Featured Blog Posts – September 2010 Archive (194)

GovLaunch - Introducing New Fairfax County News/Engagement Website

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to drop by and mention today's launch of a new local government news/engagement website that I've been developing and thinking about for some time. In Fairfax County, our news lived in silos by department or other organizational boundaries. Social media sites existed, but often separate from news delivery and conversation. We had many key pieces of content and delivery strewn about our website.

No more.

The Fairfax County NewsWire consolidates… Continue

Added by Greg Licamele on September 30, 2010 at 9:30pm — 8 Comments

New2Gov: One Site to Rule Them All

Ever since joining up with GovLoop in April I've continually heard gripes about .gov sites. The crazy thing is most of the complaints are uniform across the board: the search suck, it looks like crap, there is no user interface... ect.

I think we are all in agreement that .gov sites as a whole aren't where they need to be, granted there is major progress being made through site redesigns and launches. Sidenote: search "… Continue

Added by Stephen Peteritas on September 30, 2010 at 4:13pm — 5 Comments

Introduction to The Transition: From Student to Public Servant

Hello GovLoop!

My name is Jessica and I am extremely excited about joining this new online community! Currently, I am a graduate student in my second (and FINAL) year of my Masters of Public Administration at the University of Delaware and with graduation quickly approaching, I have already…

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Added by Jessica Bruton on September 30, 2010 at 4:08pm — 1 Comment

"You Will Be Dazzled By What Is Offered" - Lobby Comply Blog on GovLoop

It's always nice to get recognized by peers in the industry and the Lobby Comply Blog featured GovLoop as its "Site of the Week." A couple excerpts:…

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Added by Dr. GovLoop on September 30, 2010 at 11:30am — No Comments

From Public Servant to Public Insurgent

Cross posted from eaves.ca.

Are you a public insurgent?

Today, a generation of young people are arriving into the public service familiar with all sorts of tools - especially online and social media driven tools - that they have become accustomed to using. Tools like wikis, survey monkeys, doodle, instant messaging or websites like wikipedia, or issue specific blogs enable them to be more… Continue

Added by David Eaves on September 30, 2010 at 11:30am — 6 Comments

Are you ready for some PMF?

I’ve totally forgotten how busy the school year can be. It’s already been non- stop and its not yet October. Speaking of October, the PMF application will be available from October 1-15th. I’m getting ready to open up that application and get working on it this weekend and next week. Compared to last year, there are a few changes. First one is that we need to apply for nomination from the school. This is not that complicated, but does involve getting a transcript, writing an essay and having… Continue

Added by Anita Jobson on September 30, 2010 at 10:50am — 2 Comments

10 reasons why online social media are critical to democratic governance (pt.1)

The Web has transformed and continues to transform how government serves and relates to its citizenry. With the spread of broadband internet access now in 66% of American homes according to the Pew Research Center, some futurists have predicted that without access to the web, citizens may eventually lose touch entirely with the ability to interact with their government. (Which seems crazy with 1/3 of the population w/o broadband --but that's not what this post is about). Businesses are already… Continue

Added by Daniel Bevarly on September 30, 2010 at 10:30am — 1 Comment

How Enterprise 2.0 is Like a Get Rich Quick Scheme

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Added by Kevin D. Jones on September 30, 2010 at 10:00am — 3 Comments

Dear Mom and Dad: Having Fun at Camp CFC

Dear Mom and Dad,

I am having a "Wonderful Time" at Camp CFC! The counselors are nice...and the…

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Added by Combined Federal Campaign on September 30, 2010 at 9:00am — No Comments

Could Enterprise 2.0 Have Prevented Apollo 13?

"Houston, we have a problem..."

While many now consider the determination and ingenuity displayed during the rescue of the Apollo 13 astronauts to be one of NASA's finest hours, could it have been prevented altogether if NASA had had the benefits of the type of robust internal social network made possible by today's technology?

The "Problem"… Continue

Added by Matthew B. Strickland on September 30, 2010 at 9:00am — 9 Comments

When Government Agencies Meet Caring Celebrities

Yesterday, I published an article called Networked Nonprofits: The Eva Longoria Case Study on the new SECTOR: PUBLIC blog. The post is about a recent, massive use of social media by celebrities to raise $540,000 for a Haitian orphanage. While certainly "good" was done, there are also questions about how much tweeting about a cause is too much, and what audiences…

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Added by Mark D. Drapeau on September 29, 2010 at 3:43pm — 1 Comment

GovUp Tampa

The food and beer at last night's Tampa GovUp (a casual meetup for GovLoop members in the area) was really, really good :)

If that doesn't convince you to check out a GovUp coming to your town, here's what else rocked:

Getting to meet and network with other GovLoop members face-to-face.
Hearing two great speakers talk about how they make government more awesome.
Getting GovLoop swag and telling Ressler your…

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Added by Chris Bennett on September 29, 2010 at 3:30pm — 2 Comments

GovUp Tour - Yeah Tampa, Huntsville Here We Come

I'm super pumped that the 2nd wave of our GovUps are here.

For those who haven't seen the awesome map of cities, we are criss-crossing the country connecting government innovators at all levels (Fed, State, Local, Contractors).

Last night's GovUp in Tampa was awesome...GovLoop blogger Chris Bennett was there and is writing a recap. But was great to meet people from DOD SOCOM, Hillsborough County,…

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Added by GovLoop on September 29, 2010 at 3:12pm — No Comments

GL Training - Social Media - Why It Matters & How To Do It

**Register for GovLoop Training - Social Media - Why It Matters & How to Do It**

Fortunately this year, I've gotten the chance to speak at a lot of conferences from federal to state/local government, from U.S to Canada, from HR to IT to Security…

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Added by GovLoop on September 29, 2010 at 3:04pm — 1 Comment

Can Mobile Payments Fuel Gov2.0?

Mobile payments - the ability to send and receive money from your phone - is a big emerging trend I've been watching. It was only a matter of time before someone turned an iPhone into a credit card swiper (see Square) or enabled me to split a check for sushi by paying my friend with Venmo.

Without getting into all of the exciting new companies and trends in this space, the…

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Added by Chris Bennett on September 29, 2010 at 2:00pm — 4 Comments

What A Customer-Driven Manager Looks Like

Yesterday my supervisor reminded me to finish a task she's been gently asking me to finish for months now. It involved designing a web page in Sharepoint, an internal catalogue of outreach publications that our field offices can use to find what's available and get copies. When it's live, it will save them and us a lot of time. They'll be able to see what's available and order it quickly rather than making phone calls back and forth till they get the answer they need.

On the surface… Continue

Added by Dannielle Blumenthal on September 29, 2010 at 10:33am — 2 Comments

Measuring Social Media

As co-chair of the Federal Web Managers Council's Metrics Sub-Council,

I've gathered some white papers and other stuff from WebTrends on their

social media measurement capabilities. While I won't post them here,

many Federal metrics folks use WebTrends; contact me off-line and I'll

e-mail them. tim.evans@ssa.gov

If you have info about social media measurement in other analytics products in use by Government,… Continue

Added by Tim Evans on September 29, 2010 at 8:44am — 3 Comments

How to Use PowerPoint without Abusing Your Audience

Let's say you’re giving a presentation at a conference or a staff meeting; you're working in two media: audio and video. If it's just you and a podium, the audio is all that matters—at best the video (you standing at the podium) should fade into the background. But if you've got a projector at your disposal, you can use PowerPoint. And I'm here to tell you: you should.…

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Added by Gadi Ben-Yehuda on September 29, 2010 at 7:30am — 6 Comments

An Interviewer's Guide to Job Interviewing

People who interview jobseekers for a living are usually NOT included in the group that makes employment decisions. That's unfortunate since they are also the people who tend to have the expertise to spot prevaricators! On the plus side, the people who do make hiring decisions are people who are skilled in the technical aspects of their field and the managerial aspects of their work units; they possess the knowledge to recognize and select people who have the right abilities and…

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Added by Doris Tirone on September 29, 2010 at 7:00am — 1 Comment