This past Friday night, GovLoop kicked off the Spring 2012 Mentors Program. As part of the orientation session, we asked participants to break into small groups and identify attributes of the ideal mentor and mentees. Here’s what the group (including participants who chimed in by live chat) identified as the top 10 traits for each:Read… Read more »
Its an almost impossible task — reach out to, connect to, inform and empower the roughly 22 million veterans. But that’s exactly what the Department of Veterans Affairs is trying to do and they are using social media to make it happen. Brandon Friedman is the Director of Online Communication. Its a job that wasRead… Read more »
New media changes the VA, Why Stepping up Matters, and How to have a Happy Conflict by GovLoop Insights The start of our second week… thanks for being here. And there was some significant news on Friday — a new nominee to be the Obama administration’s chief technology officer — Todd Park. Park has beenRead… Read more »
To understand how organizations can succeed, let’s briefly recap the lessons from the first two parts of this series on organizational failure. Part One –Framework for Analyzing Organizational Failure1) Every decision has unintended consequences for the future – latent conditions.2) Leaders often make decisions without a thorough analysis of the effects of their decisions.3) EmployeesRead… Read more »
In part one of this series, I wrote about my research that lead to the Framework for Analyzing Organizational Failure. Since I created the Framework back in 2005, I have seen it validated in a number of organizational failures. So, in 2010, I started work on expanding the paper into a book. During the courseRead… Read more »
I decided I was going to read a book a week for a year, here’s a quick review of this weeks book. You can see the ongoing list here. Basic Info Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content by Mark Levy. Why I bought it As someone who publishes somethingRead… Read more »
Getting things done in government requires working with other levels of government, non-profit organizations etc. Mark Funkhouser as the Director of the Governing Institute (a former Mayor of Kansas City), recently watched Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley conduct a session of StateStat, the process he has implemented to make the state’s government more efficient. As FunkhouserRead… Read more »
Makers is a future business fantasy by Cory Doctorow with the view of a society where traditional business structure has broken down and the economy is in the tank. Sound familiar – like what you read in today’s newspaper? Instead of relying on organizations to provide jobs, plan what to do and produce, and signRead… Read more »
Last Christmas after all the festivities and the big dinner –I settled down with my iPad and purchased Steve Job’s Biography. I was thinking how cool is it to buy and enjoy something on Christmas –without having to leave the house. Besides the only store opened on Christmas is the 7-11 and I didn’t needRead… Read more »
The White House Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren just announced that the President has selected the relief for Aneesh Chopra. A hearty congrats to Todd Park! Todd is an incredibly mission-focused technologist with an enthusiasm that is absolutely contagious. This is fantastic news for the country. Todd knows dataRead… Read more »