Yearly Archives: 2013

Sophia Parafina: Why I’m Coding for America

I Code for America because I believe in praxis. Praxis, as I loosely define it with all apologies to Marx, is the process of putting theory into practice. For a long time I’ve been dissatisfied with the path of my career. For all of my working life, I have worked on piecemeal projects. Start aRead… Read more »

Announcing the 2014 Incubator Class

As the civic tech ecosystem continues to gain momentum, Code for America launches its second Incubator class. This year saw numerous applicants to our Startup Accelerator program and more than 80 governments present at our annual Summit. Our Accelerator and Incubator alumni companies continue to see interest from governments. After the success of last year’sRead… Read more »

Technical Support Hell

Have spend most of today in Microsoft Tech Support Hell. After my Outlook Client stop sending/receiving after Tuesday’s Windows Update. I’ve been spending too much time being bounced around between various Support Desks, no fewer than six times. Each time repeating the same information; having the Support staff unable to open the case number documentationRead… Read more »

Text, Call, or Visit?

There are many ways to communicate, as I got a lesson this morning. Yesterday, I got a text, which I misinterpreted, due to lack of detail. We were about to commit significant resources to an ongoing project when a chance call degraded the whole effort to much ado about nothing. Seems to me a textRead… Read more »

GOV 2.0 Gift Guide: Rest & Reflection for 2013

This holiday season you may be traveling far and wide in search of some R&R before the coming year, you might be reconnecting with family, you may be working yourself to the bone as 2014 too quickly approaches, or perhaps headed to one last holiday fiesta. What I often find during the holiday season, betweenRead… Read more »

The Intentional Stack: Technology Choices in Civic Projects

An oft-discussed subject in the civic tech world is the cavernous divide in the underlying technologies used by the private tech sector as opposed to those used by government entities. Some stylized examples: open source vs. proprietary; Ruby on Rails vs. .NET; cloud services like Heroku or Amazon Web Services vs. in-house server hosting; Unix-yRead… Read more »

GOV 2.0 Gift Guide: Rest & Reflection for 2013

This holiday season you may be traveling far and wide in search of some R&R before the coming year, you might be reconnecting with family, you may be working yourself to the bone as 2014 too quickly approaches, or perhaps headed to one last holiday fiesta. What I often find during the holiday season, betweenRead… Read more »

Tell Us: What’s on Your Organization’s IT Resolutions List for 2014?

Can you believe that it’s already that time of the year when we all start reflecting on the past year, and begin to look forward to 2014? Who knows where the time goes, but things certainly are moving fast. As we look to 2014, what are some things that should be on your IT resolutionsRead… Read more »

Picking out the bright spots in the Best Places to Work Survey – plus your weekend reads!

We get it, the numbers from the latest Best Places to Work in the federal government are grim. Government wide satisfaction is down to 57% the lowest score in the 10 year history of the survey. It is hard to work for the government right now. But there were some bright spots. Despite some reallyRead… Read more »

Nelson Mandela: His Legacy to Democracy

We recently read an inspiring piece from the Kettering Foundation, an NCDD member organization, that we hope you will take a moment to read. It is a heartfelt tribute to the amazing legacy of the late Nelson Mandela, written by KF Interntional Resident and graduate student at the the University of the Witwatersrand in SouthRead… Read more »