Featured Blog Posts – April 2012 Archive (124)

I am at the Chicago Federal Executive Board today where I spoke on "The State of Social Media in Government" (I'll post my slides later). The other speaker was Special Agent Peter Traven from the FBI who spoke under the title "Cyber Threats for the Federal Community."  Specifically, he focused on the issue of trust and how the perpetrators of organized…

Infographics have become an extremely powerful way for government agencies to quickly and efficiently synthesize complex data for citizens. In terms of data, you typically have people in two camps - the folks who want to see the raw data file and manipulate data accordingly and then the people who want to find information quickly and easily. I always love hearing stories about technologically adept citizens who turn the raw data into really cool apps/visualizations…

By now, you’ve probably heard of Caine Monroy, a nine year old boy who built a carnival-like arcade out of cardboard boxes in his dad’s auto shop. The short documentary was viewed more than 4.5 million times in just a week, netting him a $152,000 scholarship, a non-profit foundation to help kids reach their…

Good Morning GovLoop,

To my delight, I found out today is National High 5 Day. In celebration I am organizing a #HIGH5FLASHMOB infront of the White House at 12:30 today.

Come join us for the fun.

Please tweet:

#HIGH5FlashMob @ 12:30 infront of the…

You hear a lot about platforms and how companies like Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon harnessed the power of the platform to become amazingly successful companies. O'Reilly, the tech publisher and visionary, argues that government should be a platform. So, what exactly is a platform?

I think the best definition comes from Phil Simon's The Age of the Platform:

An extremely valuable and powerful ecosystem that quickly and easily…

On the whole, UK councils are doing a nice job of using social media - possibly we caught on early because we're used to making the most of tools that don't cost much.  'Fair play ' as we say here in Wales, we're doing getting better at engaging. But there's loads of room to improve.

Many organisations are still in the 'broadcast' mindset and some still have to convince their public and their management that social media is…

When accounting for the costs (both real costs, such as time taken to select and recruit a replacement, and also opportunity costs, such as lost productivity), the cost of employee turnover to organizations has been estimated to be up to 150% of the employees' remuneration package. In the case of the public sector can, or should, the taxpayer have to afford that?

The US economy …

Engaging your employees can be tough. But it’s essential, think of GSA, right now their employees are being attacked for the work of a few bad apples. 

Tom Fox is the Vice President for Leadership and Innovation at the Partnership for Public Service and a columnist for the Washington Post. He told Chris…

We are constantly balancing – sometimes it feels like juggling – core levers in our lives:  finances, family, friends, community, hobbies, etc.  How do we decide what to do first and can we do it all?  Another part of finding happiness relies on you confronting WHY you do these things and decide which…

The following post is an excerpt from the GovLoop Industry Perspective Case Study featuring the Honolulu 311 mobile app. This is part of the GovLoop Industry Perspective Series. You can view the entire case study below or view…

Do you struggle with this too?

It can take different forms:

• 'Doing it yourself' when it would be better to let someone else handle it.
• Gold plating, which is adding more features because you think they are 'cool'.
• Putting extra effort towards something…

Social media has been the subject of this blog more times than I can count. We’ve covered everything from…

After a decade of working for other people, I've started my own business. I'm pretty excited. I'm using my skills, knowledge, abilities, and connections, and I have no one to answer to but myself. If I succeed, it's because I worked hard. If I fail, it's because I didn't get the formula right. The best part is that I can work from home, I can work from my coffee shop. I can work in Virginia, in DC, at my mother's kitchen table in New York.



Or can I?



The tricky part of…

When there is small hope, when all seems stacked against you, that is the time unknown and unexpected reserves will appear.  They may be your family, your allies, your friends.  They may come from a breath of wind in the spring.…

Today, I want to throw some kudos to one of my favorite agencies, the General Services Administration (GSA).  GSA does great things for the federal government and the American people – including save taxpayer dollars.  They provide services to federal agencies.  But as important, they coordinate important management efforts across agencies, helping eliminate expensive duplication of effort.  How do I know?  I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Take web management in the federal…

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much,

because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

 - Theodore…

In a move which adds to the national debate over whether it should be lawful for employers to ask applicants for Facebook passwords -- and ends it in Maryland -- the state last week became the 1st to ban the practice. Facebook also …

Each week I pick the top 10 jobs by category (IT to HR to entry-level to $100k)from USAJOBS for our site jobs.govloop.com (sign up to receive our top picks by email).



I'm kind of a jobs nerd so I actually love doing it.  I've learned a lot by doing this week in terms of what type of jobs are available and what to look for.



Here are my top 5 observations:

1) #…

What if the government had its own conference facilities? Arguable the military already does, if conference organizers utilize their service academy facilities. But what about civilian agencies? Check out the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia, it's amazing and a short drive from Washington, DC. Could that be used by other agencies?

What other facilities exist for conference planners. Despite the GSA…

In the first part of this blog posted on March 23 I discussed the so called Generation Flux (see the April Issue of Fast Company ).The fluxers are not members of a particular age cohort such as Gen X or Y, members of this group can be found in any age bracket. What characterizes fluxers is their movement from job to job or even from career to career every few years as they seek new challenges. Gen fluxers thrive on learning new skills and applying them in…