If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you have at least some passing familiarity with GovLoop. Maybe you receive the Daily Awesome in your inbox, follow the women in government blog series or attended the Next Generation of Government Training Summit. But as our community continues to grow and our services continue to expand, we want to ensure that you have all the information you need about what exactly GovLoop has to offer.
With a vibrant community of more than 272,000 federal, state and local government employees, GovLoop is all about connecting government to improve government. Since its founding in 2008, GovLoop has aimed to help the public sector provide better services to citizens by acting as a “knowledge network” for information sharing, best practices and lessons learned. This encompasses everything from virtual summits on the latest government trends, to in-person events with thought leaders in the public sector, to research guides on key government topics, to interactive online courses.
For GovLoop’s last online webinar of the year, How to Make the Most of GovLoop, Emily Jarvis, Senior Online and Events Editor; Catherine Andrews, Senior Director of Editorial and Production; and Doug Mashkuri, Vice President of Business Development provided an overview of the many free resources, opportunities and events available to you:
Community Involvement
There are a number of simple ways to participate in the GovLoop community and share your story. Every Monday, we update our “Poll of the Week,” accessible on the GovLoop website. These polls ask our government audience a range of questions, such as your experience with IT modernization at your agency, work-life balance or opportunities for career development and training. Answering these questions helps us acquire data for our research guides, glean information about what issues are important to you and identify what topics or challenges might be useful to cover in upcoming online trainings.
GovLoop is also launching a new program called “Govie of the Month,” where you can nominate a colleague, boss or friend who has gone above and beyond in their public service. Each winner will be highlighted on our site and in our email newsletter, and will also receive a certificate!
The GovLoop Ambassador Program, to begin in 2018, will provide a formalized opportunity for members to take what they’ve learned from GovLoop and share that information with their agencies. Other fun community resources include our handy government discounts guide, guide to the best meeting icebreakers, holiday e-cards and the annual, in-person Food Trucks Full of Thanks event — an opportunity for a free food-truck meal and networking with other govies.
Content
A significant goal of GovLoop is to provide educational resources for government employees at the local, state and federal level.
The GovLoop website currently boasts four blog series with weekly and daily pieces:
- The First 5 series is geared towards millennials in government, or anyone just starting out in their career. This blog series provides life and career advice on how to move up the government ladder, shares insider tips and things you need to know or talks about challenges you might encounter as a millennial in the workforce.
- GovFem focuses on issues facing women in government and technology, tackling topics such as how to combat sexual harassment, how to retain women in your workforce and make job descriptions women-friendly, how to address the gender pay gap or how to ask for paid parental leave.
- The Intersection deals with the intersection of people and technology, getting at the people behind emerging tech and diving deep into how technology is meeting the needs of citizens. These posts can range from explainers on blockchain, to writing IT emails people will actually read, to interviews with CIOs (“CIO Conversations”).
- Finally, the Featured Contributors series incorporates the voices of our government audience. Every three months, we feature a new, diverse cohort of contributors who write on topics they are passionate about and share their experiences in government from unique perspectives. This is a fantastic opportunity for people hoping to write and produce clips, elevate their professional profile or start a conversation with thousands of govies across the country.
GovLoop also produces in-depth publications, in the form of our research guides and market trends reports. These pieces cover a wide breadth of important topics and challenges for the government workforce — such as IT modernization, digital transformation, cybersecurity, cloud solutions, human resources, open source and citizen engagement — and include comprehensive solutions, case studies and interviews with subject matter experts.
For shorter and more visual-heavy content, GovLoop’s infographics include a printable calendar of dates govies should know, checklists, overviews of emerging technologies and data spreads.
Training
Another critical facet of GovLoop is providing interactive training and learning opportunities for government employees. Each year, GovLoop holds approximately four virtual summits — all-day, online environments where attendees can download white papers and reports, listen to keynote speakers and attend online trainings, visit the Innovations Center and meet other attendees in the Networking Lounge (in 2017, GovLoop saw between 7,000 and 8,000 virtual summit attendees).
GovLoop also holds over 50 hour-long webinars each year, each of which focuses on an emerging trend or technology or shares best practices on how to solve a particular challenge. As an added incentive, community members have the chance to win free GovLoop swag — which includes T-shirts, stickers, door hangers and printed copies of research guides — the more they participate.
Though these virtual environments provide flexibility and allow for people throughout the country to participate, GovLoop also holds occasional in-person events in D.C. These events include small roundtables, evening GovUps and half-day events, offering a chance for attendees to network with government peers, attend panel discussions and keynotes, ask questions of industry partners and build community.
Career and Professional Development
GovLoop’s NextGen Nation initiative aims to help employees develop their skills and reach the next level, bridge the generation gap and empower a strong new generation of government leaders. The annual NextGen Summit brings together over 1,000 employees to inspire government innovation and provide leadership training for public servants. Over the two-day summit, attendees get an immersive learning experience on a variety of issues facing government and are equipped with the skills to bring this information back to their agencies. The NextGen Leadership Program is a six-month virtual training program, with a mentor-mentee component and a series of online training sessions on leadership, development and career advancement.
Finally, GovLoop Academy is an online training platform for government, with a variety of hour-long, 30-minute and 10-minute interactive courses. These engaging and creative courses teach all from the basics of Internet of Things (IoT), to skills management, to data analytics. The virtual learning environment is self-paced and provides knowledge checks and certificates upon the completion of each course to ensure understanding.
Social
When GovLoop was founded in 2008, it was primarily a forum and social networking platform. Though GovLoop has expanded to provide other products and services, we are still available on a number of social media channels and enjoy staying engaged with our passionate government audience. GovLoop can be found on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr.
Remember: the more feedback we have from you, the better we can respond to your needs and serve our community. So, please share your thoughts and join the conversation!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.