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Kerry,

Great question. Here are some quick thoughts.

Just like private companies, government organizations have an almost unlimited number of areas where better use of information could make a difference, but there are differences:

• Public sector organizations generally have to worry about more variables -- i.e. it's not just about money. This means that they are generally a lot more sophisticated in using techniques such as balanced scorecards and performance management dashboards, that allow for tradeoffs between competing goals -- the public Boston About Results example in the deck is a good one. In public organizations, it's much harder to define what good performance really is, and whether you have achieved it (e.g. Democrats and Republicans are always going to disagree on what the data means).
• Analytics efficiencies often arise from reducing the amount of time people spend manually looking for, manipulating, and sharing data. It can be hard to track these costs, which -- almost by definition -- don't have their own budget line items. And the people doing the manual work often see the new systems as a threat to their jobs. The best result is when these people are freed to do more value-added work, but this type of role change can be hard in the private sector, and even harder in the public sector.
• Investment tradeoffs are always hard, and it can be even harder when they are subject to public scrutiny. I talked recently to an IT manager in a hospital that is part of the NHS, the UK public health care system. The team believes that there would be big efficiency gains through more investment in BI -- but that money could also be used to buy, say, more kidney dialysis machines. Even when the gains of IT investment clearly bring about bigger gains in patient care, it can be a tough argument to make faced with journalists on the lookout for scandal headlines.
• The public sector has lots of interesting problems when it comes to data privacy. On the one hand, access to the data of an individual has to be carefully controlled, but the data in the aggregate can be essential. The stakes usually aren't as high in private companies (e.g. they can't arrest you!).
• Regulation: in the absence of a profit motive, elected officials and other third parties typically set relatively rigid KPIs, which may result in fewer incentives and possibilities for public sector organizations to freely experiment with BI to improve processes.