Communications

This is Water

A video I find myself watching on a fairly regular basis is “This is Water”. It is an adaptation of a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005. If you haven’t seen the video before it is well worth 9 minutes of your time. I’m no saint but since firstRead… Read more »

Peak office

Culture eats technology for breakfast (to adapt the more common version, that culture eats strategy for breakfast – but culture is omnivorous, so no problem there). The critical question which follows from that statement gets much less attention: where are we going to have breakfast. That question is the focus of this post. Not longRead… Read more »

James Miller, Walter Johnson Unveil FCC Internet Speed Test Tool

The Federal Communications Commission has launched a speed test application for mobile broadband networks as part of its efforts to help consumers choose wireless providers. The app for Android smartphones works to evaluate the speed and latency of mobile broadband networks, store the information in cloud environments and provide users an overview of actual networkRead… Read more »

A bus company with a train set

Quick question: what’s the dominant form of public transport in London? And an irresistible second quick question: what is wrong with this picture? We will come back to the second question, but if your answer to the first was the tube, you can be forgiven. That’s the most distinctive, most high profile part of whatRead… Read more »

When projects go wrong – now what?

In a House Oversight Committee Hearing on the Affordable Care Act website, Chairman Darrell Issa pressed Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, on just how many simultaneous users could have been handled by the website on the day of its launch. The hearing was just theRead… Read more »

When the World Stopped Listening…

You wouldn’t think that not listening to someone could change the world, but it did. In fact, not paying attention almost destroyed it completely. Yet, in the near future, making personal contact or socializing without sanction would be a capital crime punishable by deletion. Ironically, it would be breaking that law that also saved theRead… Read more »

Twitter for Rookies: Simple Guidance for Getting Started

Summary: Still not certain whether you should take the Twitter plunge? The best way to determine its value is to give it a try. Focusing on using Twitter professionally rather than personally – including staying current with local, national, and global news – this “Twitter for Rookies” post offers simple best practice suggestions for settingRead… Read more »

It’s Finally Here: The Citizen Engagement Tool Congress Has Been Waiting For

Here on GovLoop we’ve written and shared stories of how GIS has transformed executive level agencies. Yet, GIS is being used in more than just executive agencies. The legislative branch has also caught on to the power of GIS. Tim Petty, Deputy Legislative Director for Senator James Risch (R – Idaho), shared several examples ofRead… Read more »

Marketing Isn’t a Bad Word

Reading Alan Pentz‘s recent blog post about the federal government and social media got me thinking about the federal government and marketing, in general. The government tends to shy away of the idea of “marketing” because it equates it with selling a product but marketing is about more than hawking wares. Marketing is also aboutRead… Read more »