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On Mona Kea, Big Island, Hawaii
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What the Site Does
Because this is not a regular academic site for starters. It combines my academic work, my work with IPAC and around the world on cases and a continuing interest in a range of public policy, management and learning issues. Space limitations and software lead me to this simpler, more direct solution.
Why Call Public Administration a Craft?
That's a big question for an About Page, but a good one. Public administration, which embraces the building of public policy and programs, their execution or delivery if you want, their funding and the accounting both for the funds and the results of those policies and programs combined with their continual revision based on the changing environment, changing priorities and learning what works and what doesn't demands a lot. Good public administration has its rigorous, scientific elements: good quantitative analysis, rigour and discipline. It has its art: communication, persuasion, listening. But, in spite of the fact I teach it in a wonderful School devoted to it, it is not something that leaps out of a book. Good public administration also involves learning from masters of the craft, sharing experience through various formal and informal means and building, over time, on experience. These are all elements of craft. It also involves trial and error - good policies seldom emerge fully formed. Often those that do are too rigid to adapt to this thing called reality or so vague so as to win support but have no form and substance. Even well intended policies and programs need the hand of experience to make them real, tangible and, hopefully, capable of meeting the needs for which there were funded, legislated and the ribbon cut. This is the craft - marrying the science and the art with the people to build a folklore and experience that makes for the sharing of this experience, the passing on of ideas, knowledge and advice and the continuous curiosity and capacity to further build the craft. A crafter is never done, only learning something new every day.
Who Am I?
My C.V.s are tabbed under this Page. Plenty of incriminating evidence there. I think that what I bring to this site and the objectives I have set are:
- Organizes and makes available for others to use my work in public administration - teaching, researching, building stories through cases.
- Connect to people and organizations in this vast field of public administration with insights, resources and connection.
- Advances the building of the craft in public administration through sharing practice, linking ideas and, once again, building the narrative through cases.
Because this is not a regular academic site for starters. It combines my academic work, my work with IPAC and around the world on cases and a continuing interest in a range of public policy, management and learning issues. Space limitations and software lead me to this simpler, more direct solution.
Why Call Public Administration a Craft?
That's a big question for an About Page, but a good one. Public administration, which embraces the building of public policy and programs, their execution or delivery if you want, their funding and the accounting both for the funds and the results of those policies and programs combined with their continual revision based on the changing environment, changing priorities and learning what works and what doesn't demands a lot. Good public administration has its rigorous, scientific elements: good quantitative analysis, rigour and discipline. It has its art: communication, persuasion, listening. But, in spite of the fact I teach it in a wonderful School devoted to it, it is not something that leaps out of a book. Good public administration also involves learning from masters of the craft, sharing experience through various formal and informal means and building, over time, on experience. These are all elements of craft. It also involves trial and error - good policies seldom emerge fully formed. Often those that do are too rigid to adapt to this thing called reality or so vague so as to win support but have no form and substance. Even well intended policies and programs need the hand of experience to make them real, tangible and, hopefully, capable of meeting the needs for which there were funded, legislated and the ribbon cut. This is the craft - marrying the science and the art with the people to build a folklore and experience that makes for the sharing of this experience, the passing on of ideas, knowledge and advice and the continuous curiosity and capacity to further build the craft. A crafter is never done, only learning something new every day.
Who Am I?
My C.V.s are tabbed under this Page. Plenty of incriminating evidence there. I think that what I bring to this site and the objectives I have set are:
- Lifelong experience in virtually all aspects of public administration: policy advice, legislative drafting, front-end in-your-face client interaction, front-end management, headquarters management, executive leadership.
- Research and teaching for over 13 years at Queen's University and with many local, provincial and federal government institutions.
- Leading the building of the case study capacity in public administration in Canada through IPAC for both academics to use in teaching and for organizations to use in sharing knowledge and leading practice.
- A strong belief that what we share is more important than what we protect in this world of ideas, emotions and experience.
