USDA, Navy to Discuss Future Biofuel Procurement

The departments of the Agriculture and Navy are set to announce new biofuel procurement opportunities at a summit scheduled for Sunday through Wednesday in San Diego. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus will make the announcement from Washington via teleconference, trade association and summit host BIO said Monday. Chris Tindal, director opfRead… Read more »

Service Desk Software Helps the Developmentally Disabled in the Buckeye State

Government agencies are ditching their old habits and implementing new service desk software in hopes of more cost effective solutions to consolidate and optimize their help desk. The Department of Developmental Disabilities (DODD) based in Ohio, “The Buckeye State” was established to maintain applications for roughly 2,000 employees and provide customer support for over 10,000Read… Read more »

FY14: Savings, Savings, Savings

In our most recent blog post, we shared how much money federal agencies and taxpayers save by using GSA’s Networx program. And while it’s a significant amount of money, there’s more to the savings story. Across government we are challenged with constrained budgets and acquisition resources while simultaneously focused on improving procurement and ultimately deliveringRead… Read more »

New CommunityMatters Conference Call Series Starts Thursday

We are excited to share that our partners at CommunityMatters, in collaboration with the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design, are launching a new conference call series on moving community projects from planning through completion called “Making it Happen”. Their first call, “Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper”, will take place this Thursday, December 12th from 4-5pm Eastern Time.Read… Read more »

Improving crime prevention and awareness with data and analytics

Crime prevention and awareness techniques are changing and data, analytics and use of technology is making a difference. While law enforcement departments continue to face issues related to data – ranging from working with outdated information, inability to share data across departments, and difficulty in collapsing data for analysis – a new trend is emergingRead… Read more »

Social Software Platforms: High-Level Guidance for Organizations

Summary: This post offers high-level guidance for organizations looking to acquire and implement a social software solution to facilitate communication and collaboration in a secure environment via a private digital network (e.g., an enterprise 2.0 or social business platform, a social intranet, a digital community). It provides considerations for getting started, selecting a social softwareRead… Read more »

Interesting elsewhere – 10 December 2013

Things which caught my eye elsewhere on the web Five Ways to Learn Nothing from Your Customers’ Feedback – Rob Markey – Harvard Business ReviewAnonymity in customer feedback is, frankly, overrated. People want to be heard. They want their feedback to be acknowledged. They want to know that the time they invested sharing feedback meantRead… Read more »

Great Brands Are Different

I was reading a book by Steve Yastrow this week entitled, “We: The Ideal Customer Relationship,” when I stumbled upon this insight… we are defined not by the things that make us similar, but by the things that make us different. Brilliant! The great corporate, philanthropic and personal brands that come to mind are theRead… Read more »

3 Ways to Increase Your Value at Work

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein 1. Spend an hour a week thinking of new ideas you can implement at your federal place of employment without being asked — and present them to your manager. 2. Get in the habit of skimming a lot of publicationsRead… Read more »

The great Gov 2.0 ‘sporting’ contest between Australia and Britain

Not this urn… It’s December, and Brits and Aussies alike have turned their thoughts to Christmas, family, parties, holidays and travel. There’s also a very special content underway down-under between Britain and Australia, consuming the thoughts of millions. It all revolves around a very particular type of urn… An urn containing the ashes of AustralianRead… Read more »