Doing Things Right Or Doing The Right Thing?

I was working with an organization and ran into a strange situation. The head of their skunk works was a hero for doing things right. He was an inspiration for having his team working effectively, following the right order of build, making lists, all the stuff I treasure. The problem was nothing was coming outRead… Read more »

Alliant GWAC Five Years Later: Usage, savings, and efficiency just keep getting better

Five years ago, GSA’s Integrated Technology Services (ITS) team had an ambitious vision: to create a governmentwide acquisition contract (GWAC) to meet all of the federal government’s IT services needs. But primarily ITS wanted to save time and money by eliminating the need for agencies to create their own contracts. That vision and commitment createdRead… Read more »

7 Ways to Make Your Meetings More Exciting

Meetings compose a large amount of your work time, but are they time well spent? Efficiency can be increased or decimated by the timing and structure of meetings. Think about the impact multiplier for each participant. Starting an eight person meeting 15 minutes late wastes two hours of work for the organization. Bad meetings areRead… Read more »

What Are You Doing for National Day of Civic Hacking?

National Day of Civic Hacking is nearly here! The weekend of May 31-June 1, 2014 thousands of people will come together in communities around the world to hack, unconference, join a [freespace], and more. Code for America wanted to share what we’re up to for the weekend and invite you participate. Code for America EventRead… Read more »

Are you sitting comfortably?

Well, are you? Then I shall begin. Actually, no I wont. I shall disclaimer because I am not well. Because I am not well there will be mistakes in this and I wont see them. Some of them will be dyslexic mistakes and some will be words that don’t belong in the sentences they crashRead… Read more »

Let’s Get Technical

A while back I had an opportunity to participate in a lunch and learn about this topic and thought these big take-aways would be great to share. Today’s workforce is a blend of Ernest Hemingway’s “Lost Generation,” Jack Kerouac’s “Beat Generation,” Timothy Leary’s Vietnam-era Generation and Generation Y (I couldn’t quite decide what literary workRead… Read more »

Getting More Women in City Hall: Leveraging Private-Public Partnerships for Equity

I was hired as the first female Chief Innovation Officer in the country in early 2013 and I have to admit I think that is pretty cool. However, I am also very much aware of the gender gap that I see around me in meetings at City Hall and with community stakeholders. Often it isRead… Read more »

Lessons from Jill Abramson’s Departure

The firing of Jill Abramson, former executive editor for the New York Times, is still making headlines a week later mainly because she is a female executive who might have been ousted for being pushy and brusque. She also may have gotten a bad rap for questioning why her compensation was less than her maleRead… Read more »