Tell Your Story: 5 Easy Steps for Effective Content Marketing

Quick: what’s the last ad you remember seeing? With promotions covering every square inch and pixel in your viewing area, you probably don’t remember. So in a world of literal clutter, how can you catch (and hold) the attention of potential clients and key audiences? Content marketing offers a viable solution for organizations to showRead… Read more »

Are You a Leadership “Freak”?

We sometimes refer to zealous hobbyists as ‘freaks’: tennis freaks, golf freaks, computer freaks. These highly enthusiastic people excel in their pursuits; they are unique, rare, uncommon, top-of-the-bell-curve types. Are You a Leadership “Freak”? According to a Harvard Business School of Leadership study, if you are an honest and thankful leader, you are a leadershipRead… Read more »

How the Public Sector Can ‘Buzzfeed’ Its Content

I recently attended an excellent event called News:rewired. As part of the event there was a speaker from Buzzfeed who highlighted their underlying principles. In particular they aim to ‘bake in the share imperative’ by creating engaging content that triggers actions such as: inspiring awe being positive surprising its readers It’s easy to be snootyRead… Read more »

Keep an eye out for Australia’s open budget

We’ve now suffered through most of the fun and games of budget leaking season this year, with the 2014-15 Australian Government budget now in its final ‘straight’. There were a variety of balloons floated, claims and counterclaims touted, promises apparently broken (or not, depending on who you listen to) and all the usual suspects wheelingRead… Read more »

Can Innovation Labs Transform Public Sector Work Culture?

In case you missed it, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has brought a piece of Silicon Valley’s high-tech entrepreneurial spirit to Washington in the form of a new and exciting Innovation Lab. Since launching in March 2012, the Lab has been successfully utilized by employees from dozens of federal agencies ranging from NASARead… Read more »

The Case for More In-House Development: How a Skunk Works Saves Money in the Long Run

On the surface it makes perfect sense. Outsource your development efforts. When the development is done, the contract developers leave and you’re not paying for their time. Makes more efficient use of your IT dollars! Better! Faster! Cheaper! However, not having skilled developers available misses out on an essential skill set to make your organizationRead… Read more »

Speaking, Training or Presenting? Don’t forget the most important thing…

I love getting out and working with clients, giving workshops and otherwise directly interacting with our customers and our product. Today was one of those great days where there are no monotonous meetings. Just an all day series of training sessions and workshops with various groups using ExAM to support inspections, operations and services forRead… Read more »

Speaking, Training or Presenting? Don’t forget the most important thing…

I love getting out and working with clients, giving workshops and otherwise directly interacting with our customers and our product. Today was one of those great days where there are no monotonous meetings. Just an all day series of training sessions and workshops with various groups using ExAM to support inspections, operations and services forRead… Read more »

Modes of failure

A lot of care goes into designing successful interactions. The same level of care is needed in the design of unsuccessful ones. Three times in the last three days I have been wrongfooted by interaction failure, from which I draw three lessons. The three examples are very different from each other in some ways, butRead… Read more »

Content Strategy: Where to Start

For many of us in the public sector, being a content strategist is another hat we’re supposed to wear as jack-of-all-trades web specialists. If you haven’t done much research on how to develop a content strategy or why, this post will help you get started. What’s in a content strategy? To define content strategy, RachelRead… Read more »