Yesterday, I had the opportunity to participate in a Peer Exchange workshop on Project Delivery as a representative for APWA. The meeting was one of four regional meetings organized and hosted by AASHTO to facilitate dialogue between federal, state, and local agencies. By encouraging discussion and building partnerships, they are hoping to provide guidance forRead… Read more »
With tea partiers running around the country talking about the evils of government, I love to point out when government does really great things. In it’s ninth year, our Virginia State Parks Youth Conservation Corps is a very good thing. Here is a post I wrote for our blog. It probably doesn’t make sense toRead… Read more »
I don’t wish to come across like some old “back in my day” type of person reminiscing about the good old days for several reasons. First when I was starting out the powers that be, thought it would be a good idea to buddy me up with a lot of the senior technical staff andRead… Read more »
Remember the days when you would get a hand written letter? Or your friend would send you a cool postcard while they were on vacation? We all know that social media and email have ended the art of a hand written letter. If you get a hand written letter now, it is really special, noRead… Read more »
Last week produced a “déjà vu” experience although it was definitely not the “déjà vu all over again” variety. For only the second time in my speaking career I received unanticipated feedback from participants of a workshop two or more years after the actual event. This is not trivial as one of the challenging aspectsRead… Read more »
Leadership development is an important investment in employees and a means to improve the performance of federal agencies. Considering the current budgetary constraints, there are a number of no-cost or low-cost training and development options that you can use to help educate and develop your managers and team members to fill in any gaps. AsRead… Read more »
This morning I had the chance to listen to David McQueeney. McQueeney is the Vice President of Software at IBM. David spoke about the history of Watson and the potential uses of the technology. McQueeney gave a great presentation and there are a lot of great lessons that government can learn from how Watson wasRead… Read more »
One of the things I’ve realized over the years, popular technology adoption does not equate to business productivity. It may actually be the reverse; when a technology becomes all the rage and takes on fad-like status, it rapidly gets out of control resulting in all manner of side effects. SharePoint is one such example. BeingRead… Read more »
I think everyone probably has at least heard bits and pieces of what Steve Wozniak’s Key Note at FOSE yesterday, however I think it’s very important we wipe away our awe for a moment and look long and hard at just what he said. To most technorati, or at very least technology proficient, folks inRead… Read more »
I’m surprised that more government employees aren’t discussing the President’s SAVE Awards website more. There are about 5,000 ideas posted so far, of which there are about 50 good, solid ideas. Most of the other entries are simply rants/vents from a frustrated workforce, or duplicatations of other similar ideas (e.g. telework, combine agencies, go paperless,Read… Read more »