Uniting Civil Servants From Across the Country

All Blog Posts (9)

Why so Silo?

Last year Heath Ledger’s Joker character from the summer blockbuster movie Batman had a very notable line, “Why so Serious?” In a recent frustrating development that had me pulling my hair out, I want to know, “Why so Silo?” There are many things that are said about government workers, but openness is not one that I see thrown around often. I get so frustrated with all the bureaucracy and closed minded, “That’s not the way we do things” that I see on a daily basis. Recently, I hear about anothe… Continue

Added by VerticalGambit on June 1, 2009 at 7:30pm — No Comments

What Are State Workers Willing To Give Up For Job Security?

All you have to do these days is look at Google news for "state workers", "state employees", "city workers", "city budget", "county workers", or 'budget problems" to find numerous articles about the current woes of the public sector (or just click here ). There are a lot of states right now suffering because of a down economy. Most elected officials have chosen to cut programs, jobs, enforce pay cuts, and furloughs to bal… Continue

Added by VerticalGambit on May 18, 2009 at 12:30pm — 2 Comments

Government Scrambles to Fix an Unfixable Issue.

If you have been anywhere near a TV, Radio, or Internet news site you have probably heard the word ConFlicker. I’m not here to talk about this internet terror itself, but I am here to talk about the actions that people are taking. As the title of this post says, the state is scrambling to fix an issue that cannot be fixed. What I mean bythat statement is that although ConFlicker can be stopped technically, it was built to thrive on societal ineptitude of internet culture by means of social engin… Continue

Added by VerticalGambit on March 31, 2009 at 9:36pm — No Comments

One Way Web 2.0 Social Media Could Help Federal, State, and Local Government

There are so many ways for government to waste money, but learning a little from social media websites, like Facebook, governmental offices could learn to solve problems through crowd sourcing existing staff from around the nation. The government has a wide range of technologies that it uses from Mainframes to SQL servers to Helpdesk software. Even though government agencies are very diverse, most have core sections (Finance and Accounting, Human Resources, Legal Department, Information Technolo… Continue

Added by VerticalGambit on February 10, 2009 at 3:04pm — No Comments

New College Graduate Desperately Seeking Progressive IT Environment.

Until about three weeks ago, I had never heard the word millennial used in the context of referring to a specific group people. I first heard the word when I was in an hour long IT session, Web 2.0 Technologies. The presenter used the term millennials to describe college students who will be entering the workforce looking for the same functionality they use on the web to help solve business problems. Like most cliché technology words (solutions, beta, streamline, The Cloud, ect.) I've heard over… Continue

Added by VerticalGambit on October 3, 2008 at 7:49am — 2 Comments

Business Threats through Social Engineering.

The presentation covered four key aspects of Social Engineering

Change Society – Make Cyber Crime a Bad Choice
Old School Social Engineering
Phishing: Greed and Fear
Post Phishing: key loggers
Spear Phishing

… Continue

Added by VerticalGambit on September 29, 2008 at 6:30pm — No Comments

Business Mashups FGTC 2008

Business Mashup Mashups take numerous data sources combined and layer them together to form an informative presentation that can deliver services tailored to individuals. The presenter used the book "The Long Tail" as an explanation to the shift from mass production of generic stuff to niche markets. "The Long Tail, in a nutshell"

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a re

… Continue

Added by VerticalGambit on September 26, 2008 at 7:06pm — No Comments

Web 2.0 Technologies FGTC 2008

Web 2.0 Technologies is hosted by Joe Clark, Florida State University. Joe works at the Center for Teaching and Learning

Joe talked about a lot of major Web 2.0 companies like YouTube.com and Facebook. His main emphasis was on taking user generated content of websites that can be used as a mo… Continue

Added by VerticalGambit on September 26, 2008 at 7:00pm — No Comments

2008 Florida Government Technology Conference

I will be going to the today and tomorrow. The theme this year is "Government IT Saving Green by Going Green" (see banner below)

Currently I am schedule to see five "breakout sessions" and hopefully one Keynote tomorrow. Tuesday, September 23, 2008 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Web 2.0 Technologies Joe Clark Florida Stat… Continue

Added by VerticalGambit on September 26, 2008 at 6:30pm — No Comments