Mission Essential Personnel Names Wesley Taylor As Theater Director – Afghanistan

Mission Essential Personnel, LCC (MEP) today announced it has hired Wesley B. Taylor Jr. as its new theater director in Afghanistan, where he will be responsible for overseeing and coordinating the company’s 6,500 professionals attached to supporting coalition efforts in that country. Wesley served 30 years in the military, finishing as a brigadier general inRead… Read more »

Can Rapper Nas and Dr. King teach us to be more civil?

In a recent discussion about civics and civil society, one of my colleagues referenced a line by Rap artist, Nasir Jones, a/k/a Nas from his song, “Hate Me Now” that states: People “fear what they don’t understand, hate what they can’t conquer.” On this day of national recognition for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., hisRead… Read more »

LotusSphere 2011 is having a solid Open Government Track

I will be attending LotusSphere 2011 as one of IBM’s special guess bloggers, meaning it will not cost me anything to be there as IBM is covering the cost (getting that out-of-the-way). My primary interest in the conference, beyond continuing to learn more about progress with their Lotus Connections product, is the Open Government trackRead… Read more »

Looking for Participatory Politicians

This post originally appeared on the Intellitics blog: Looking for Participatory Politicians We know there are a lot of (online) tools for participation available today, and we find out about more examples of how they are being used almost every day. About three weeks ago, someone asked me if I knew of any politicians stronglyRead… Read more »

The Coast Guard Photo Contest 2010 has started!

The Coast Guard’s 2010 People’s Choice photo contest is currently underway and the first five of the overall 40 are quite impressive (much like last year). If this is the caliber of photos we can expect for all 40 this is might be a little hard to choose… Nonetheless we’ll have to do this oneRead… Read more »

Start with a Question

My name is Craig Freshley and I’m in Brunswick, Maine. My one-page Group Decision Tips are shared around the world and are all posted for free at: www.GroupDecisionTips.com. There are about 140 Group Decision Tips available: all one-page pdf’s. They cover all topics relevant to group decision making: communications, conflict, leadership, policy development, facilitation techniques,Read… Read more »

A Budding Bromance???

Great column in last Sunday’s Beaver County Times about my efforts to make sure some of my colleagues are being held accountable for their campaign promises. Here’s the pertinent part: Crusher takes on Boy Wonder in mansion battle By: J.D. ProseBeaver County Times Fortunately for us, Democratic state Rep. Jesse “Crusher” White didn’t resolve toRead… Read more »

Rethinking Business

Paul Ford has a great post The Web Is A Customer Service Medium. His point is that the web can do fabulous customer service and that is what browsers want. It’s a more satisfying way of explaining what is often called information wants to be free. Customer service, or customer care as it was definedRead… Read more »

What I’m doing at Code for America

For the last two weeks – and for much of January – I’m in San Francisco helping out with Code for America. What’s Code for America? Think Teach for America, but rather than deploying people into classrooms to help provide positive experiences for students and teachers while attempting to shift the culture of school districts,Read… Read more »