Friday’s Fab Five: Social Media Interns, Training and Telework

It’s that time again…

Friday’s Fab Five!

Every Friday, we’re summarizing the best of the week and highlighting five members or moments that were especially awesome.

The Most Commented Blog of the Week goes to Jay Daughtry for his post “7 Questions to Reflect on Before Hiring a College Intern for Social Media”. Jay asks (you guessed it) 7 questions that really apply to anyone looking to hire in the social media realm.

“Thanks for the great post. It is imperative to stop thinking of social media as a cheap, disposable way of communicating and instead start to form some solid strategies around how to use these highly effective communications tools. You wouldn’t let your intern manage all of your Press contacts, so why would you let them run a program that can reach thousands, if not tens of thousands, of your customers?” – Sarah Vroman

“The questions regarding knowledge of the business and industry are key, especially in government. An intern may have no problem posting updates and monitoring our accounts, but getting valuable and accurate information out there requires an understanding of what our many departments do. Engaging subject matter experts and garnering useful content from them can be a challenge but already knowing what they do and how they do it makes the process so much easier.” – Dory Dahlberg

The Top Forum Once again Andy K would have taken home top commented honor with his Help TSA Out post, but who wants to give their boss an award…not me. Another big comment-getter this week was Alex Howard’s “What is the Value Proposition of Open Government Data?”. Alex asked GovLoopers to help him decide what to talk about for the first International Data Summit and got several good responses including this one.

“What if Data.gov Had a Real App Store?

A Real App Store for Open Government Data that supported the collaborative spirit of adding value to Government Data would be great hosted in a space like http://data.gov This Platform as a Service (PaaS) would support serving apps, mashups, and Software as a Service (SaaS) across the federated space. I believe we would see exponential growth in the value of government data with something like JackBe’s Presto powering the Government App Store.” – Daniel Hudson

I’m sure Alex rocked his panel appearance at the summit and here are his slides:

Value proposition of open government data

View more presentations from Alexander Howard.

Most Active Group: Well it was no surprise this week that the Teleworkers and Telemanagers group took the most active spot. With the Telework Act passing congress and moving to the president’s desk it would be an understatement to say it was a hot topic this week. But as I type this post from home I’m happy that soon enough several other govies will be able to focus on the work rather than the workplace.

Quote of the Week comes from an eLearning all-star Dr. Jane Bozarth. Dr. Jane really hit the nail on the head with her comment on What Do You Think Makes Training Awesome?.

“So often this question invites answers that highlight the difference between “training” and “presentation”. Simply put: Good training solves a problem by resulting in the intended improved performance. The training experience itself may be engaging, and the trainer entertaining, but the real issue is whether, at the end, the learner can DO what the training purports to teach him/her to do. Alas, it doesn’t happen as often as it should.”