FUSE Corps launches its fellows and your Weekend Reads!

Welcome to GovLoop Insights Issue of the Week with Chris Dorobek where each week, our goal is to find an issue — a person — an idea — then helped define the past 7-days… and we work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

A busy week on GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER

• Having all the data in the world won’t help you or your agency unless you analyze it properly. Big Analytics is the lastest buzz word floating around government and it transforms data into knowledge and knowledge into informed decision making. So how do you do it. We got tips from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers.
• The Republican National Convention wrapped up yesterday and one of the big topics was the size and scope of government. That puts you — the federal worker — smack dab in the middle of the campaign. It’s not just the Republicans. The Democrats are just as guilty. So how do you stay focused on your mission? We got tips from the Partnership for Public Service.
• We’ve all been watching the devastating fires rip through the west. So what can you do to prepare? The fellows at Code for America developed an easy-to-use application that brings together a variety of checklists and fire tools. It’s called Prepard.ly. We found out how it works — and how easy it was to pull all of it together.
• The retirement tsunami or not, succession planning is essential for any good organization. How well does the government do?We got results from a new survey.

But in our Issue of the Week? Fuse Corps is literally helping government do it’s job better. In recent weeks, you’ve heard about the Obama administration’s Presidential Innovation Fellows and we’ve talked about Code for America. Earlier this year, we spoke to Peter Sims, author of the book Little Bets — and a DorobekINSIDER book club book , about Fuse Corps — a program where they essentially match smart people work with government for a year to make things happen. Fuse Corps has just announced their Inaugural Fellows — five people. They go through some leadership training and then get to solving problems. Jennifer Anastasoff is the CEO of Fuse Corps. She told Chris Dorobek what exactly Fuse Corp does.

“We are part of a movement to bring innovation into the way we solve government problems,” said Anastasoff.

Fuse Corp. 3 Parts

1. Seek out innovative leaders who are ready willing and able to pus for new programs and projects. These leaders have to be able to take on a fellow that has a new lens on government problems.
2. Seek out fellows who have amazing minds in business and entrepreneurship who are ready to put aside a year to make a difference in a community.
3. Double down to make real and lasting leaders.

Biggest Challenge: Bringing in folks who are willing to give up time. And to build that network of fellows who 3-5 years from now have a serious alumni network.

Weekend Reads:

• Wall Street Journal: Transformational CIOs Need to Promote Business Social Networking: “Modern CIOs must reconcile the gap between their role as protector of corporate information assets and the need to drive organizational innovation and openness. Although bridging these two dimensions of the CIO mandate is difficult, this struggle creates perhaps the greatest opportunity that most CIOs will ever see in their lifetime. Social networking is a primary force in the push toward information transparency. As Facebook reaches a billion users, social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn have created a sustained and undeniable effect on society, transforming expectations of privacy and information control, while obliterating the once-sacred separation between work and home life. The CIO’s need to balance user demands for transparency while maintaining strict controls and governance to protect the organization create a demanding situation for even the most seasoned leaders. Nonetheless, the cultural changes wrought by social networking are a lever that forward-thinking CIOs can use to drive innovation and transform their role in the business.
• FastCompany: The $1.3 Trillion Price Of Not Tweeting At Work:On June 6, Larry Ellison–CEO of Oracle, one of the largest and most advanced computer technology corporations in the world–tweeted for the very first time. In doing so, he joined a club that remains surprisingly elite. Among CEOs of the world’s Fortune 500 companies, a mere 20 have Twitter accounts. Ellison, by the way, hasn’t tweeted since. As social media spreads around the globe, one enclave has proven stubbornly resistant: the boardroom. Within the C-suite, perceptions remain that social media is at best a soft PR tool and at worst a time sink for already distracted employees. Without a push from the top, many of the biggest companies have been slow to take the social media plunge. A new report from McKinsey Global Institute, however, makes the business case for social media a little easier to sell. According to an analysis of 4,200 companies by the business consulting giant, social technologies stand to unlock from $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in value. At the high end, that approaches Australia’s annual GDP. How’s that for a bottom line?

Labor Day Fast Facts!!!!

• Labor Day: How it Came About; What it Means
  • Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
• Founder of Labor Day
  • More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers.
  • Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”
  • But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.
• The First Labor Day
  • The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union.
• Labor Day Legislation
  • Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day. The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. By 1894, 24 states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.
• A Nationwide Holiday
  • The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.