Statistical Spot Checks for Your Agency’s Diversity Profile

Maintaining a diverse federal workforce and eliminating barriers to equal employment opportunity are not only required practices for federal agencies under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Management Directive 715, but are also crucial to encouraging a more effective and creative workforce with less internal strife. The private sector is now investing heavily in diversity programsRead… Read more »

What My Favorite Author Told Me and Why It’s (Half) Bad Advice

As someone who writes stories for a living, I spend a good share of my time reading them. These days, my reading time is mostly spent among news articles and opinion pieces so I can sharpen my skills in technical writing and see how personal and technical writing styles have merged thanks to digital spaces like Medium. Even ifRead… Read more »

Get ready for the super federal CIO

More than 20 years ago, then-Sen. William S. Cohen issued an investigative report billed as “Computer Chaos: Billions Wasted on Federal Computer Systems.” That report spurred the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, which created the role of agency chief information officers in the hopes of improving how government spends billions of dollars on information technology. InRead… Read more »

“What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”

Do self confident, optimistic leaders ask this question often enough, at the right time? Risk experts Doug Webster and Tom Stanton think not.  Writing in a new report for the IBM Center for The Business of Government, they observe: “The front pages of national newspapers constantly report on actions by private companies, federal leaders, orRead… Read more »

Like Jekyll and Hyde – Do You Have A Secret Side?

Jekyll and Hyde are often cited as the textbook description of split personality disorder – the nice Dr. Jekyll and the evil Mr. Hyde. And while most people don’t have a secret evil side as disparate as the character’s penned by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, most people do have a hidden side. More often than not thoughRead… Read more »