The Weekly Spark – Week of June 3, 2011

The Weekly Spark – Week of June 3, 2011 The text of this FYI posting is passed along freely and verbatim as ‘public service’ and potentially essential public information drawn from the Weekly Spark of June 3, 2011*. The excerpted info for this post are titles, plus ‘lede’ sentences, abstracts and links of items previouslyRead… Read more »

CfA Summer Open House

Summer is upon us at Code for America! How do I know this, you may ask, since the weather in San Francisco has been so…well, un-summerlike (read: foggy, cold, and yes even rainy!)? Why, it’s because we have our summer interns starting on Monday! And they will certainly brighten our spirits despite Mother Nature! WeRead… Read more »

Breaking Free From PowerPoint: A New Way to Present

Like many of you, I’ve spent years working with PowerPoint. I used it in college for projects. I’ve used it throughout my career internally and externally to present ideas, processes, and results. Although it’s been around since 2009, a friend recently introduced me to “Prezi”, a different way to create dynamic and engaging presentations. IRead… Read more »

Random Data – What Percent of the U.S. is the Population of Each FEMA Region?

Ok Ok…I know…who plays with data for fun? Well, I did…and pulled this little tid bit together and thought I’d share in case anyone was interested. I was interested in figuring out what percentage of the total U.S. population each FEMA Region represented…just something I think about… After pulling 2010 Census Data from http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/ –Read… Read more »

San Ramon Fire Department App in the News

The Wall Street Journal recently featured the San Ramon Fire Department’s innovative mobile app, which enables citizen participation in emergency situations. Their app, “Fire Department,” allows people trained in CPR to sign up to receive text messages when someone nearby is suffering cardiac arrest, and then they can then use the app to map theRead… Read more »

Weekend Wondering

One of the greatest challenges and opportunities in being a truly effective leader is to integrate all of who we are into all our activities. I am constantly amazed when clients describe their background only to leave out major pieces of their life because they didn’t think it was important. Everything that happens in yourRead… Read more »

GovBytes: Are state CIOs out of position on health care?

Most people are probably vaguely aware that last year’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires each state to set up a “health benefit exchange,” where residents can go to compare options and purchase health insurance, by 2014. What people might not realize is that, according to an article in Government Technology, it’s Chief InformationRead… Read more »