Improving the IT Acquisition Process

Federal Computer Week ran an interesting article recently on the many ideas and suggestions for improving the IT acquisition process. Their report was the result of the “Smarter Federal IT Initiatives: High Quality, Cost-Effective and On-Time” event sponsored by the Association of Management Consulting Firms in March. This event, featuring a panel of subject-matter experts,Read… Read more »

Porn Star Intern: What Happens To One’s Career After A Government Internship?

I read earlier today about Hilary Clinton’s former intern. Back in 2006 she (Ms. Sammie Spades) was a summer intern while attending community college. Plans were to become an attorney, and later go into public office. As it turns out, I guess you could say she did become a public servant, but of a muchRead… Read more »

Lunch Roulette: Random Social Networking in the Office

One of the exciting things about being in the inaugural class of Code for America Fellows is watching the Code for America culture evolve: hawk screams and git commit messages reverberate through the office; visitors jump into cross-functional teams on Labs Fridays; everyone is eager to share their knowledge and skills. It’s the kind ofRead… Read more »

Marketing and social media — get over it!

You’d think after all this time that this stuff would have gone away… I’ve worked in online comms and social media since before either of them had names. Articles like this bore me to tears; pundits who think their knowledge is the be all and end-all of marketing online as they spout about which “channel”Read… Read more »

Performance managing your social media: Part 1

Measuring the effectiveness of your social media effort: Or answering the really tough questions from people who are a little bit nervous about social media. At the recent LocalGovCamp, I was asked to present a session on performance management for social media. This is a little like performance managing telephone use. Yes, you can measureRead… Read more »

“Fun” Things About Code for America

A few weeks ago, we welcomed our summer interns to Code for America. During that time each of the Fellows was asked to name one fun thing about working at Code for America, so now we have a list “fun” things — however biased — about working for Code for America, which I thought we’dRead… Read more »

Basics

I was working with a business owner who wants to step back from his business. He has learned that means getting sales help, since in its absence, he has learned that sales is the most important thing he does. I showed him the Sales Model, and he understood it immediately. I spend over 80% ofRead… Read more »

SLA 2011: ROI and Beyond

The SLA Division of Government Information was the lead division for the Wednesday, June 15, 2011 program: ROI and Beyond. The speakers were Jennifer Klang, U.S. Department of the Interior Library, and James King, National Institutes of Health Library. Here are a few takeaways from the program: Some thoughts on how to increase ROI inRead… Read more »