“You Better Listen to Me Because I Pay Your Salary!”

If you’ve been employed by a government entity, the odds are that you have been assaulted by hurtful or simply ridiculous remarks. Especially when someone at a party or gathering learns for the first time that you are ‘one of them’: ‘the lazy drains on society and their personal pocketbook’. Well, I’m about to giveRead… Read more »

Keep Up the Good Work

Greetings all, This is my first post (like, ever) so be kind. I was tempted to write up a piece on how resolutions are mostly meaningless without well thought-out objectives and milestones.  I’d make a clever connection to how organizations often make the same mistake when taking on major change management or training initiatives.  AsRead… Read more »

A Brief History of the Joint Information Environment

The Joint Information Environment (JIE) is an unbelievably ambitious yet necessary DoD initiative. Earlier, we shared a few statistics about the size and scale of the department’s IT shop, but here’s some additional context: DoD hosts more than 6,000 locations, supports 40 agencies and manages about 3.7 million people with cyber identity credentials. If those statisticsRead… Read more »

Avoiding the “Jaded Fed” Syndrome

We all know them – the long (or short) term career bureaucrat, counting down the days (months, decades) to retirement, seething in negativity and boredom. These employees contribute to poor public perception, engage in bristly customer service and their negativity can bring others down with them, creating a toxic work environment. Here are some tipsRead… Read more »

New Year’s Resolutions: Let’s Be SMART (or CLEAR)

Hello! Let me be the first (or more likely, the 181st) person to welcome you to a new year! Let’s just all agree that 2015 is going to be a good one despite the crushing disappointment of not having hoverboards like Back to the Future II promised us, okay? As we all get back toRead… Read more »

Playing Capture the Flag in the Digital Age

Sony was recently subject to one of the biggest hacks in history. The breach has led to the release of over 40,000 nonemployees’ Social Security numbers. This includes former employees and actors, dating as far back as 1984. This was in addition to the 6,500 current identities lost — and the hackers obtained several unreleasedRead… Read more »