And Other Random Thoughts Mitt Romney has said that he’s not concerned about “the very poor”, because they have the safety net. The TANF (cash welfare) benefit for a three-person household in Massachusetts is $618 per month. The average SNAP (food stamps) benefit is $264 for that family each month. I sent an email toRead… Read more »
On behalf of a friend I’ve been looking into the contact information for Freedom of Information (FOI) requests across Australia’s Commonwealth and state/territory governments. While I believe that Australia has good Freedom of Information laws (though I know some would disagree), the real tests of this are whether people are aware of their rights andRead… Read more »
After footage of a tense city council meeting in West Branch, Iowa was posted on YouTube, City Administrator Matt Mucker suggested a rule that would have required the public to secure mayoral permission to record meetings. This measure would would have violated the state’s open meetings law. After this breach of the law was pointedRead… Read more »
We all know about term limits for politicians, but on Wednesday, I learned about new term limits for workers. If you have not heard, Revel, Atlantic City’s Newest Casino is setting term limits for their front-line staff. When their term runs out (4-6 years), they will be required to go through the hiring process again.Read… Read more »
With regard to contract duplication, last week’s post highlighted the Air Force’s recently issued RFP IDIQ for multiple award contracts for commercial office furniture. By its own terms, the Air Force’s acquisition strategy as articulated in its draft RFP duplicates current GSA schedule contracts for commercial office furniture. In fact, the RFP instructs offerors toRead… Read more »
In continuing with the “Google Reader is Still Relevant” meme (read Parts I and II here) I wanted to make a quick note on how I’m seeing extended value in Google Reader after integrating it with IFTTT. Google Reader has morphed from a somewhat useful curation channel to an incredibly useful one. On its own,Read… Read more »
Last one! The closing keynote speaker was David Weinberger, author of Too Big to Know. Great speaker on a complex topic. I hope I do him justice here… if anyone else heard and wants to jump in, please do! Weinberger argues that in the olden days, facts used to be separable bits of knowledge (think:Read… Read more »
The afternoon’s plenary panel looked ahead 5-10 years to imagine what social media will look like and discuss what we can do now to prepare for the huge volume of data it’s bound to entail. The panel was moderated by Rob Zitz (SAIC) and consistet of Lou Martinage (Microstrategy), Rand Waltzman (DARPA), and Patrick MeierRead… Read more »
Thought you might be interested in a special video created in honor of National Wear Red Day®. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/directorscorner/messages/2012-messages/february-2012/the-nhlbi-celebrates-national-wear-red-day-2012/index.html As you already know, February is American Heart Month, and today the staff at the National Institutes of Health sent a very special thank you to all the scientists and researchers who work every day to improveRead… Read more »
I watched a young boy build a sand castle on the beach. His labor was intense. He scurried around it with the energy of an eight year old, scrutinized every angle with the precision of an engineer, and when he was done – jumped into a marketing campaign that would put the best firms toRead… Read more »