New Step for Harwood’s Public Innovators Initiative

We are pleased to share the announcement below about an exciting and ambitious initiative being undertaken by Rich Harwood and the Harwood Institute, an NCDD organizational member. The Harwood Institute is setting bold goals for its Public Innovators program, which you can read about below or in the original post here. We are also excitedRead… Read more »

Can we measure social media’s impact on the European elections?

With three months still to go, people are already talking about the European elections on social media. But will social media actually make a difference? And, perhaps more importantly, can we get beyond speculation and measure the impact of social media on the 2014 European elections? In this post, I’m going to take a briefRead… Read more »

A good community engagement professional understands their tools – and picks the right ones to meet their goals

I had an interesting conversation via Twitter with @hughstephens of Dialogue Consulting on Friday regarding how and when different consultation and engagement tools should be used by government. His view was that online surveys should not be the default consultation method for government, Possibly going to be controversial by saying that online surveys should NOTRead… Read more »

Why does government divide not unite?

Ukraine, Syria, South Sudan, Venezuela, Iraq, Egypt — all divided by deadly violence resulting from dissatisfaction with government. Scotland and Catalonia — two most prominent sub national regions conducting succession referendums based on dissatisfaction with government. Walonia, Basque, Quebec, Tibet, — most well known regions with active separatist movements. Colorado & California — states withRead… Read more »

TSP Talk Weekly Wrap Up

Stocks were mixed last week with the Dow and S&P 500 (C-fund) posting minor weekly losses, while the small caps and the I-fund posted nice gains. Bonds (F-fund) were up slightly, but still beat the G-fund. Here are the weekly, monthly, and annual TSP fund returns through Friday, February 21… The S&P 500 (SPY /Read… Read more »

Show me the Money: How the federal budget will impact business development

By Guest Blogger: Ray Bjorklund, President, BirchGrove Consulting LLC As a business developer, you follow the money. You trek toward the customers that spend money and the customers that spend the most. Discretionary spending authority, appropriated by Congress, is your bellwether. As an experienced business developer, you follow that portion of the budget authority intendedRead… Read more »

On the other hand. . . . CBG Round-up, 02.21.2014

Gadi Ben-Yehuda On the other hand. . . FCW reports that “U.S. ranks sixth in use of digital government” while FedTech takes “A Look at NASA’s Innovative, Secure Mobility Strategy.” These two themes are reconciled, kind of, in a second FCW article, “Time to raise networking expectations in government“ The power of social media isRead… Read more »

Gather Stakeholder Inputs

Your organization consists of much more than just your employees and managers. Clients and customers, providers, contractors and others are also included in the role of “stakeholder.” When you’re ramping up for a transformation initiative, it’s important to gather the inputs from all stakeholders, not just those who are most obvious. Touch on topics likeRead… Read more »