Representatives of MACo, and Prince George’s, Howard and Montgomery counties gathered today at the Mid-Atlantic StatNet meeting, along with representatives of the Maryland Governor’s Office of Performance Improvement, federal agencies, industry representatives, academic think-tanks, and representatives of northern Virginia counties and cities. The meeting was held at The Performance Institute in Arlington, Virginia.

Beth Blauer, Executive Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Government Excellence, spoke with StatNet about the Center’s What Works Cities initiative and shared some perspective on her time in data-driven performance programs, including Baltimore City’s CitiStat and Maryland’s StateStat. In response to a question from the audience, Blauer shared the importance of making sure that data gathering projects have a strong connection to the front line work of a government agency, and the importance of delivering tools and insights based on data gathering back to the agency.

The What Works Cities initiative will be working with 100 cities across the country to create standardized data schematics that have a direct tie to performance improvements. While this project focuses on cities, Hopkins’ center for Government Excellence has a long-term interest in working with county governments, too. Following Director Blauer’s presentation, county representatives shared updates and information about their performance management projects, including Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, and the Governor’s Office of Performance Improvement. The discussion focused not only on gains in gathering and sharing data, but also the connections made between county departments and with citizens through the data collection process.

Read more about What Works Cities here.

Read more about the Mid-Atlantic StatNet here.

Read more about Maryland county open-data initiatives here: OpenHoward Provides Data Directly to Citizens, Sharing Open Data Ideas at the MACo Conference.