Yearly Archives: 2013

Closing the Tech Gap by Closing the Education Gap: Insights from The State Department

“To close the technology gap, we need everyone. We need girls whose cultures don’t value their education. We need talented people who live in poverty. We need everyone.” -Lila Ibrahim, President, Coursera I recently attended the Tech@State:EdTech event, a forum dedicated to leveraging education technology to aid U.S. diplomacy and development. There were many innovativeRead… Read more »

Some Thoughts on Strategic Sourcing

As you know, the GSA Multiple Award Schedule program and the IT GWACs (GSA, NASA and NIH) are strategic platforms that leverage the government’s acquisition resources through streamlined competitions for customer agency requirements. In essence, GSA is a federal procurement market marker. GSA is not a government-wide requirements holder. What does that mean? Well, atRead… Read more »

Cris Cristina: Why I’m Coding for America

Hi I’m Cris Cristina, an experience designer, and this is but one example of why I code for America. About a year ago I got pulled over for having a busted headlight and had to go downtown to pay my ticket. When I walked in to the police administration building, I was utterly dumbfounded. EveryoneRead… Read more »

Pledge to Help Foster Respectful Dialogue

As an organization, NCDD is not in the habit of supporting online petitions. But when Joan Blades, a supporting NCDD member and a co-founder of Living Room Conversations and MoveOn.org, reached out to us to support a petition she recently created, we immediately recognized its value for our work and knew that it was somethingRead… Read more »

Sen. Tim Kaine Introduces Legislation to Regulate Veterans Programs

Sen. Tim Kaine has introduced legislation to Congress in order to improve the education of U.S. military veterans, according to WTOP. The Servicemember Education Reform and Vocational Enhancement Act is intended to ensure that degree or training programs for veterans deliver what they advertise. According to Kaine, more than $30 billion have been invested inRead… Read more »

DoD Updates Congress on Progress in Afghan Conflict

The Defense Department has released a report detailing the progress of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and where that conflict currently stands, according to a DoD release. Afghan security forces are now successfully providing security for their own people, fighting their own battles and holding their own against the insurgency,” said George Little, Pentagon Press Secretary.Read… Read more »

History, weak

It’s history week at the Cabinet Office, a series of internal events designed to remind the current generation of policy makers both that there is always something to learn from history and that their work will become history in its turn. It being Cabinet Office, there are ways of emphasising history not open to everyRead… Read more »

Jacob Hess on Narrative and the Red-Blue Divide

We’re happy to share this post, which was submitted via our Submit-to-Blog Form by one of our sustaining NCDD members, Dr. Phil Neisser, on behalf of Jacob Hess, a supporting NCDD member. Both of these gentlemen are co-authors of the book You’re Not as Crazy as I Thought (But You’re Still Wrong): Conversations between aRead… Read more »

Weekly Round-up: November 08, 2013

Gadi Ben-Yehuda Infographic: Tumblr facts. Perhaps of greatest relevance to government agencies: Tumblr is “more popular among 13-25-year olds than Facebook.” (or so they claim) Looking ahead: A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece for GovLoop about the future of online citizen support. This week, Brittany Ballenstedt had a post on Mashable that looksRead… Read more »

The 1 Critical Key that Traditional Leadership Training Misses

Have you ever attended leadership training programs sponsored inside your organization, listened to the wonderful information being presented, and thought to yourself, “Yeah, that sounds great, but it doesn’t work when I get back to my office”? After 24 plus years of federal service, and more than seven years as a leadership instructor, and executiveRead… Read more »