Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Commandant and the Eagle

Here's what's up now...

The Ancient Mariner and the Eagle

I think I like this one better than the new one... http://www.uscg.mil

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Oops...

I'm sure the web will catch up...

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

What I hope we don't discover...

The events on the left coast this past weekend are very sad... and I am afraid they are going to show up some series systemic issues.

I'm afraid we'll discover this was a crew of part-timers... or that they didn't have the requisite night underway hours... or that they hadn't been maintaining currency... or the coxswain was a 20-year second class who wasn't at second class by choice... or that they had a cowboy reputation... Something... something that will, in the end, be a game changer...

It's a dangerous world, a dangerous work environment, but generally it's dangerous for the Guardian, not the young child... I think about the accident in the Grand Haven turning basin, the unbuckled reservist thrown in Seattle, the frozen capsized souls in Erie, the wreck on the rocks of Quillayute... those all just impact the Guardian... This, well, this is different. And that's why, in part, this is going to be a game changer...

Saturday, October 24, 2009

The Internet: Ensuring secrets don't remain secrets


Motor Life Boat off Montauk Point
Photo by Thomas Colla
Posted at flickr by Tidewater Muse
More than ever, everything is public and in the clear...

Friday, October 9, 2009

Podcamp coming to Virginia Beach: Set for 11/17, first day of the Innovation Expo

Interested in social media? Web 2.0? Web-based communication? Using the Internet to develop stakeholder relationships? If so, you don't want to miss this, for sure. If you're planning on attending, you can register here:

Events


Please only register if you're actually going to be there... Thanks.

See you there!

Monday, September 28, 2009

And the question is...

I've been thinking a bit about the service's embrace of social media. Well, the Thadmiral's embrace of new media... and the host of people who are waiting for next summer.

A couple of my compatriots, er, shipmates in the vernacular, I guess, have decided that the heat is cranking up. There are too many dinosaurs and it is too darn easy to post something that is thought to be career ending. Too bad, frankly. I know that SIGNO 1 values honest dialogue, but too many other senior officers and civilians are running scared. And scared for the darnedest things. I even had a senior officer deny me organizational data for a dissertation -- yes, the bloody doctorate I've worked on for five years -- an academic exercise done under the close supervision of the university's institutional review board. Not blogging, for sure. And he has denied me access to all organizational data. I didn't want names, just numbers; numbers of vacancies over time, numbers of attrition and retention, numbers of formal and informal civil rights complaints. Nope, nada, nil. And, why? Fear. The same reason people are down on social media. Fear. Said the naysaying senior officer: "Once you have the data, you are free to interpret it as you wish without the filters of a command structure." Er, isn't that the purpose of academic research? But, hey, I'm just one person, and sorry if this puts a "crimp on [my] educational goals but the security of sensitive data, the trust of our people, and the reputation of [the agency] outweigh any individual benefits."

Bloggers and academics, beware. "They" don't want the truth to rear its ugly, ugly head. I fear where we might be in 12 months.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

I will be off-net for the next month. Back OOA 8/1/2009. No tweets, posts, or email. Nothing. Dropping off completely. Have a gr8 month.

Dropping out, 2009 style: I will be off-net for the next month. Back OOA 8/1/2009. No tweets, posts, or email. Nothing. Dropping off completely. Have a gr8 month.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Just where have I gone?

I've gone to Twitter, actually. I'm currently enamored of micro-blogging, working to keep individual posts to 140 characters or less. Those micro-posts don't show up here, but posts here do get sent out over the Twitter stream.

You can follow along on Twitter here.

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