Do Brainstorming Sessions Work? Studies Say No.

This morning I read a fascinating article from The New Yorker, Groupthink: The Brainstorming Myth, by Jonah Lehrer. The article points to one of the early founders of the concept of brainstorming, Alex Osborn. During the 1940’s, Osborn was one of the advertising agency industry titans, his book, “Your Creative Power,” was received very wellRead… Read more »

Esri Federal GIS Conference: How does ArcGIS Apply to Your Agency?

Esri’s upcoming Federal GIS Conference is sure to be an awesome couple of days. Attendees are going to learn a ton about incredible GIS technology and what it will do for the federal government. You may think that ArcGIS is really cool, but wonder how it applies to your agency and your job. Be sureRead… Read more »

5 Tips on a Website Redesign

Cross-posted from Reach the Public Last week GovLoop, the online knowledge network for government employees, launched a redesign where we redesigned our home page and launched 7 new sub-communities. The purpose of the change was to increase the overall readability of the site and organization of the site. We had been hearing from our membersRead… Read more »

Improving Efficiency in the Cloud Roundtable, RSVP: 2/28

Please join GovLoop and Oracle at the Improving Efficiency in the Cloud Roundtable on February 28th at District Architecture Center As many of you know, the cloud is quickly becoming a viable solution for agencies to share information, improve operational efficiency, increase transparency, and strengthen service delivery. Attendees at the Improving Efficiency in the CloudRead… Read more »

Kundra’s Harvard Paper – Digital Fuel – Open Data & Network Effect

Former U.S. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra just released his first academic paper from his time as a Shorensten Center Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. Entitled Digital Fuel of the 21st Century – Innovation through Open Data & the Network Effect, Kundra advocates for the government to have a default of releasing data and being open,Read… Read more »

Education.data.gov Launches for Education Data Community

I really like how data.gov is launching niche communities like health.data.gov. Generally I believe if we want interest in our government data it’s not going to be developing just broad “data” ecosystem. Instead, I think we need to build smaller ecosystems like transit data, health data, jobs data, education data, etc. So I was excitedRead… Read more »

Government Leaders: Do You Have An Apprentice?

I was just listening to a leadership podcast entitled “The Power of Apprenticeship” and I wanted to share some of the lessons from it. In essence, there are three steps to successfully engaging in apprenticeship activities: **************** 1. Selecting – when you see someone that makes you take notice, find a way to personally investRead… Read more »

Mobile Dialogue Update – Top 3 – Shared Services, BYOD, Info Assurance

Last week as we posted on GovLoop, Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel launched the call for feedback on the National Dialogue on Mobility Strategy. A week later let’s look the top 3 most popular suggestions are: –Develop a shared services catalogue –Encourage Bring Your Own Device policies(see GL discussion thread on Bring Your Own Device) –MobileRead… Read more »

HHS Asks “Help us Develop Our OpenGov Plan”

This week HHS CTO asked for help in creating their new open gov plan. Any suggestions for him? Any favorite opengov plans? ———————————— Help Us Develop Our New Open Gov Plan Posted January 17, 2012 By Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer, HHS In January 2009, President Obama issued the Open Government Directive, calling for governmentRead… Read more »