After the US Men’s National Soccer Team lost in the World Cup, all the commentators lamented the state of US soccer. How are we going to develop great American soccer players when the best athletes are still choosing football and basketball? Listening to this discussion, I found a parallel between attracting great young athletes toRead… Read more »
Tomorrow, we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is an amazing document written by bright and determined individuals who wanted to throw off the yoke of servitude from the British crown. It, of course, was signed on July 4, 1776. But five months later, it looked as if the American Revolution wasRead… Read more »
It is no big secret that the public sector is slow in adopting new technologies. When Public Sector Organizations (PSO) do adopt new technologies, they don’t always do it properly. This was the case (with a few exceptions) with social media. Most PSOs went in late and then tried to do it in a “businessRead… Read more »
My favorite innovation techniques, such as brainwriting, come from some key books in my personal library: Gamestorming, Back of the Napkin, Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don’t Work, creatingminds.org, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Visual Explanations. Common to all of these resources is the concept of “visual language” or “visualRead… Read more »
Maybe it’s the looming long holiday weekend, or the restless sleep I had last night, but I’m feeling so tired at work today. Whatever it is, you’ve been there. I know you know how I am feeling: unmotivated, hazy, slow, the list goes on, but my mind can’t process words that fast at the moment.Read… Read more »
We’ve all heard the phrase, “Practice makes perfect.” While many dismiss this idea as well-worn and antiquated, the concept of meaningful practice has been embraced by neuroscientists and life coaches alike in recent years. Author Daniel Coyle champions practice as the means to achieving excellent in his book The Talent Code. The idea is thatRead… Read more »
Fostering effective media relations can be a challenging endeavor for anyone, including public sector communicators. This is due, in large part, to a history of adversarial relations between government and the so-called Fourth Estate. Thus it’s essential for government communicators to break down this firewall and build bridges instead. With this in mind, you shouldRead… Read more »
What good is having knowledge and skills about a particular topic if you do not share it. Here’s a quote from Margaret Fuller, “If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.” So hopefully, others will light their candles with the knowledge that I am sharing about onboarding. Onboarding vs. NEO Onboarding isRead… Read more »
As a nation we have not done very well integrating health systems, payers, public health departments, and community based agencies. The key findings in obesity, diabetes, access, poverty, and tobacco underscore the need for service integration. The drumbeat for the integration of services among delivery systems with community-based organizations has become louder in recent years.Read… Read more »
“Scared Straight” versus “Relate” As Human Services Administrator for the City of Santa Clarita, California, I oversee programs that help young people find jobs, resist drugs, get healthy, learn new skills, and avoid gang membership. We invite ex-gang members to speak to “high-risk” teens and we show teens in our Community Court program videos thatRead… Read more »