The Power of Your Goals

Quote: “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” – Tony Robbins One of my favorite motivational speakers is the late Zig Ziglar. When it came to the topic of goals, he flat out sold you on the concept. He said are you a “meaningful specific” or a “wandering generality?”Read… Read more »

Be Sure to Take Good Care of Your Health

Quote: “Begin with the end in mind.” – Stephen Covey Always take time to care for you. Having goals and being focused on getting paid more is great, but if you have bad health, it won’t mean much. Besides in order to get ahead and stay there you need to have good mental, emotional andRead… Read more »

Why NCDD is so great…

I’m feeling really grateful right now for this supportive network we’ve built up over the past 11 years, and all of the amazing people that make NCDD a special, one-of-a-kind community. I just realized we had SEVEN people renew their membership today and yesterday, and I wanted to give them a quick shout-out. Thank youRead… Read more »

Hacking Civic Engagement Through Design

It all started with a tweet: @sf311 GG Park sprinklers on full blast this AM; ground already soaked & mud starting from heavy fog – very wasteful, anything you can do? Earlier this year, in September, CfA’s Cyd Harrell gave a talk at TEDx Sacramento on hacking civic engagement through design. During her talk sheRead… Read more »

Cool Tools

Here’s an example of using appropriate (not new) technology in new ways. Kevin Kelley has self published Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities, a book based on a ten year blog, and tells his story of publishing it. If you would like to preview what is in the book, check out the Cool Tools blog.Read… Read more »

Tips for Software Innovators Inside the Federal Government

This is a guest post by Robert Read, a Presidential Innovation Fellow known for his work on RFP-EZ. Change the game through prototypes, Be a samurai: a loyal hacker, Be fast rather than good, Stand on the shoulders of giants, Scrape, don’t bow, and Be prepared to work outside the system. 1: Change the gameRead… Read more »

Thinking Differently about Data, Apps, and Policy

In economics studies for policy guidance, the apps used to interpret the data are normally opaque. So, if there are errors, the policy guidance can be misleading, but that fact can go unnoticed. A paper entitled “Social Knowledge Transfer Using Executable English” describes a US national economic policy example, and suggests a way of makingRead… Read more »