Communications

How times have changed in the life of a local government communicator

Times have definitely changed in the life of a local government communications professional. Ten years ago, I held this position for a city of 70,000 residents and my options for reaching citizens were much more limited than for someone in a similar job today. Back then, I essentially had to rely on the bi-monthly cityRead… Read more »

Acquisition Reforms Will Focus on Oversight

As the lame duck session of the 111th Congress comes to a close, some in the acquisition community are left to wonder what lays ahead for the acquisition reform initiatives of the Obama Administration. According to many experts, the shift in political power may not make much difference for the IT and procurement communities. IRead… Read more »

VIDEO: Open Gov Directive Anniversary Q&A with White House

In case you missed the Open Government Directive One-Year Anniversary LIVE today, here’s the video: What do you think? Was this a helpful 30 minutes or should it have been longer? Did they answer tough questions? Did they answer YOUR questions? Should this kind of live engagement happen more often? Sound off below. Favorite

Australia is the second largest government user of Yammer – over 110 active networks

There’s recently been some controversy in Australian government over the use of Yammer, a private and secure enterprise social network, which I discussed in my post, The ongoing struggles to balance IT security and staff empowerment. I asked Simon Spencer, Yammer’s newly appointed Asia-Pacific General Manager, how many government agencies in Australia were using Yammer.Read… Read more »

ChatterBachs announces GovLoop training

On the ChatterBachs blog: ChatterBachs announces GovLoop training http://wp.me/p14i4G-50 ChatterBachs announced today that they will offer training on GovLoop as a part of their services. ChatterBachs, a social media and communications consulting firm based in Northern Virginia, has capabilities to create and maintain blogs, conduct social media training, act as an outsourced component for establishingRead… Read more »

USDA Communications Moves To The Cloud

Today, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a massive move of its 120,000 employees to communications technology hosted in “the cloud,” the common term for Web-based services like email, instant messaging, and content management. This new initiative is part of a major consolidation of over 20 different email systems currently in use, andRead… Read more »

CB2: Simplicity for City Council

About 3 times per month my City Council in St. Petersburg meets to discuss and vote on local issues. Aside from knowing the name of my district representative, I generally have no idea what he’s voting on or if I should re-elect him. That’s a shame because (forgive the web-speak) he’s dealing with hyper-local issues:Read… Read more »

Guest Post | Social Media & First Responder Mental Health – Your Chance to Participate

Guest blogger: Tommy Hipper is currently pursuing his Masters degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and his proposed thesis is: How social media can be utilized to improve first responder mental health. The past few years have clearly demonstrated the power and value of social media in crisis situations. The examplesRead… Read more »

Tools for Transparency: GovSM

This is a cross post from my original guest blog post at the Sunlight Foundation. By now, we’ve all heard about the social media wave and most of us have heard about Gov2.0 and governmental use (or their feeble attempts to use) social media. Though there have been many discussions amongst “good gov” people aboutRead… Read more »