Hospital ship USNS Mercy deploys, represents humanity at its best

Originally posted on www.andrewdwelch.com at http://www.andrewdwelch.com/2010/05/hospital-ship-usns-mercy-deploys.html. Deployments of the United States Naval Hospital Ship USNS Comfort have become one of my favorite topics to cover here. In reverse chronological order over the last year: Haitian Mother and Child Reunited Aboard USS Nassau; Christopher Albon on “Designing The Next Hospital Ship and Lessons From Haiti”; USNSRead… Read more »

Government launches a book blog

Looking for a good read about the Civil War to take to the beach this summer? How about some facts and figures on Afghanistan and Pakistan? Or maybe a retelling of the history of the Metric system in the United States? (Okay, yes, that last one is a stretch.) The Government Printing Office has launchedRead… Read more »

Resistance is a Judgment, Not an Action

This article was originally published on the Tri Tuns Blog.OBSERVATION When talking about user adoption of major IT systems – CRM, ERP, HRIS, etc – at some point the discussion always focuses on overcoming “user resistance”. When I probe deeper and ask clients to define exactly what they mean by “user resistance” (what form itRead… Read more »

Response to Why Twitter?

In his latest VLog (http://is.gd/bTIJZ), @cheeky_geeky (Mark Drapeau) asks those of us who work with government why we would use what he calls an unreliable service (Twitter and Facebook) on official government websites providing these services with a de facto endorsement. I think Mark clearly knows the answer. I think the fact that he isRead… Read more »

Access Restored

Hot dog! At some point a few months ago, I lost the ability to view GovLoop and other Ning-based sites from my office computer. I assumed that this was because my agency had yet to move away from IE 6.0 and grumbled accordingly. But this morning, I clicked a link in Twitter and found myselfRead… Read more »

Cloud Computing and Virtualization Aren’t What you Think

Today I had the opportunity to listen to a discussion about cloud computing and virtualization of IT services: “The Future of Enterprise IT Architecture” with representatives from Cisco, VMware, and Barquin. Now most non-IT government workers, like myself, probably would think, “Why in the world would you subject yourself to something like that?” But fortunatelyRead… Read more »

Meet the Gov Mascot: #10 – Uncle Sam

It’s Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW) this week and GovLoop is teaming up with the Partnership for Public Service to promote PSRW by running a special series called “Meet the Government Mascot.” Each day we’ve been introducing you to a new mascot, then we’ll run a contest on May 6-8 where you can vote forRead… Read more »

Health-care relief for feds?

Happy Wednesday! Lawmakers have introduced a measure that would allow the Office of Personnel Management to extend health-care coverage to the adult children of federal workers before the new federal health-care law takes effect next year. Several health insurance companies plan to extend coverage to adult children up to age 26 starting in June, butRead… Read more »

Lippell & Jordan on The Metadata Model for Directgov

Helen Lippell and Peter Jordan, both of the U.K. Government’s Directgov online portal, have published The Metadata Model for Directgov, 10 Legal Information Management 7-9 (no. 1) (2010). Directgov provides access to a great deal of legal information. Here is the abstract: Peter Jordan and Helen Lippell describe the role of metadata, including taxonomies, inRead… Read more »

Working for an ‘improved picture’ of public servants

As Public Service Recognition Week begins, the Federal Eye spoke with Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, about this week’s events, President Obama’s recent defense of government and why it’s still hard to get a job with the government: Federal Eye: What do you hope happens this week? Stier: There are twoRead… Read more »

Yearly Archives: 2010