I have a big announcement (details below), but before I share the good news, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on why I created GovLoop (which I launched from my spare bedroom in summer of 2008).
GovLoop started from a need I had as a government employee. Every day at DHS, my boss would ask me to look into a new project or technology or concept we were trying to tackle. And the first thing I thought was “I bet someone in government is working on that now — and why don’t I learn from them?”
That original idea led to a social network which grew from one member to 100 members to now over 200,000+ members. And along the way, the community has evolved based on your (the community) feedback. Every month, we talk to thousands of GovLoop members whether through surveys, phone calls I make (plug – join our VIP program), in-person events we host, or user feedback.
One consistent feedback we’ve heard over the years is that you want more great free online training. And we’ve responded. A few years ago, we had about one webinar a month and that was it. Check the progress we’ve made in 2015:
- Hosting over 40 online training webinars and three virtual conferences where over 50,000+ of you will attend.
- Launched GovLoop Academy, an online learning academy with short on-demand practical courses – launching with over 25+ courses, an eIDP, and innovative mentors program
- Working directly with government agencies through interagency agreement to improve their online learning systems and training activities through our new learning services division.
Today, we are excited to announce that we are expanding our training offers through the acquisition of TMGov and its associated TMGovU. For those that don’t know TMGov, is an association focused on improving talent management in government. They have conducted fantastic research, events, and knowledge for the talent management community.
We are especially excited about TMGovU, an online learning academy for government that offers 80+ free human capital and leadership courses to federal, state and local government workers (along with associated SHRM and HRCI credits). We believe these courses offer great value to our community and are exactly the types of courses you’ve been asking us to create. You can expect them to be incorporated into GovLoop Academy in the near future.
I’ve been lucky to get to know the great team at TMGov (Allen Zeman, Allan Schweyer and Ray Horoho) over the last few months and I’m most excited that they share the same vision as we do at GovLoop – helping folks in government do their job better and get ahead in their career. We are excited to welcome TMGov members to the GovLoop fold and share with them the great resources and trainings on GovLoop. We are also excited to welcome TMGovU’s sponsors and board into the GovLoop community and look forward to their ideas.
Enough from me – I’d love to hear from you: What courses or trainings would you like us to build on GovLoop or GovLoop Academy? Interested in teaching a course yourself? Send me a note via steve@govloop.com.