Yearly Archives: 2011

$1trillion+ in tax breaks now subject to Executive Branch review

Bipartisan legislation signed by President Obama last Tuesday will significantly change the way the government monitors and reports on its own performance. One of the most important reforms contained in the new law is a requirement that targeted tax breaks — or “tax expenditures” — finally be analyzed based on their success in contributing towardRead… Read more »

The Federal Coach: Ask the FedCoach: Solving Agency Personnel Issues

Happy New Year! This week’s questions come from federal managers atthe U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services.Please continue sharing your ideas and questions by leaving a commentor emailing me at [email protected]. To start, I wanted to share some of your great leadership book suggestions for federal leaders in 2011. They are: •Read… Read more »

2011 PMF In-Person Assessment: Locations

[Also posted here] In-person assessments for the 2011 PMFs begin on Tuesday, January 18 and run through Friday, February 18 at four locations throughout the U.S. According to the PMF Program Office, all notifications have gone out, so all 1530 of you should be scheduled for an assessment date and location (assuming you went aheadRead… Read more »

The 3 A’s of Awesome

As many of you remember from GovLoop’s Inaugural Next Generation of Government Summit last July, Neil Pasricha, author of the blog 1000 Awesome Things and the Book of Awesome gave a truly inspiring presentation on how to focus on the positive. Our Community Manager Andy Krzmarzick then challenged us to think of 1000 Awesome ThingsRead… Read more »

Securing Government Data on consumer mobile devices… are you secured?

iPhones, iPads, Droids, etc., Everyone wants to use their own personal devices to connect and collaborate, but is their data protected and more importantly how are you as an agency protecting Government data on these non-blackberry smartphones? Please share your thoughts and I can provide you a solution.

Daily Dose: Have You Ever Felt Threatened as a Government Employee?

Like you, I am deeply disturbed by the Rep. Giffords shooting in Arizona. While the shooter clearly suffers from mental instability, the level of animosity in America towards public servants – from executive, legislative and judicial branches to Federal, state and local government – appears to be at an unprecedented high. But is the actualRead… Read more »

More Details – Recruiting/Hiring Students and Recent Grads

More information from John Berry on Executive Order 13562: On December 27, 2010, President Obama signed Executive Order 13562 entitled “Recruiting and Hiring Students and Recent Graduates.” The principal purpose of the order is to establish a comprehensive structure to help the Federal Government be more competitive in recruiting and hiring talented individuals who areRead… Read more »

GPRA Mod Act of 2010 Explained: Part 3

The new law revises agency annual performance planning requirements under GPRA by requiring a link between the performance goals in the annual plan with the goals in their strategic plans. The plans also must describe the strategies and resources agencies will use, and requires the plans to cover a 2-year, rather than a 1-year period.Read… Read more »

Canada ranks last in freedom of information

For those who missed it over the weekend it turns out Canada ranks last in freedom of information study that looked at the world’s western Parliamentary democracies. What makes it all the more astounding is that a decade ago Canada was considered a leader. Consider two from the Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault quotes pulled fromRead… Read more »

Are You Building Community or Am I Just Painting Your Fence?

I succumbed to the hype and joined Quora last week. Two weeks before that I joined Academia which is a social networking site for academics. Friday night I joined Eegoes because they promised to help me organize my rapidly-expanding universe of social networking sites. I had a great time building profiles, looking for people toRead… Read more »