA solved our energy crisis almost a decade ago. We can use magnifying glasses and mirrors to increase the efficiency of already existing solar cells. They can more efficiently be used to boil water for portable free energy. Well made glasses can even be used for "energy free" metallgury, and industrial heating. We don't have an energy problem in this country, we have a laziness, and slow adaptation problem in this... more »

In present times, natural disasters have had greater negative impacts than people can imagine; and everyone feels threatened by all the climatic changes that are happening and that are expected in the future. This situation can make any concerned person deeply consider and meditate about alternatives, securities and insurances, among many other things.

I live out of the continental US and I am not aware of the ways that... more »

From: Brunskill, Gisela R.
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2011 1:01 PM
To: Valdez Newton, Pauline, VBAMPI; Cahill, William
Cc: Brunskill, Gisela R.
Subject: Handicapped access on Martinez campus

Dear Cahill and Dr. Valez,
I realize that you remain away from the Martinez campus but I wanted to share a safety issue with your that has the potential to be costly if we are fined for this violation to the national laws pertaining... more »

OMB provides a lot of great guidance on how to run a more effecient government through better performance and strategic management practices. Requiring/urging more Offices to practice what OMB preaches would force government executives to take a hard look at their organizational activities and find ways to produce more value/use less resources.

While we endure the summer heat I wondered how often people turn down their AC when they leave the office for the night/weekend. Maybe we could save some $$ by looking at our after hours utilities costs and seeing what financial impact motion sensors would provide.

The President can provide by example a push toward improving city water plumbing systems by eliminating serving size bottled water in the White House. 16 to 20 oz bottles cause add a significant amount of waste on our land fills. A lot of this water comes from overseas, according to the label, which implies American jobs were not needed to produce either extract the water, produce the bottle, or sell it to us. Americans... more »

DoD has a clearing house for their unique requirements. Agencies outside of DoD spend billions of dollars or research but do not have a way to synergize these efforts to best use the results and avoid overlap and duplication. A clearing house, set up with the right technology and righ people, can put a dent in the overlap/duplication and assure better use of the research. This could lead to hundreds of millions of dollar... more »

Each agency does their own thing for cell phones. With the hundreds of thousands of cell phones in the government, there's potential for considerable savings.

Only employees that are deem emergency personnel in each Agency’s shut down plan prepared and distributed last April should be provided with government funded Blackberries (or other mobile devices). Everyone has cell phones these days and if you need to contact employees just text or call them on their own cell phones.

With that being said, I recognize that this will most likely not happen, as many people are addicted... more »

Every organization in the government, spends way too much money on administration, and management, and we all know it. Gut the middle layers. Fire some people. The most important place to do this, unfortunately is the school system, which the federal Government has little control over. We need more competent laborers, there are a plethora of unemployed people, and instead of giving those people jobs we're wasting... more »