Welcome to the first journal issue of 2014. I have made some changes to the journal that I hope will create more value for you in the workplace. I removed Commentary, an opinion piece, and added a new column, Performance, which I hope will give you information on how to improve the performance of your organization and your employees. As you know, in this competitive workplace environment, performance can make or break an organization or agency.

In this issue's Forum, we examine the new public sector workplace reality—recurring pay freezes, furloughs, shrinking resources, disruptive shutdowns, and disengaged workers. This Forum gives managers strategies and best practices to successfully rebuild and re-engage their workers, create stability in their workplaces, and find creative and more efficient ways to accomplish their agency missions.

This issue also includes articles about building a professional acquisitions corps; using Big Data to enhance agency performance, better serve the citizens of the United States, and stay within budgets; and partnering with government auditors to make risk management a top priority and discourage negative behavior that may lead to waste, fraud, or abuse. This issue's articles also focus on the drivers of employee engagement, innovation in the Australian public sector, and how to leverage the synergy of learning and knowledge management.

As editor of The Public Manager, I am devoted to helping readers further their knowledge, vision, professionalism, and best practices at all levels of government. Every issue of The Public Manager discusses pivotal concerns of federal senior executives and middle managers, as well as their counterparts in state and local government. We will continue to share their innovative ideas, practical applications for new learning technologies, and management successes.

Readers should finish each issue with one or more takeaways—new perspectives and techniques for better job performance, a better understanding of issues facing the public management community, and information on how these issues are being addressed in the public sector.

Thanks for your support of The Public Manager. I welcome your article ideas and feedback. Articles and article ideas can be submitted to [email protected] or [email protected].

Paula Ketter

Editor, The Public Manager

[email protected]