Considerations for the Digital Public Information Officer (PIO)

This topic has come up time and time again here on GovLoop and I felt it was time to revisit the greater discussion involving use of social/new/2.0/3.0/etc technology for the purposes of emergency response, recovery, mitigation, citizen engagement, and so forth through the optic of the PIO. To this end, an entire world-wide group ofRead… Read more »

Seven Thoughts on Hadoop’s Seventh Birthday

By Doug Cutting Editor’s note: It has only been seven years since Hadoop’s first release, and think of the amazing things it has already empowered us to accomplish. Doug Cutting (Hadoop’s founder, Apache Software Foundation chair and Cloudera’s chief architect) published seven thoughts on Hadoop’s seventh birthday at the Cloudera blog, and we sought hisRead… Read more »

The Emergency Communications Catalyst: Social Media Meets Amateur Radio

I recently wrote on the coming of age of the “Digital Public Information Officer (PIO)” and how social media, digital volunteers, and organization is key. (Find the original posting here: Considerations for the Digital Public Information Officer) This sparked a lot of great conversation across the Social Media in Emergency Management (SMEM) community and aRead… Read more »

Opportunities in DoD BMD Relocations – USS FT GREELY?

By ChrisScott I watch with mixed horror and fascination the posturing of North Korea. This has been going on so long, it’s hard to take it seriously. But of course, such blatant threats can’t be completely ignored, and SECDEF’s recent announcement confirming his intention to expand the US Ballistic Missile Defense capabilities has been metRead… Read more »

Using Social Media to Communicate Emergency Response

Yesterday Dave Lawry and I presented Using Social Media to Communicate Emergency Response at the 2013 APWA North Amercian Snow Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was fun to give the presentation with Dave because he had some interesting first-hand experiences with implementing social media as a communication tool, particularly during snow operations. His storiesRead… Read more »

Millennials, Civic Engagement and Civic Tech

This post is written by Tamir Novotny, Senior Policy Associate at Living Cities, and is cross-posted from livingcities.org/blog. We’re (Living Cities) working with the City of Louisville, Ken. to develop technology to engage low-income young adults in the city’s long-term planning. Here’s what we’re learning. We recently kicked off in earnest a project in LouisvilleRead… Read more »

If you don’t know this stuff, you might be dangerous!

A Highlight from the upcoming NAGC Communications School. Do you know how to change from passive to active voice? What exactly should you do to make your writing and web pages clean and powerful? Have you fallen into the jargon habits of your agency? Plain language uses specific word and format tools that give yourRead… Read more »

Creating Strategic Foresight in Government

Does it make any sense for the government to think long term? One agency, NASA, developed a 200-year strategic plan, at one point. They engaged futurists and science fiction writers to help develop a plan for interplanetary exploration. Maybe it makes sense for NASA, but what about other agencies? Strategic foresight is not futurist forecasting,Read… Read more »