Robert Eckhardt

I think that you have to know what great people want in a job and then you need to allow them to do that once they are hired.

Where I work the pace of change is so glacial that no quality people want to work here. Furthermore, the technology and processes used are so out of date that the experience does little to help you find a job.…[Read more]

If we look at similar job salaries
Median Mayoral salary = $59,000 $68,000 in DC
Median state legislative salaries = $57,619 though those are considered too low.
$80k seems reasonable considering they can legally engage in insider trading

How about a rational change in congressional pay. Perhaps we ought to make congressional pay equal to the 75th percentile of US wage earners, effectively dropping their salaries from $174,000 to $80,000 saving $94,000 per congressman or $50 million yearly. Not only would this save the Government money, it would shift congressional income into a…[Read more]

My general problem is that most regular meetings I attend don’t have a purpose. The person who scheduled the meeting didn’t have clear expectations as to what they wanted/needed and that ambiguity was met with ambiguity. These meetings seem to go on with inertia rivaling celestial bodies.

In general I think the Monday morning update is great…[Read more]

On a related note:
A new study finds that the math gender gap is cultural not biological.
I am not at all surprised.

What area are you looking for outreach in? Are you near a University?

Thanks

I am with the blogger on this. If the videos were procured from the gov employee and then posted I am all in favor of pulling them. OTOH the videos were pulled from the department web site which makes them fair game. I think that asking the blogger to remove the videos would be okay.

The issue is that deleting the post does nothing for…[Read more]

The NSF has a GK-12 program for general Science and Math outreach. The program sends Graduate students into classrooms in order to inspire students and teachers. There are requirements for female participation and the program I was involved with did a good job.
My bet would be that if you could figure out a way to better target girls there…[Read more]

Can someone share with me how Six Sigma works outside manufacturing or other industrial processes? I understand how and why it is used to reduce costly errors in industrial process but how are similar metrics applied in a typical government environment?

Robert Reich wrote an interesting article on the income differences over time. His premise was that employers need to pay employees enough so that they have disposable income enough to spend.
You ought to check out his piece.

I want to add my love for the tautology “real change requires real change.”

Documentation = awesome.

Thanks

It will only become a threat to the US economy if it is perceived to be a threat to the US economy. Currently out GDP to Debt ratio is far better than any of the European Counties in crisis and US banks don’t seem to be too deeply entrenched in the crisis. This means we ‘should’ be able to avoid problems. However, (a nice way of saying but) at…[Read more]

I suppose having a rational conversation with your girlfriend about why you think this is crazy won’t help.

I have a few friends who shop on Black Friday and they mostly do so because they enjoy the sport of it. They view it as a competition more than a way to save money, if they get one of the 5 $50 50″ TVs then they win. Perhaps if you…[Read more]

🙂

I used to work in a lab with a bunch of Italians. They were the best proof readers bar none.

If someone has taken enough care to do what is required to facilitate MY comprehension, and prevent my mis-comprehension, that’s someone I can probably place my confidence in.

IMO this is the only purpose of grammar. All the rest simply falls under people being petty and pedantic. All these discussions bring to mind is: http://www.youtube.com/wa…[Read more]

I replied to my issues with a snarky retort about my ability to RTFM. I feel a little bad about that now. They responded to that stating they were looking into the specific issues and would reply but I haven’t gotten a reply.

The classic business method of doing more with less is eliminating people and automating/reassigning their work. I think this could be an excellent opportunity to streamline the way government works. The only way to do this is to spend a little now to reorganize so that substantial savings can be made in the future.

I wish I didn’t agree with…[Read more]

I’m not sure how big of an issue this is in the Federal Government. In my local government It is a huge problem exacerbated by an aging infrastructure that regularly fights against the type of integration needed to perform analytics.