Communications

LinkedIn Activity: Trying to Manage the Virtually Unmanageable

This article attempts to help intermediate and advanced LinkedIn users understand how their LinkedIn activity is broadcast and shared with other users, and provides recommendations for the best approaches to managing that activity within LinkedIn’s constraints. It provides a comparable assessment and recommendations for filtering and managing other people’s LinkedIn activity as well.  Want moreRead… Read more »

Connecting Through the HUD Switchboard

Switchboard’s mission is to provide HUD’s citizens, stakeholders, and staff with the tools and channels necessary to interact meaningfully with their government in the following ways: By welcoming and encouraging creative ideation to improve HUD’s programs, policies, and operations, and engaging those interested in the process of putting those ideas into action; By creating avenues of feedback for individuals or organizationsRead… Read more »

Meeting of the Minds

The mere mention of a meeting can send people scrambling for the solace of a long email chain. But meetings don’t have to be catalysts for eye rolls or iPhone games. Creativity is key. Within the EPA Innovation Team, we occasionally have walking meetings. I’m a big fan. Coffee meetings? Not as much. Despite meetingsRead… Read more »

Calling All Writers: Be a GovLoop Featured Blogger!

The applications are now closed – thanks for you interest! If you want to apply later on, we’ll be doing another featured blogger round at the end of March 2015. At GovLoop, we pride ourselves on our community. There are over 150,000 of you — government employees, industry partners, and knowledge experts — who areRead… Read more »

Stop Failing, Start Learning: Try Rapid Prototyping

John Godfrey Saxe, an American poet, introduced the Indian parable “The Blind Men and the Elephant” to a Western audience. In this tale, six blind men touch the same elephant, but each perceives something different about the animal. “And so these men of Indostan disputed loud and long, each in his own opinion exceeding stiffRead… Read more »

In 7 Words or Less…What’s Your 2015 Prediction?

Wow.  2014 was a great year for government innovation.  We are in the middle of writing our end of year wrap-up guide highlighting 30 great case studies of government innovation from USGS drones to GSA smart building to State of Hawaii’s gamification website. And those are just the ones that made the cut for this guide –Read… Read more »

Innovate From Where You Are

Every manager responsible for doing something different to get a better result must find a starting point. Much has been written about how to innovate, and good research informs us about phases, stages, and steps. Almost all of what is written comes from commercial innovation, but the basic lessons and best practices work in government,Read… Read more »

3 Tips to Make Training Stick for Today’s Attention Spans

In 1998, the average attention span could be held for 12 minutes. In 2008, the average attention span could be held for 5 minutes. In 2018, what will the average attention span be? This trend toward increasingly short attention spans is a major concern for training professionals that are trying to design more effective trainings. WhenRead… Read more »