Yearly Archives: 2012

Why Feds Don’t Need Rebranding – Part II

It’s true that negative public perceptions of Feds are more commonplace today than during prior years and decades — as discussed in Part I of my post on this topic. Therefore, some have suggested the solution is a wholescale rebranding of the Federal workforce, which appears to be a popular idea in theory. But toRead… Read more »

“The Future Remains Now!”

Last week the General Services Administration (GSA) announced its Demand Based Model for the Federal Supply Schedules (FSS) program. Under the Demand Based Model GSA will close some schedules for new offers ending continuous open seasons for those schedules or for certain SINs within a schedule. GSA’s goal is to balance the number of scheduleRead… Read more »

Teaching Drones to Work Together, $50,000 for Illegal Access to Energy Supercomputer, and More

Here is today’s federal cybersecurity and information technology news: The United States Air Force Academy Cooperative Technologies for Unmanned Systems research program seeks ways to combine data from multiple unmanned aircraft to collaboratively track targets. More here. A New Zealand High Court ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to copy the 150 terabytes of dataRead… Read more »

Greece and Philadelphia Prove the Importance of Revenue Collection

By Sam Williford, Associate Consultant As Greece holds elections this weekend that are chiefly framed around government spending, it is easy to forget about the other part of finance: tax collections. It’s an integral part of learning about finance at Fels, and today’s deal in Philadelphia to raise property taxes and postpone the Actual ValueRead… Read more »

Here is the Half Truth: Executives Don’t Know What is Going On

An article in the Washington Post titled “Ex-loan officer claims Wells Fargo targeted black communities for shoddy loans” includes a number of “he said, she said” claims. In this case “she”, a former loan officer, claims the bank deliberately pushed people into signing contracts for subprime mortgages. “He” is the bank’s spokesman, who denies theRead… Read more »

The Federal Pay Debate

There has been a lot of chatter around the salaries and benefits of public servants. Like every debate, there are two sides. We recently attended a panel discussion, organized by the Coalition for Effective Change (CEC), which brought this issue to the forefront by bringing together three of the biggest players in the debate: CongressionalRead… Read more »

Humor Me

I was watching the development of a corporate post and realized it’s nearly impossible to maintain humor through multiple revisions, multiple editors. A pun isn’t funny the third time you read it. If you are squeezing out humor, you’d better stop, look around, and take some inspiration from Chezeburger Network. As one of our foundersRead… Read more »

GovBytes: Cities Unite for Planning Nationwide Data Portal

It appears that big developments in local open government stemming from high level planning between major US cities that has been in the works since 2009 could be bearing fruit within the next few months. A partnership of IT executives from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — known asRead… Read more »