Yearly Archives: 2014

The 2013 GovFresh Awards are in…

2013 results are in, and the company which maintains the database of government contracts wins Civic Startup Of The Year according to GovFresh’s website. Here are the results: 2013 GovFresh Awards The GovFresh Awards honor the greatest civic innovators and innovations of 2013. Winners City of the Year: Buenos Aires, Argentina Small City of theRead… Read more »

How WordPress as a Platform helps nimble project delivery

WordPress started as a blogging engine, then became a content management system, and these days is a platform for the development of simple web applications. After all, an awful lot of applications are basically just about putting bits of text into boxes, and then arranging them in order to suit whatever your purpose is. PuttingRead… Read more »

Understanding Your Income Tax Return

Our Schools Need to Teach This Stuff. As Americans tackle the annual tax-filing ritual, millions will panic. It’s confusing. Many don’t understand it. Some are afraid of it. Relax. Just slow down and read the forms, one line at a time. It’s easier than you think. As adults, we are all responsible for managing ourRead… Read more »

Understanding Your Income Tax Return

Our Schools Need to Teach This Stuff. As Americans tackle the annual tax-filing ritual, millions will panic. It’s confusing. Many don’t understand it. Some are afraid of it. Relax. Just slow down and read the forms, one line at a time. It’s easier than you think. As adults, we are all responsible for managing ourRead… Read more »

Being mindful of personal social media use in the APS

Senator Abetz, the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service, has written a fantastic blog post commenting on the need for Australian Public Servants to be mindful of what they say (and how they say it) on social media. The post, Public Servants should exercise care with social media, is in the Senator’sRead… Read more »

Creating a Culture of Helping

How can leaders inspire employees to help their colleagues? The leader of the design firm IDEO, Tim Brown, set out to create a help-friendly organization in order to spur greater creativity. Collaboration is key to effective organizations. But how can leaders encourage helping behaviors among employees? A recent Harvard Business Review article by Teresa Amabile,Read… Read more »

SES Job Opening – Associate Director of Administration

The Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia (CSOSA) has an opening for an Associate Director of Administration. This position heads the Office of Administration, which is responsible for managing Agency acquisitions, and directing CSOSA’s facilities and security programs. Many of CSOSA’s programs are evolving, requiring the incumbent to develop precedent-settingRead… Read more »

Structure in Threes: Service DesignService Quality

This morning I started some R&D prototyping on measuring Services Quality. Started with SERVQUAL model by Zeithaml, Parasuraman & Berry. Put together a simple spreadsheet model for GAP #1. The approach is similar in format to Peter Marks’ [Design Insight] measurement of customer perception of product desirability. Since Services are purchased and experienced similar toRead… Read more »

Mentoring to Replace Yourself

If something happened to you tomorrow, do you have a successor leader ready to take the helm? In too many organizations, especially in a workplace where individuals are tasked with performing multiple roles, the process to identify, mentor and cultivate a replacement for you can be a haphazard approach to succession planning. Not only isRead… Read more »