One of my company’s core values is “Inner Voice”. We internalize and implement this value in many ways, but the gist is: ‘Say what you’re really thinking.’ We encourage every single one of our employees, no matter what their title or role is, to speak up and voice their opinions, concerns, questions, reflections, etc. By puttingRead… Read more »
I stumbled into the federal government by accident. When I quit swimming after my sophomore year of college, I waited tables to help pay tuition. As my senior year progressed, I realized I needed to gain some accounting experience. A local tax preparer called and asked my roommate if she was interested in a job.Read… Read more »
It is unanimously accepted in effective employee motivation space that managers who positively reinforce their employees drive high levels of engagement. Unfortunately, much of the positive feedback employees receive is simply recognition for a job well done. While recognition has its place in the workplace, appreciation has much greater impact on job performance. Our country’sRead… Read more »
We’ve all seen one of these great PowerPoint presentations – the lights go down, the screen lights up with a high resolution picture of an elephant in the middle of a river spraying water on its back and the speaker weaves a story around it, teaching you important lessons and inspiring the bejeezus out ofRead… Read more »
How do you learn? Do you take classes? Use Internet tutorials? Read books? Do you find useful tips and ideas on blogs and websites? Guess what? You have something to share, just like the authors of the blogs and sites that you gain new information from. Your experience, your perspective, your frustrations are all thingsRead… Read more »
I know you must be thinking that my idea involves comedy. Since we normally see headlines that may as well shout: “Federal workers are bumbling fools.” But I don’t mean this as comedy at all. And anyway, we’re not. What we are, on the whole, is: Highly skilled Passionate about helping other people Caught inRead… Read more »
Before I dive into how important meetings are to your career, let me begin with an aside: I asked 10 people to give me their opinions about meetings. Here are their responses: Waste of time I have too many My parents told me if I don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything atRead… Read more »
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to hear the Dalai Lama speak when he was in Calgary, Alberta. At the conclusion of his talk, he took a few questions from the audience and I was fortunate enough to be able to ask him about public engagement. I asked, “What, if anything, should weRead… Read more »
We all have our day-to-day job titles – CEO, Associate Director, Office Assistant, Mom, Dad. But there is one title we all share: Chief Data Officer. Surprised? This was a constant theme at Tuesday’s GovDelivery 8th Annual Federal Communications Summit. A panel of big data communication experts answered some important questions about open data andRead… Read more »
“Treat human data with humanity.” This was the plea from Jer Thorp, data artist and keynote speaker at GovLoop’s 4th Annual Government Communications Summit, gave to the audience. That’s a relatively simple request, right? Turns out, not really. It’s pretty easy to get lost in the data, and forget the people that are using it,Read… Read more »