It was another awesome year at GovLoop. We:
- grew to over 63,000 members
- trained over 10,000 individuals at monthly online trainings
- launched 12 research guides and infographs
- hosted 8 in-person events
- got a sweet ping pong table in the office.
In addition to those milestones, here’s my favorite 10 GovLoop items of year:
2) GIS Infographic – I felt like I was in Sim City when we launched this interactive infograph. It’s not your standard infograph to print out. This was one you could zoom in and out with hotspots throughout. Really awesome – Check it out here!
3) Todd Park Joining GovLoop – It was a Friday morning and I was excited to walk into the White House Old Executive Office building to meet with Todd Park and tell him the GovLoop story. Five minutes into our conversation, he quickly said, “That’s awesome. Can I join right now? Keep on talking, I’ll join as you share.” Awesome, indeed (check out the story and friend Todd here).
5) New Calculators – I love calculators – they are a great way to quickly use open data and share stories. This year , we launched a salary calculator and telework calculator. Both took off like crazy. Personally, I love calculating how my net pay changes as I move toward my retirement. Also, the telework calculator showed how much CO2 and $ I was saving from working at home.
6) PathtoPMF.com – This year we partnered with the Robertson Foundation for Government to host PathToPMF – an unofficial tour guide for the Presidential Management Fellowship. We conducted 60+ interviews with current/past PMFs, agency PMF coordinators, and career counselors to get insights/tips on the process. It was amazing to see the reaction to the product as over the course of the application process, we were able to help over 9,000 unique people, respond to 200+ comments on our blog and host a great Google+ Hangout with OPM and an expert who happened to be in Liberia.
8) Virtual Conference and Trainings Galore – We truly kicked it up a notch this year with 15+ free online trainings and our first-ever virtual conference. It’s been amazing to see the response on topics from advancing your career with social media to open source and cybersecurity – every time there are hundreds of you from across the globe attending and asking important questions.
Side Note: this month we rolled out VIP rewards for our top attendees and will continue to run this program next year. Do you want to make sure you receive these updates? Sign up for alerts here (and make sure on the following page to click free trainings/events).
9) Revamped Jobs – This year we relaunched our Jobs site – it’s like Kayak for USAJOBS. Built on top of USAJOBS, we integrated with LinkedIn to show who you know at the job, mashed up job locations on a Google Map, connected it with GlassDoor for user reviews of agencies and created some new filtering. Want to know jobs with multiple vacancies or high promo potentials? We got it. Furthermore, we continue to pick the top 10 jobs each week for 10+ categories (we are now at over 10,000 folks who receive our jobs updates).
10) You – Yes, it sounds like a cheesy Time magazine cover but you, GovLoopers, are my favorite part of GovLoop. I have had so many awesome conversations the last year with members, whether it’s over beers at conferences or on email sharing ideas to improve GovLoop. I’m constantly amazed at the amount of passionate, innovative leaders in government who are determined to help improve government. The projects people are working on are so important and the tenacity, drive, and desire to make big change for citizens is amazing. I feel blessed that I get to collaborate with all of you every day.