Knock It Off!
A manager asked me the best way to “knock the rough edges off” his team? I said, “How about we grow them until the rough edges are covered?” Are you a knocker or a grower?
Miscellaneous
WHITE HOUSE TO HOST FIRST PRESIDENTIAL GOOGLE+ HANGOUT
The White House announced today that President Obama will be hosting the first “official Presidential Google Hangout” today at 5:30 Eastern. Using a combination of the White House’s YouTube channel to take in questions and Google Hangout for a live conversation with selected participants, this event will mark a digital first for those have servedRead… Read more »
SEPTA launches online snapshot of system status
SEPTA launched System Status, an online tool that gives riders real-time updates for bus, trolley, and rail services in one place. Original post
New York transit police get upgraded radios
The NYPD Transit Bureau purchased 2,700 dual-band radios which will allow police patrolling the subway system to communicate with officers on the street. Original post
Metro apologizes for power and communications failure
Washington Metro (DC) apologized to customers after its power system failed Thursday night, leaving riders with no service and no information. Original post
Gamification can change behaviour. I have proof.
This post has been on my mind for a while now, and a recent article on the topic from Policy Horizons Canada finally brought this to the top of my “blog topics” list (which seems to have a leaking hole in it these days…sorry about that). As always, I like to start with a definition:Read… Read more »
TSP Talk – We hate to see January go
Despite the S&P 500 being down 3 of the 5 days last week, the major indices all managed to close in positive territory for the week, with a strong showing from the small cap and international funds. The market was bolstered by the Fed’s reassurance of low interest rates through at least 2014, and leftRead… Read more »
Sunlight Foundation's Political Party Time: SOPA Fundraisers
Motion Picture Association of America Chairman Chris Dodd set off a firestorm of criticism last week when he suggested that Hollywood would withhold campaign money from President Obama and lawmakers who don’t toe the Hollywood line on online piracy. Losing support of the entertainment industry would not be insignificant for the president: In 2011, DreamWorksRead… Read more »
Contract Duplication Challenges Continue
Contract Duplication remains a challenge for government and industry and is an issue that the Coalition will continue to highlight in the interest of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the procurement system. Duplicative contracts for the same or similar commercial products and services increase government and contractor administrative, bid and proposal and other overheadRead… Read more »
Hadoop Quickstart: Use Whirr to automate standup of your distributed cluster on Rackspace
We have previously provided a Quickstart guide to standing up Rackspace cloud servers (and have one for Amazon servers as well). These are very low cost ways of building reliable, production ready capabilities for enterprise use (commercial and government). And Bryan Halfpap has provided a Quickstart guide which shows you how to build a HadoopRead… Read more »