GSA Launches Pilot 12-Week Social Media Training

This post has been updated to highlight the role of GSA’s Web Manager University. Starting February 7, I’ll be leading a 12-week social media in government course that aims to help new and aspiring social media practitioners understand the strategy and tools that will help the succeed in their roles. The class is being offeredRead… Read more »

Everyone Wants to Manage Us but No One Wants to Work Here!

According to the January 16th article in FedSmith titled Debating the Cost of Federal Employees, “Recent reports in the media … have sparked a debate about whether or not federal employees are overpaid at a time when the federal deficit is soaring. Federal employee unions contend that federal employees are substantially underpaid, whereas others argueRead… Read more »

And Welcome Again!

This is the second post of our new blog Leadership. My name is Dick Davies, and I have learned that leadership is the usually the key between winning and losing. Here are some aspects. You manage things, you lead people. Managing people is like pushing a rope. “Asses and elbows” is an accurate description aboutRead… Read more »

Deltek Justice/Public Safety 2012 Predictions: Justice and Corrections

Deltek Analyst Kristin Howe reports. Correctional facilities are among the most heavily guarded and secure locations in the county. This strong level of security is achieved both through increased manpower and vast technological networks designed to allow only certain people into specific areas of a facility, while simultaneously tracking the locations of every person inRead… Read more »

Five organizing tips for a successful open government unconference

Original appearance on opensource.com. Joining the open source (and CityCamp) movement has been one of the best experiences of my life. I’ve been involved with open source for over a decade, but I never got involved in a community project in any significant way–until I found CityCamp. I haven’t submitted a single line of code,Read… Read more »

Managing Bureaucratization

Controlling an organization is difficult. The larger the organization, the more complex is the process of control. We don’t think about it too much, but what we are trying to control are changes that naturally occur. The drivers of changes are many and can be hidden in the layers of the organization. The internal driversRead… Read more »

Building the Better Burger: Cover Letters

We’ve done all the necessary preparation and have our philosophy of building the better burger. Here’s the structure I suggest for your cover letter (and I like using block paragraph format–saves space and looks cleaner): Your street address (notice your name is not here) Your City, State and Zip [one space] Date [one space] ContactsRead… Read more »