Yearly Archives: 2011

Bullet-Proof Your Defense Industry Resume

Having seen a lot of resumes I’m still surprised by the number of obvious mistakes – lack of spell-checking, all-caps where it shouldn’t be (or should it be anywhere?), incoherent statements. And when it comes to defense industry resumes, far too many people ignore the details and fail to target their resume as they should.Read… Read more »

Is Re-Branding the New Pivot?

I was at an entrepreneurs event last night where three separate people told me they were in the process of rebranding their already-launched startup. One told me that since they’ve started using their new name in conversations, they’ve been making more deals and are getting better reactions from investors. Nobody at the entire event mentionedRead… Read more »

The Government Man – Where You Sit is Where You Stand

The Government Man is back after a brief hiatus. In my book, Confessions of a Government Man, a chapter called “Where You Sit is Where You Stand” was all about the stovepipe mentalities once prevalent in government. Fortunately a lot of this type of thinking is gone but not totally forgotten. The subject matter conjuresRead… Read more »

How Do We Get More People to Interact with Their Representatives? Social Media and the Future of Democracy: Part Four

By Andrew Foxwell, Director of Marketing / New Media In the last installation of this four-part series, I’d like to cover the final — and pressing — question we face. As modes of communications change, let’s look at how we can use available technology toward our ultimate goal: increasing communications, which ultimately promotes our democracy.Read… Read more »

Jen Pahlka on the Next Disruption: Civic Startups

In late June, Jen Pahlka, CfA’s Founder and Executive Director, gave a talk at the Future of Web Apps conference in Las Vegas. Entitled “The Next Disruption: The Opportunity for Civic Startups,” Jen’s keynote outlined how there is a $172 billion government spending market that is waiting to be disrupted by today’s geeks and entrepreneurs.Read… Read more »

State of Social Media Monitoring Survey

Once in a while, my organization CEPSM.ca conducts research geared at public sector and non-profit marketing/communications professionals. The research is meant to benefit the entire community as it addresses knowledge gaps in the industry. A few weeks ago, CEPSM partnered up with Environics Research Group to launch the “State of Social Media Monitoring in theRead… Read more »

British Columbia launches open data portal, posts freedom of information requests online

Tweet Open data is moving forward in Canada. The provincial government in British Columbia launched its own open data portal on Tuesday. The site, data.gov.bc.ca has been in the works for a long time and will provide nearly 2,500 data sets covering a broad range of information from salaries to student performance. The B.C. governmentRead… Read more »

Preparing Your Job Search Salary Strategy

Patra’s money quote: “Money. Salary. Compensation. All a critical aspect of your job search and yet to many Americans, more difficult to talk about than sex.” What do you need to do to determine your strategy? Learn what you are worth in terms of the job you want. Be clear with hiring managers about yourRead… Read more »

We Don’t Just Code for America

The name “Code for America” is a little misleading: CfA needs more than coders, and its coders must do more than code. We need civic hackers, yes. But we also need researchers, project managers, and designers experienced in UI and UX. We need fellows who can understand government, and fellows who can understand each other.Read… Read more »