Today, GovLoop hosted an event, The Citizen and the Government – How they Connect. The event was designed to help government employees understand how they can leverage digital tools to engage with citizens. For our final keynote presentation, GovLoop welcomed Dr. Alissa Johnson, the deputy chief information officer (DCIO) for the Office of Administration inRead… Read more »
The jobs of politically appointed executives leading federal agencies are typically seen as being mostly about policy and politics, not internal management and organizational performance. But is that really the case? And if so, should politicos then stay out of the management realm? Harvard’s Kennedy School recently looked at the issue in their new report,Read… Read more »
In your mind, good citizen engagement might not be that important. Sure, your agency tweets and engages occasionally online, but its not a focus or a priority. After all, it can’t really affect anything that you’re doing that much, right? Wrong. According to new data from Forrester Research, bad citizen engagement and poor customer service fromRead… Read more »
At today’s GovLoop training, The Citizen and the Government – How they Connect, we heard from Martha Dorris, Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies (OCSIT) at the General Services Administration (GSA). She started off by telling us that if we didn’t get anything else from her speech (don’t worry, we did!),Read… Read more »
Recently I sat in on a meeting between a group of IT developers (contractors) and Federal program managers. Just a routine project review. As I looked around, it struck me that we were really quite a diverse crowd. In the room were people from China, Viet Nam, India, Russia, Somalia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Iran,Read… Read more »
The federal performance appraisal system is somewhat similar to performance reviews in other job sectors. It’s an assessment of how well you’re performing your duties, whether you’re meeting expectations, if your skills still align with the job you have, how well you communicate or work in groups, etc. Such appraisals come into play when itsRead… Read more »
It’s Wednesday and your manager gives you a new task: write and deliver a speech for 100 people at a public event in two days. You will either react in one of two ways: thrilled at the professional development opportunity — or fearful of speaking publicly in front of large crowds. Fear of public speakingRead… Read more »
by Mary Schwarz, ICF Interactive Interdisciplinary has always been one of those words that bothered me. Not the actual intent of interdisciplinary – approaching work by involving practitioners from several areas of knowledge – but what it sounds like. So many ways to be disciplined or punished … will it be writing lines, scrubbing gumRead… Read more »
Slow days happen for a couple of reasons. It could be that our workload is just lighter that day – say we’re waiting for necessary information to start on a project, or it’s simply the off season in your field. Or, maybe there are legitimate projects to be done, but because of burnout or generalRead… Read more »
“What do you want to order?” my husband always asks me at the Chinese restaurant. After fifteen years going there, we know the three lunch specials among which we rotate but imagine it is always a choice. “Oh, I’ll just have what you’re having,” I always say. Because no matter what you order there, itRead… Read more »