Data is not a service. Service is not data. Knowledge is power, but it’s not always very much power.

My default mode of transport in London is the bus. Having information about when the next bus is coming has been exciting and empowering, even if the shine has worn off a little…

No one doubted that Oprah Winfrey would wow Harvard University in our nation’s springtime tradition of commencement addresses by celebrities of various stripes and vocations.  True to any speech that resonates with audiences it is not only the truths with dustings of humor, it is the glimpses of the people delivering them that keeps us captivated.  In this, Oprah once again proved a remarkable ability to share her soft spots and the resiliency that has made her the success she is…

By Ryan Kamauff

In this podcast I interviewed Alicia Saia, Senior Manager, Solutions Marketing, Public Sector at MarkLogic. Alicia and I talked a lot about how MarkLogic is helping to change the way people look at data, how it integrates with their current generation and legacy systems, and how MarkLogic is helping agencies and…

Great talk by Beth Noveck of NYU's The Gov Lab at Personal Democracy Forum 2013 on how to fundamentally rethink the process the way government works with citizens and how to solve public sector problems.

Great examples from Innocentive to Kaggle to Zara to Challenge.gov to truly reimagine how government works.  

More GovLoop on Social Media:…

The Center for Priority Based Budgeting is extending its social media discount to ELGL members!  If you register for their conference “A Summit of Leading Practices” by 2pm on Friday, June 14th you’ll receive a 20% discount on the cost of admission.

For more information and to register visit their…

Summer is vacation primetime.  People coming and going from the office can be stressful for everyone. In order to reduce the stress on yourself and those you leave behind at work, I thought I’d list some ideas for how to make sure your summer vacation goes smoothly. So before you check out this summer take a…

On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER:

• In order for a project, program, department, agency or the entire government to function properly, you first need trust. But cultivating and growing that trust can be difficult, especially within large organizations. We learn 13 ways to cultivate trust from author Stephen Covey and…

How many times have we told ourselves that this summer would be a great time to take that long awaited vacation only to remember all of the things that we have going on in the office. Even contemplating a long weekend can be frustrating when we think of all of the things that would need to be completed before we walked out the door. Or even more daunting - what we might return to!



But the fact is that small…

Yesterday, GovLoop and Oracle presented a webinar on current customer service strategies in government. Widely discussed in the business realm, customer service is becoming a key focus area in government. Agencies are increasingly looking to customer service strategies via social media, mobile apps, call centers, and various other mediums to engage citizens and fill gaps in service.

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Many Americans are not aware that the standard railroad gauge in the U.S. (the distance between the two metal rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.  Why the heck did our government leaders ever establish such an odd size for spacing the tracks when building our nation's first rail lines?

Well, that is because, when our government and business leaders decided to construct our first rail system, they relied mainly on British…

It is as good a time as ever to evaluate the federal environment and draw some conclusions on the effects of the sequester. Many other factors come into play when considering the Federal Market from the perspective of a Government Contractor. Every Industry will be effected differently,…

In the mobile era, people like to work on any device, anywhere and at any time. This means a lot of information is stored on the device (how many notes do we take on the computer versus a notebook?) and for transparency purposes, moved online. By working in the cloud or through sites like WordPress, organizations that typically use a lot of paper are able to move to a paper-free environment (or pretty close to…

Looking broadly across the many crises that have unfolded over the years, they seem to all share roughly the same 10 stages in common. If I could make one overall point it is this:

"Pay now or pay later."

That is - right or wrong, if leadership takes responsibility early on, gets all the information out, and does something dramatic and real to fix it - people usually will prefer to keep the organization intact rather than make a major change.…

In order for a project, program, department, agency or the entire government to function properly, you first need trust. But cultivating and growing that trust can be difficult, especially within large organizations.

Tim McManus is the Vice President for Education and Outreach at the Partnership for Public Service. Earlier this week the Partnership hosted author Stephen…

Several new studies demonstrate the difficulty of defining what constitutes the “atom” of  a federal program, but a recent Washington Post article begins to uncover why it is so elusive, much like finding sub-atomic particles in physics.

Defining Federal Programs Isn’t Simple

There is more than one way to define what constitutes a federal “program,” and it is not unlike trying to define molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles.

 …

By Markus Ehrenmueller

Editor’s note: Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen is the author of Microsoft Business Tools, and is well positioned to provide context on ways users can better leverage these tools. -bg

I can remember back in the beginning of my own school time, what a sensation it was, when I…

Last week, I was able to attend the 2013 Personal Democracy Forum in New York City.  This conference and community is about the present and future impact of digital technologies on our democracy.  While listening to many of the thought-provoking and passionate presentations, there were a few different ideas that really spoke to me. Here are three that I wanted to share with…