GovHack is over for 2014, with teams finishing their hacks by 5:30pm on Sunday, 13 July. With over 1,200 participants organised into 178 teams, 204 projects were developed in under two days, with 146 projects (based on my count) eligible for the approximately $70,000 in national prizes. Note: GovHack has informed me they are stillRead… Read more »
Give me your tired (of the status quo), your poor, your black, your brown, your multilingual, your hackers, your entrepreneurs — all yearning to improve government. If that wasn’t a remix of “The New Colossus,” it could have been the call to action I heard from Code for America once upon a time! Go backRead… Read more »
Written with guest blogger Matt Roberts, Informatics Project Manager Inadequate information management leads to incomplete decision-making. Public health and healthcare decision-makers’ eyes routinely glaze over once information technology is mentioned. Return on investment is difficult to pinpoint, and millions of dollars appear to fall into IT black holes as the proposed product often arrives behindRead… Read more »
Sometimes looking to your past can improve your future. Napoleon marching on Moscow is an example of project management, which helped future generals avoid being blinded by their own hubris. Closed societies, like the Ming Dynasty in China, illustrate the dangers of getting closed off from potential growth and later helped other societies prosper fromRead… Read more »
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) had to face an unsettling fact: when it came to generating stakeholder engagement, the old way of doing things just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. After conducting research, DOI realized that despite being a federal agency with a huge stakeholder base and a wealth of importantRead… Read more »
This reflective piece comes from NCDD blogger Tom Atlee of the Co-Intelligence Project. Tom’s original post can be found at www.tomatleeblog.com/?p=175327099. The popular book “The Wisdom of Crowds” says a lot about the remarkable accuracy of thousands of people making guesses about something that has a real but unknown answer now or in the future.Read… Read more »
I suspect that I need to explain both these terms so here goes. Microservices The word Microservices has become popular recently as short hand for a particular approach to online services. The basic idea is simple. It is that when new services are created that they are sliced up into discrete parts that can operateRead… Read more »
Ready for your performance evaluation? Nothing stirs up the stomach like knowing it’s time to find out how you measure up at work. In some organizations, 360 degree evaluations are popular, while many of us receive monthly, quarterly, or yearly evaluations directly from our supervisors. Then there are those impromptu, informal evaluations where a supervisor,Read… Read more »
At this year’s annual Digital Communications Tour stop in Washington DC, officials from three government agencies presented to hundreds of their peers on the latest innovations in digital communications in federal government. Below is a snapshot of part of the panel session with Alan Levy, Chief Web Officer at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)Read… Read more »
The goal of mindfulness is to be aware, moment by moment, of your body, your thoughts, your surroundings, and your motivations. While the practice of mindfulness originated in Buddhist meditations, secular use is very common. People practice mindfulness in different ways for various reasons, and many of the benefits are helpful in a work setting,Read… Read more »