I’ve recently recommitted to working on a couple of book ideas; what follows is the preamble to a book I am working on on Open Government. =============== Last year I was sitting in a small coffee shop off the beaten path with a couple of friends – fellow bureaucrats – when one of them, aRead… Read more »
Social media have been changing the way companies and government agencies operate since the middle of last decade–upending long-held ways of doing business and reshaping the relationship between government and citizens. Though more than 100 million Americans are members of a social media site like Facebook or Twitter, few government agencies have explicit policies forRead… Read more »
It’s amazing to think we are just about at the home stretch in an election year. The conventions are just around the corner, and candidates are gearing up for the final push and making sure they are ready on the ground come election day. Social media has been playing a critical role in the electionRead… Read more »
We’re in public service and that means getting the word out about the goings-on in government to the broadest reach possible. A few years ago we were webmasters. Today, we’re webmasters, digital media providers, social media managers, content managers, information architects, editors, and more. Today, we have to put information everywhere: on the web andRead… Read more »
The term “no comment” is conventionally viewed among government communicators and media relations professionals as leaving a negative perception with the interviewer and the audience. This is because “no comment” often implies there’s something sinister going on – whether that’s true or not. Why “No Comment”? “It seems obvious after the fact, but ‘no comment’Read… Read more »
Http://LeonardSipes.Com Are blogs the journalistic scumbags of the internet? I just finished reading (for the second time) Ryan Holiday’s “Trust Me, I’m Lying—Confessions of a Media Manipulator.” Holiday heaps tons of slime on both blogs and the mainstream media. The premise of the book is something he refers to as “trading up the chain;” convinceRead… Read more »
Across government, there are fascinating uses of GIS. Whether it is the development of custom web apps, integration of cloud and/or mobile technology, or using GIS to improve citizen services. In many ways GIS is transforming how government delivers services. There are also many different ways GIS is improving services. The use of 3D andRead… Read more »
There is no question that social media is changing the way that we engage as citizens and as individuals. We are constantly going online to ask questions of each other, to type away to live chat support, to reference web pages, read reviews, watch DIY videos and learn as much information as we can inRead… Read more »
Before the internets were invented life must have been so dull. Y’know, really dull. You wrote a press release, you organised a photocall and once in a while TV and radio would show an interest. A few years back the yardstick of success where I work was getting the local TV news to come hostRead… Read more »
Most of us are familiar with the program and see the FICA taxes taken out each pay stub to support Social Security and Medicare. So I’ll start with a quick program overview, and then what Social Security actually does for Americans. Hopefully you will learn something new. On August 14, 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signedRead… Read more »