Overheard from a Departmental Staffing Bulletin….. “USA Staffing Update Relating to System Maintenance Issues On August 9th, 2011 at 1:00pm, USA Staffing System (OPM’s Talent Acquisition System) was brought offline by OPM to perform unscheduled maintenance. {technical idiom for “CRASHED”} This period of maintenance was necessary to research, identify, and resolve problematic issues reported byRead… Read more »
Federal workers have been wondering what employee benefits might be up for cuts under the new Congressional “Supercommittee”, but last week’s appointments don’t necessarily shed light on what the future might hold. The Washington Post has dug into the committee members’ voting records and found that most have little to no history in federal benefits.Read… Read more »
Last Thursday I was invited to attend a preview of Microsoft Office 365 – Microsoft’s new cloud offering for collaboration. First thing’s first..it was held at the new Microsoft Innovation Center at 9th/K in DC – building is amazing. And it seems they eat their own dogfood – the whole building operates on MS cloudRead… Read more »
Are you an Overnight Manager? Did you get the call on Friday that you’re managing your peers on Monday? Are their reactions a little different from what you expected? Could the development process from team member to leader have been a little better? Do us a favor and tell us about your experience, whether you’reRead… Read more »
Research The Power of Like(07/27/2011) – Posting content regularly on Facebook will result in reaching more of your fans, more frequently, according to a new comScore report.The report found for every fan, you can reach an additional 34 people who are friends of that fan. Leading online activities(08/09/2011) –Search and email tied for the topRead… Read more »
Lately I’ve been asked this question quite a bit: What on earth is GIS? So I thought i’d enlist the expertise of our friends at ESRI to give us a quick overview of what GIS actually is. A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all formsRead… Read more »
Matt Yglesias has a short post highlighting the rapid metamorphosis of the LAPD from a hotbed of corruption and vigilantism into one of the most effective police forces in America. The full article from the New York Times (what happened to the LA Times?) is here. Much of the story is about the leadership ofRead… Read more »
Thanks to those that attended the August 11th training session – How to Incorporate Open Source Thinking to Cloud Computing. For those that did not attend, it’s not too late, so register here. Below please find a link to the following: 1. A copy of the slide deck . 2. Your training certificate We hopeRead… Read more »
It’s already mid-August and summertime has embraced the country from east to west. Record high temperatures are a common occurrence no matter what corner of the United States you live in. This means health advisories, problematic effects on any outdoor work and of course a major strain on power grids exists everywhere. In historic termsRead… Read more »
I love the Plain Language Act. Especially the part concerning plain-language websites which gives me plenty of opportunities to advocate the merits of information architecture and user experience (IA and UX). But providing information is only part of what government agencies do. Agencies also provide services. Services such as providing Social Security to licensing vehiclesRead… Read more »