Should we still use GovLoop?

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Permalink Reply by Dennis McDonald on September 29, 2009 at 2:15pm

I'm a private consultant with Federal clients and I've been participating since the beginning.

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Permalink Reply by Teri Centner on September 29, 2009 at 2:29pm

As a Ning community, GovLoop has never been a government-only site. Which is kind of the beauty of it. Anybody who has a passion for government, whether they are working for it, working with it, or served by it, was (and still is!) invited to collaborate on GovLoop.

Sometimes govvies (and I'm one of them) get the idea that we know what's best and that we don't need input from others. Kind of an "ivory tower" mentality. Heck, even within certain agencies we get the same ideas. Or we think our agency is so different that other agencies couldn't possibly have any lessons learned that would be useful for ours.

I don't know whether it's due to the first reason, or the second, but I often have a hard time getting my fellow DoD personnel to peek outside the DoD curtain to see what they might learn. In fact, people have started Ning communities for DoD and for agencies within DoD, which makes no sense to me, since doing that limits the crowdsourcing potential of the group.

There are probably still good reasons to have government-only collaboration areas, and those do exist. Two I can think of off the top of my head are OMB's MAX and the Intelligence Community's Intelink.

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Permalink Reply by Cindy Lou Baker on October 2, 2009 at 11:31am

In response to the two available government run collaboration sites, I can tell you OMB's MAX is set up by some of the most unorganized pinheads I've ever seen. This comment is not intended to defend GovLoop but is based on issues I've had with OMB's MAX. Sorry but I don't have alot of faith in Government-run websites of any kind.

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Permalink Reply by Matthew on November 10, 2009 at 1:26pm

Yeah, I thought since it was a Ning site it was pretty much whatever we make of it. So a company purchased Ning? I'm a little confused...
I can say I plan to keep using it unless something totally offensive happens with it, which I don't forsee...

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Permalink Reply by Guy Martin on September 29, 2009 at 2:32pm

With all due respect, I believe that a site such as this needs to be run by an industry provider, not the federal govt. There are cases where things need to be run 'on the inside' (we made that case for Forge.mil), but I believe that Steve's recent alignment with GovDelivery doesn't hurt his message or his efforts in this space.

The Feds have shown a tendency to take innovative efforts such as these and turn them into a huge tar pit of red tape. I think more meaningful conversation/collaboration will take place if GovLoop is left where it is.

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Permalink Reply by Dalroy Ward on September 29, 2009 at 3:01pm

Ah, ok. I had thought (obviously misguided) that govloop was for govenment only. My mistake. Given that it's already used by those outside of government then the change in ownership has no basis in it's use or continuation.

But, I do think that there is a place for government only discussions. As I said perhaps the new GSA cloud (the apps store) can provide it sometime in the future. While generally the discussions here won't be deliberative (and as it's used by those outside of gov't can't be by definition) a place like that for Feds would be useful.

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Blount on September 29, 2009 at 3:07pm

OOPS - i posted the below post about the same time as you posted this one. But, I will leave mine in case anyone else has the same question.

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Permalink Reply by Teri Centner on September 29, 2009 at 3:22pm

Visit http://max.omb.gov/ and see what you think.

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Permalink Reply by Sandy Simms on September 29, 2009 at 9:34pm

Unfortunately, in my experience, MAX is hard to use and slooooow - maybe it's our firewall stack. While there is a wealth of good information there, I wish it were more intuitive.

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Blount on September 29, 2009 at 3:05pm

Hi Dalroy,

This has never been a government only website. There are people from all walks of life, and even from other countries, who are members of GovLoop. The information on here is no more private than something you would put on Facebook. In fact, GovLoop has been described as Facebook for the Government world. As for ethics, we all share our information that is readily available to the public, and we share our opinions, but my remarks do not reflect the Government at all. But, being a professional, and knowing that anyone can join, I would never discuss a specific contract on here, nor would I discuss anything specifically with the military.

Would you leave a Government Facebook group just because it is owned by a civilian company? I am a member of many Government groups on Facebook, just like I am a member of fun groups here on GovLoop.

So, no, there is no reason to leave here. Of course, there are sites which are restricted to only Government employees, which are open for you to join. But, again, there is no reason to leave GovLoop due to the buyout.


Amanda

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Permalink Reply by Dalroy Ward on September 29, 2009 at 4:06pm

Amanda,

Not at all. As I said, I was mistaken in my original believe that GovLoop was for Feds only (it had been described to me that way). I haven't been a heavy GovLoop user so I haven't seen other non-Fed (or shall I say non-gov) postings.

Now that I know I know what can and can't be shared here. (And yes, before it's challenged, there are deliberative conversations in government that can't be shared until it's completed). Right or wrong, it's the way it works right now.

So, I'm not planning on leaving GovLoop, nor will I leave any of the Facebook gov't oriented groups I've joined. In making the post I've learned a few things (and maybe helped others who didn't now it was wider than just gov't to also learn).

So, I hope no one is going to beat me up, or at least it'll stop soon if it's going on. :-)

Dalroy

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Permalink Reply by GovLoop on October 5, 2009 at 9:49am

No beating anyone up :) All friends here...:)

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