Leadership

New Normal – Asynchronous Collaboration

When we were all physically located in the same building collaboration was a collection of meetings to reach the stated goal. First to flesh out the details of the project – go from concept to specific, consensus from contributors, logistics & interim deadlines from participants, and collective review of it all. Meet and work togetherRead… Read more »

Web-Enabled Coordination

How can organizations reach beyond their traditional smokestacks and silos? Coordination mechanisms have existed for years, notes Naval Postgraduate School author Nancy Roberts, but they haven’t been used. But the availability of new web-based tools and the pressures from cost cuts, the war on terror, and emergency management may have created a new environment forRead… Read more »

Daily Dose: Do You Feel Safe At Work?

Even though it’s been ten years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, federal employees still feel weary when they go to work. The DC Earthquake was a prime example, as many worried that it was not an earthquake, but indeed another attack on a nearby building. This fear, however, has not kept federal employees out ofRead… Read more »

CEIL’s Top Ten Twitter List: Water

Welcome back to another CEIL Top Ten Twitter List! We’ve rounded up ten of our favorite Twitter feeds that focus on water — drinking water, waste water, storm water, flooding, energy from water…you name it, they tweet about it! @SFWater – San Francisco Public Utilities Commission – Your awesome water, wastewater and municipal power agency!Read… Read more »

Four Lessons Learned From Implementing Forest Service’s Lauded eMNEPA Program

USFS Program Selected by Presidents Council on Environmental Quality as a Pilot Program to Help Modernize and Reinvigorate NEPA The President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) announced August 31st that the Electronic Management of NEPA (eMNEPA) program at the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has been selected for the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) Pilot Program,Read… Read more »

The Federal Coach: Susan Grundmann on Protecting Merit Systems in the Federal Government

Susan Tsui Grundmann is the chairman of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), an independent, quasi-judicial agency that protects the federal merit systems and promotes government-wide merit system principles. Grundmann previously served as general counsel to the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union which represents 100,000 federal workers nationwide. How difficult was it toRead… Read more »

The Ratchet Effect

…occurs when two or more competitors are frequently matched against one another. When one develops an advantage, the others develop counter moves. The overall result is that the whole group becomes continuously better. Continue this through several generations of improvement and the whole group has a marked advantage over others who started at the sameRead… Read more »