Yearly Archives: 2013

If these walls could talk: The case for open housing data

With an average of 36 million Americans changing homes every year, we’re a country constantly on the move. But too often there’s more than meets the eye at an open house. Broken plumbing, faulty heat, pests, or absentee landlords are just some of the unpleasant surprises that arise after the lease or deed is signed.Read… Read more »

Media & PR practitioners no longer control the oxygen valve

A classic ploy by media and PR professionals to kill an unwanted issue has been to ‘deny it oxygen’ – refusing to comment or engage on the topic publicly, via news media or other channels. The approach has traditionally worked very effectively for both public sector and commercial communicators. Devoid of any official information, orRead… Read more »

A Response to Leaders and Trainers

Although the title may seem to be misleading, it really isn’t. I am talking about training leaders and leaders training trainers throughout. I received a comment where I think I was totally misunderstood, and I certainly bear some responsibility for not being clear. When I responded to the comment, I like my response almost asRead… Read more »

Calgary Police’s Twitter account displays #SMEM best practices during #yycflood

During the floods in Calgary, Canada, this weekend, the social media manager of Calgary’s police did a fantastic job answering questions, diffusing rumors, using social media to pull in additional help, point people to volunteer opportunities, and to activate officers to work extra shifts via Twitter. It was important to get information into the socialRead… Read more »

TSP Talk Weekly Wrap Up

It was a rough week for both the stock and bond markets as the Fed put a scare in investors by reiterating that they will, at some point soon, lighten up on their bond buying policy. While this should be a positive because it insinuates that the economy is getting closer to being able toRead… Read more »

Civic Data Standards Featured in the Atlantic

Earlier this year, we partnered with the City of San Francisco and Yelp to develop and deploy a data standard for restaurant inspection scores, called LIVES. Data standards, such as LIVES or Open311, are simply an agreed upon, common format for publishing information that make it easier for platforms to integrate that information in anyRead… Read more »

Myth-Busters Healthcare Committee Meeting with the VA

On Thursday the Coalition traveled to Chicago to host a “Myth-Busters” Healthcare Committee meeting with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Acquisition Center (NAC). The VA NAC manages a family of Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts for pharmaceuticals, medical supplies and services. A primary focus of the Coalition Healthcare Committee is the operations, policiesRead… Read more »

Ideas in Action

When I was a lad, sodas were 10 cents from a vending machine. Not being fond of sweet carbonated drinks, I told friends that it would be great to have these machines dispense ice cold spring water in bottles. Of course they laughed at such a goofy idea. My bottled water idea was a larkRead… Read more »

Massive Java update won’t get Oracle out of attacker’s crosshairs, Microsoft offering bounties for vulnerabilities and more

By Ryan Kamauff Here are the top cyber news and stories of the day. Trojan Uses Fake Adobe Certificate – One new piece of malware that has been discovered is pretending to have a certificate from Adobe Systems to trick users. The software injects itself into IE and notepad and allows the handler to takeRead… Read more »