It’s rare that a group in Silicon Valley becomes speechless. When a colleague kept us spellbound during a staff meeting regaling his tales of filming a video blurb in Navajo Nation a few weeks ago, I knew this was a story for the masses. Navajo Nation, the largest area belonging to Native Americans, comprising threeRead… Read more »
“Let us now speak according to our natural lights.” – Blaise Pascal’ Who doesn’t, at some point, experience doubt: doubt in ourselves, in our abilities and our choices? Doubt, like stones thrown into a pond, casts ripples in our lives with even the smallest stones of doubt having far-reaching impact. This blog post isn’t aRead… Read more »
“I like your creativity and where this is going, but…” It doesn’t even matter what your boss says next—she’s already decided that your idea is awful. Your fate was sealed the moment she uttered ‘but.’ The praise before that dreaded conjunction does nothing to soften the blow. As the old adage goes, everything before theRead… Read more »
Seventy-four (74) is the number of school shootings since the country was brought to our knees by the senseless killing of 20 young students and six adults in Newtown in December 2012. Eric Cantor is the, now former, House Majority Leader widely regarded as the most conservative of the House Leadership brought down by aRead… Read more »
Cloud based communication and collaboration services help you ease into the daunting world of cloud-based services by using the most mature product. These products offer rich features at a low price without the hassle of managing the infrastructure. The major players are Google Apps for Government and Microsoft Office 365. I have used both andRead… Read more »
The second week of June is Email Week. To pay respect to my former “you’ve got mail” addiction, I’m focusing this week’s blog on email. I need to provide this caveat, any similarity to real person or real events is coincidental and for educational purposes only. Let’s begin. Imagine you are the sole survivor, theRead… Read more »
At a recent family event, I was asked about my position as the Digital Marketing Fellow at GovLoop. What exactly did I do at my job? To my chagrin, my mother answered for me. “She writes spam,” she said. In those three words, my mother voiced the greatest challenge in email marketing—piquing enough interest toRead… Read more »
Listen live to my radio interview tomorrow morning about U.S. House of Representatives’ Bill H.R. 4031 – the “Department of Veterans Affairs Management Accountability Act of 2014” and what it could mean for federal employees at VA and in other federal agencies. To hear that interview, tune in to the “Legal Loop” segment of theRead… Read more »
Motivation is tricky. Many great blogs like Doris Tirone’s post talk about the dangers of believing a supervisor alone can motivate someone to be more efficient. External (extrinsic) motivators like money or praise are helpful, but internal (intrinsic) motivators are stronger and salient. One of the tools I have found most useful to understanding intrinsicRead… Read more »
You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself. — Sam Levinson I’ve interviewed over 450 government and contractor managers over the last fifteen years as part of a business growth assessment process. Besides getting to know a lot of sincere dedicated individuals, I’ve beenRead… Read more »