Mom always said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” She didn’t mean that we couldn’t disagree, discipline or even tell the truth – but there is a way to communicate that isn’t derogatory, hurtful or intentionally inflammatory. The sarcasm or brutal honesty characterized by The Simpsons or American Idol, isRead… Read more »
I’ve been organizing this amazing group of government open source practitioners. Mostly, it’s Drupal, but we do have some plone and joomla folks as well. We have gotten together for show and tells and in September, we held our first coding sprint. At the end of the sprint, we built an open atrium site weRead… Read more »
When Significant Capital Needs Precede Customer Payments on Government Contracts -by Richard Lewis, Financial Engineering Counselors, Ltd. The Good News: Your Company has landed a new Government contract, one that will result in a significant increase in revenues. The Challenge: In order to fulfill this contract, you must commit to additional people (payroll), training, materials,Read… Read more »
Recently, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mr. Robert Duffner, director of Product Management for Windows Azure, as part of his “Thought Leaders in the Cloud” series. In this interview, we discussed: Actual government IT successes, especially using cloud computing Deconstructing the hype around cloud computing and talking about its real characteristics andRead… Read more »
Part 1 in the series, Business Development is to Marketing, comprised of excerpts on Ms. Quesinberry’s Suite101 column of her upcoming business development book due for release in 2011. Whether in the throes of an initial business plan or evaluating a success-driven international enterprise, BD (business development) is the mechanism deployed to secure or maintainRead… Read more »
Your email inbox is overflowing, your phone is ringing constantly, and your assistant is on vacation. Requests are pouring in for more detailed information about the council meeting, and you haven’t even turned on your computer yet. If only you could check-off the most important post-meeting task, “Finish Minutes,” within an hour of arriving intoRead… Read more »
This week I wanted to share some of your insightful comments to Monday’s column on curbing the attrition of talented federal workers. Many of you flagged that pay and career progression may be at the heart of our government’s attrition problems. Please continue sharing your ideas and questions by emailing me at [email protected]. To continueRead… Read more »
It’s that time again… Friday’s Fab Five! Every Friday, we’re summarizing the best of the week and highlighting five members or moments that were especially awesome. The Most Commented Blog of the Week goes to Jay Daughtry for his post “7 Questions to Reflect on Before Hiring a College Intern for Social Media”. Jay asksRead… Read more »
Gadi Ben-Yehuda Slate’s Michael Agger asks the question “How should we use data to improve our lives?” An important question for those of us clamoring for more data. Mobile apps are paving the way for city services (har har har) reports the Wall Street Journal. Interesting to see that services can be built on dataRead… Read more »
A few months back, GovLoop Community Manager Andrew Krzmarzick made an appeal to the White House: “Mr. President: Tear Down Those Walls”. In a nutshell, he suggested that those “ugly, boxy buildings…represent everything that makes government less efficient and effective” and gave 5 reasons why it’s time to tear them down. So Ed O’Keefe onlyRead… Read more »