Yearly Archives: 2013

How GIS Can Help Child Placement for Foster Care

One of the sessions I attended at the Esri International User Conference was, Local Government: Well-Being. One of the speakers, Matthew Nalty, Kempe Center for the Treatment and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, explored a case study from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (TDFPS). The study explored how far away childrenRead… Read more »

GIS in the Trenches – Local Government Case Studies

One of the sessions I attended at Esri’s User Conference was New Enterprise GIS: Lessons Learned from the Trenches. This session featured the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia, Dunwoody, Georgia and Columbus, Ohio, highlighting how they have implemented ArcGIS Server-based enterprise GIS. The three case studies were fascinating, as they consider the journey from aRead… Read more »

How GIS Can Be Used for Humanitarian Aid – Case Study from Direct Relief

This week at the Esri International User Conference, non-profit Direct Relief was awarded the President’s Award for outstanding applications of a geographic information system (GIS). Direct Relief is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that provides medical material assistance to those affected by natural disasters, civil unrest and poverty. I had the chance to speak with AndrewRead… Read more »

Seven Lessons to Ensure Success of Customer Experience Initiatives

“To optimize both your market share and your margins, you must provide customers with consistent, compelling experiences—before, during, and after their purchases—across all channels.” – Oracle, Seven Power Lessons for Customer Experience Leaders With the increasing use of social media, it is more important than ever for organizations, both public and private, to provide theirRead… Read more »

FBI Focuses on Insider Threats – Plus the DorobekINISIDER’s 7 Stories

On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER: RFP-EZ is trying to make the acquisition process a little easier for federal contracts under $150,000. Now the head of the project Clay Johnson has been awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation to expand RFP-EZ to the state and local levels. Find out how it’s going. Around the web CBSRead… Read more »

Building a Federal Workforce that Looks like America

It’s been two years since President Obama signed the Executive Order on Diversity and Inclusion in the federal workplace. As we all know, organizations and organizational culture take a great deal of time to change. This is especially the case for government agencies, which are often over a hundred years old. Today, I attended anRead… Read more »

Five Steps to Building an Evidence-Based Culture in Government

OMB’s guidance to agencies on the development of their FY 2015 budgets promises that “OMB will issue a separate memo at a later date that encourages the increased use of evidence and evaluation, including rigorous testing of innovative strategies to build new knowledge of what works.” This encouragement comes on top of a foundation alreadyRead… Read more »

Useful Thinking About Big Data

Ever wonder why “Big Data” is referred to in terms of somebody’s solution, tool, application, utility? And why that doesn’t offer much value to you? You know there must be some value…otherwise why all the noise? The best way to define Big Data is in terms of how you are currently using it. You aren’t?Read… Read more »

RFP-EZ is Headed to the States – Contracting Made Simple

When it comes down to it acquisition should be every bargain shoppers dream job. Think about it, you get to research, locate and buy the best goods and services for the federal government at the best price. But it isn’t that simple. The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), the timetable and options are very limiting toRead… Read more »