5 Cool Federal Dashboards (and 2 Awesome Agency Ones)

In December 2009, the Open Government Directive established deadlines for federal agencies to make quality information available to the public, all in the name of greater transparency. Recovery.gov was one of the leaders of this open government charge, and was actually established in February 2009, ahead of the directive. Today, there are a number ofRead… Read more »

Can You Put a Sensor on a Bull and Call it the Internet of Things?

An odd question to ask, right? But the answer is, theoretically, yes, you can put a sensor on a bull and call it the Internet of Things. That’s not exactly a direct quote from Peter Romness, the Cybersecurity Solutions Lead for the U.S. Public Sector at Cisco, but while discussing what is a part ofRead… Read more »

Screen the Chemicals, Save the People

Lab rats rejoice! There’s a new way to test common household chemicals. The EPA’s Office of Research and Development has started a new program that can screen thousands of industrial and household chemicals for hazardous effects without using animals. Chemicals, depending on their classification, have different degrees of research data gathered on them. For manyRead… Read more »

Connecting Data Silos and Achieving Your Data Mission

During yesterday’s webinar “Connecting Data Silos to Create an Actionable View of Your Data” Nicholas Skytland, Data Evangelist for NASA, said it so simply, quoting Daniel Keys Morgan, “you can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data.” Data is an integral part of making any agency successful on all of itsRead… Read more »

Creating a Robust Insider Threat Program at Any Agency

This interview is an excerpt from GovLoop’s recent research brief, Combating Insider Threats. Insider threats are constant and varied within government, which can lead many agencies to think they are an inevitable occurrence. In reality, there are a number of tactics that agencies can pursue to mitigate the risk of an internal breach. To betterRead… Read more »

The Future of Libraries: DigitalNZ is Leading the Way

Change is scary When the internet started to hit critical mass in the late 1990s / early 2000s, there were dire stories about how libraries would go the way of dinosaurs, with the expectation that books would be deliberately destroyed like a Fahrenheit 451 dystopia or tossed in a landfill somewhere to moulder quietly. MoreRead… Read more »

A History of the Happy Hour

Washington D.C. is home to our world’s most influential leaders, is a mecca for dedicated (yet low-paid) interns, and is the largest funnel for innovative policy. After 8 AM, most DC professionals are working hard to finish their daily tasks so they can escape by 5 PM to the nearest drinking hole. And no, thisRead… Read more »

Why You Need a Data Strategy

NASA has a lot of data. Understatement, right? In pursuit of its exploration mission, NASA has generated, collected and compiled a vast amount of data through the eyes of satellites, telescopes, robots, spacecraft, wind tunnels, laboratories and the cameras of astronauts that has helped us better understand Earth, other planets, and the depths of space.Read… Read more »