Questions to Ask During Informational Interviews

I always harp on job seekers to do informational interviews. These meetings are essential in building up your personal network and expanding on your knowledge of organizations in your chosen field. But what are you supposed to talk about during your half hour to an hour chat with a professional in your field? It’s firstlyRead… Read more »

Reload Tool For Creating Learning Objects

Helen Lynch, ACT Toolbox Champion, from Canberra Institute of Technology gave a webinar today on “Learning objects: Create, reuse and deploy for better teaching and learning online!” using the VET Reload Tool and use this with the as LORN and Toolbox Repositories of the vocational sector. This was of interest beyond the VET sector, asRead… Read more »

Update on Research on www.plainlanguage.gov

Thanks to all of you who provided support for our research for www.plainlanguage.gov. We are trying to understand as closely as possible what Government thinkers need to know (about plain language and clear writing legislation. Here’s the background/reason for our research n 2006, my students reshaped the site www.plainlanguage.gov. Our purpose at that time wasRead… Read more »

Determining the Type of Website Best Suited for Non-profits

Most industries (i.e. legal, medical, finance, etc.) prefer their content management solution be customized to meet their specific needs. Non-profit organizations prefer that their solution be customized as well but they face a difficult hurdle: funding. A non-profit organization’s yearly budget lies solely on the generosity of donors and grants that are awarded by statesRead… Read more »

Starlings, Transparency, and Thad Allen

I always consider a conference a success if I come away inspired by one big idea. That happened to me at the recent annual conference of the American Society for Public Administration. I’ve been mulling over a series of presentations given at that conference that coincidentally helped me think more clearly about “complexity theory” andRead… Read more »

Recruitment 411: Private industry tips for public agencies – Part I

I recently ran across an interesting article on About.com featuring “Ten tips for attracting employees.” Susan Ward writes about how business owners can compete to attract the best and most qualified job applicants. At first glance, it seemed this list could never apply to our outreach efforts in the IRS Recruitment Office. As anyone whoRead… Read more »