Communications

A History of Transformation: Innovations From the Intelligence Community

This is Part II of National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Director, Letitia A. Long’s Keynote presentation at the 2014 Esri Federal GIS Conference. Read Part I here: Discovering the Unknowns: The Importance of Geospatial Intelligence. During the keynote address, Director Long provided insights as to how the intelligence community has evolved. “I will tell you thatRead… Read more »

Discovering the Unknowns: The Importance of Geospatial Intelligence

The 2014 Esri Federal GIS conference was filled with insights on the latest GIS developments and Esri announcements. The annual event is a great opportunity to connect with peers in government. The theme of this year’s conference, Integrating Government, highlighted how GIS is able to connect various IT trends, such as big data, mobile, cloudRead… Read more »

Are Small Budgets Good For Innovation – Part Two

Spending in the federal government is down. Sequestration has put a serious drain on many agency resources, but could the money squeeze actually create a breeding ground for innovation? In part two of our interview, with the first Chief Innovation Officer at NARA, Pamela Wright, told Chris Dorobek that the smaller budgets are forcing aRead… Read more »

Millenials, Lego, and the Perimeter of Ignorance

Every time I read an article about Gen Y or Millenials I run it through this litmus test: throughout the text, can you replace “Millenial” with “employee” with no loss of meaning? “[Employees] want meaningful work, they want to do things that are making an impact and if they’re not in a good environment whereRead… Read more »

Shark Tank: HHS Edition

Last week, thirteen teams of government entrepreneurs made pitches in a “shark tank” environment to continue funding for their innovation programs through a new initiative at the Department of Health and Humans Services (HHS) called HHS Ignite. The HHS Ignite program “[c]atalyzes early-stage project ideas that can be completed within very compressed time frames. TeamsRead… Read more »

Use open data from the Victorian Government to improve awareness and literacy for social and safety issues – potentially win $2,500

The Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA) in conjunction with the Victorian Department of State Development, Business and Innovation (DSDBI), have launched a data competition to identify approaches using Victorian government open data to improve awareness and literacy for social and safety issues. The competition is open for registration, with entries closing 28 February and winnersRead… Read more »

The Rise of Social Media: understanding the psychology behind the technology

At a well-attended and deeply informative AFCEA breakfast this morning, four #SocialGov luminaries sat on a panel moderated by the ever-capable Chris Dorobek. At one point, Chris asked me what was different about public sector use of social media now than in 2010, when I started in my current role. I wanted to answer thatRead… Read more »

2014 Customer Service Culture

Business leaders have to create an environment that motivates employees to want to take care of customers. A strong company culture is now one of the key criteria for employees when choosing where they want to work. Once employees join your organization, your company culture will have a direct impact on how they work forRead… Read more »