Snail… What’s that make you think of?

Your agency’s technology, perhaps? Would a $5,000 Technology Grant Help?no strings. no cost. no commitment. no essays.http://www.municibid.com/grant.asp Over the past few months, I’ve traveled the country on the “municibid Across America Tour” to attend various municipal association conferences. I had the great pleasure of speaking with thousands of local government agencies. One common theme inRead… Read more »

Calling Citizen Developers – Opportunity to make a difference!

Calling all citizen developers who may be interested in some pro bono geektastic work. The Council of the District of Columbia is looking for a few good geeks and geekets to do a pilot citizen engagement app to use within the council member’s office. The idea is to leverage open source hosted platforms or cloudRead… Read more »

Without Engagement Gov 2.0 Will Fail

For people who are on the cutting edge of the Gov 2.0 movement, we often forget that a majority of government employees are still not enthusiastic about the potential of the new social networking technologies in their workplace. Now many of these folks are using Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. to keep up with their familyRead… Read more »

Gratitude….Practicing Thanks This Thanksgiving!

I know that we are all inundated with news events that have placed so much stress on us! Our questionable economy, foreclosures, rising health care cost, military family away from home, and continued job loss has overwhelmed many. You may have read a similar article I wrote last year regarding showing gratitude but I thinkRead… Read more »

Unproductive Meetings? There should be an app for that.

“In this world nothing is certain except death and taxes” – Benjamin Franklin Old Ben was pretty close, but he forgot one crucial element: meetings. We all attend them, we often loath them, we often wonder in hindsight if they were actually worth the time. I’m not trying to say that meetings can’t be useful,Read… Read more »

“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”

Mom always said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” She didn’t mean that we couldn’t disagree, discipline or even tell the truth – but there is a way to communicate that isn’t derogatory, hurtful or intentionally inflammatory. The sarcasm or brutal honesty characterized by The Simpsons or American Idol, isRead… Read more »

Research and Best Practices eNewsletter 11/19

Research Digital Divide in Internet Searching (11/2010) – Study examines the digital divide in Internet information searching. Data from 476 Vermont households surveyed in 2009 found socioeconomic and demographic factors such as education level, income, and age. http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3118/2649 News Morgan Stanley on the “State of the Internet” (11/16/2010) – Presentation by Mary Meeker calls attentionRead… Read more »

Government 2.0 challenge, reducing employee turnover

Did you know that “government-wide, 24.2 percent of newly hired employees leave within a two-year time frame“? (This is based upon research from Booz Allen Hamilton). I talk to a lot of people in Government positions, primarily those focused on driving government 2.0 changes. These people are often not managers, they are simply passionate peopleRead… Read more »