Many Feds Face Furloughs Twice
Dems Back Retroactive Shutdown Pay
How Long Has the Shutdown Lasted?
Agencies Post Shutdown Plans Online
No TSP Contributions During a Shutdown
How Contractors Might Weather a Shutdown
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Joseph Marks
Staff Correspondent
Joseph Marks covers government technology issues, social media, Gov 2.0 and global Internet freedom for Nextgov. He previously reported on federal litigation and legal policy for Law360 and on local, state and regional issues for two Midwestern newspapers. He also interned for Congressional Quarterly’s Homeland Security section and the Associated Press’s Jerusalem Bureau. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s in international affairs from Georgetown.
New Directions
1:00 AM ET When it comes to government technology, assigning responsibility can be tricky. Take the new email system the General Services Administration launched in 2011. GSA Chief Information Officer Casey Coleman appeared to be on the hook for that one. Click on any GSA project on the Federal IT Dashboard, a website ...
Government Social Media Feeds Will Go Dark During a Shutdown
September 30, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
Most agency Twitter handles and other social media will go dark in the event of a government shutdown Tuesday morning, officials said on Monday. There’s no official list of Twitter handles and Facebook pages that will cease posting, according to tweets by the General Services Administration’s @GovNewMedia Twitter handle, which ...
What a Government Game App Should (and Shouldn't) Look Like
September 27, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
This story is part of Nextgov’s Building Better Apps project. Building an educational game for a smartphone or tablet is a pretty tall order for federal agencies, Nextgov’s app experts said. The game has to be fun enough that it doesn’t wilt when compared with apps from private sector leaders ...
Q&A: How City Governments Go Digital
September 25, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
LOS ANGELES -- Cities that embrace digital government do it for one of two reasons, says Alan Silberberg, founder of the five-year-old Gov2.0LA conference: Either elected officials and top bureaucrats see an opportunity to save money and provide services more efficiently or citizens demand government services that can compete with ...
Most Offline Adults Prefer It That Way
September 25, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The vast majority of the 15 percent of adult Americans who aren’t online aren’t interested in joining the rest of us, a study released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found. About 92 percent of those offline adults said they had no interest in using email or ...
Making the President Viral
September 24, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
LOS ANGELES -- Job No. 1 for most political campaigns is to persuade undecided voters to support their candidate. The digital team working on President Obama’s reelection campaign had a different goal: persuading supporters to reach out to their most persuadable undecided friends. The campaign started with two pieces of ...
From Twitter Revolution to Twitter Diplomacy in Iran
September 24, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
LOS ANGELES -- The most important Iranian Twitter exchange since the so-called “Twitter revolution” that followed the Islamic republic’s 2009 disputed election wasn’t between outraged protesters, a Human Rights Watch official said on Monday. The conversation was actually between Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and U.S. political strategist Christine Pelosi, ...
IBM Calls Amazon Unprepared to Secure Intelligence Data
September 23, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
Against the backdrop of a $150 million lawsuit over a contract to build a secure computer cloud for the U.S. intelligence community, an IBM executive swiped at competitor Amazon last week, calling the company’s cloud services unreliable and not up to government standards. “Amazon's definition of reliability doesn't measure up ...
FDA Hires Obama Campaigners to Track Its Social Media Reach
September 20, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
A startup launched by veterans of President Obama's election campaign will help the Food and Drug Administration monitor its programs’ social media reach, documents show. The FDA awarded IB5K an $180,000 contract on Wednesday to produce real-time reports on how many people are responding to the agency’s campaigns on social ...
Of Mice and Mobile Apps
September 19, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
Sure, there are 10 more months to go until Cow Appreciation Day rolls around again, but the Agriculture Department is trying to help farmers show appreciation every day with a new mobile app to protect cattle from the dangers of heat stress. The proposed app will alert farmers when their ...
