Adriana Bankston

So many ways you can inform the first ever National Nature Assessment! Check out the webinar series below! #nature #science

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The five U.S. Territories — Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands — are excluded from most federal statistical products, a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) shows. That means that far less is known about the people, communities, agriculture, environment, and businesses in the territories compared to what is known about them in states, which in turn makes it harder to formulate policy and provide adequate resources for the roughly 4 million U.S. residents living in the territories. hinder-inclusive-and-precise-policymaking…

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Check out this blog post from ncIMPACT Initiative that Beth and Jonathan wrote about utilizing technology to engage opportunity youth as part of #CarolinaAcross100!

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Key actions the new administration and the new Congress can take to support existing state efforts to use data and evidence . . .

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This will be disruptive for awhile, to say the least. Hope states are prepared to fill some #rulemaking gaps. #Chevron #LoperBright #Regulation #PublicAdministration https://lnkd.in/gNYfxeSU

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What's the key to a successful government tech fellowship program? 👇 Fellowships have become a very popular recruiting mechanism for government agencies trying to increase their in-house technical talent. They can be incredibly successful. I would put the CFPB Technology+Design Fellowship that we (Chris Willey, Merici Vinton, Ethan Bernstein and I) created in 2012 into the “incredibly successful” category. But just executing a fellowship alone is not what makes it successful. There are some key components under the hood that make the difference between satisfactory and splendid. In the next several posts, I'm going to cover what made Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's program successful. 1: The utility of the word "fellowship" (that’s the post you’re reading right now) 2: Recruit like the future of the nation is at stake: https://lnkd.in/ecGikZpk 3: The value of hiring en masse https://lnkd.in/eSjQQ6en 4: Market it like a short-term gig, but manage for the long-term. https://lnkd.in/e7b2yqph 1: Call it a fellowship! This word sells the concept to your ideal applicants and your internal stakeholders. Many of your target candidates have never considered a job in government, because it feels like a career switch. By calling it a fellowship, you give them a way to explain the weird two-year spot on their résumé where they weren’t working for a high-profile tech firm. (If you recruit well, they will never go back to any such firm that would require such an explanation. More on this in post 4.) The fellowship concept is also valuable for internal marketing. At CFPB, we were proposing a 40% increase in the size of the tech organization. No one would ever allow such a thing on its face. But by calling it a fellowship--by saying that these people were only joining for a 2-year-stint--people became more comfortable with the idea. We weren't worried about what would happen after two years: we knew that the influx of talent would deliver great results, and that those outside of the tech organization would quickly see the value of making these positions permanent. And that is what happened. (I'm sure there's some nuance here that I'm missing, so I invite others to fill in the gaps.) In the next post, I'm going to get onto my hobbyhorse and talk about the deficiencies of modern federal #recruiting practices, and how much extra energy you must expend in order to recruit a great cohort. An archived copy of the program's original online home is linked below.

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What makes a great #govtech fellowship program? This is the third post in a series. (First post is embedded below.) 3: Hiring and onboarding lots of people at once is really, really valuable. It’s valuable to your cohort, it’s valuable to your IT operation, and it’s valuable to the whole organization: A: When lots of people arrive at once, they bond and become better teammates. This is especially important in a world of remote staff. When we designed the CFPB fellowship, I wanted to require that everyone be DC-based. (I was then, and still am, a remote work naysayer, for reasons I occasionally explain here on LinkedIn.) But Chris pushed me hard to allow remote applicants. We did so. As a compromise, we built a very long on-site orientation period: six weeks! We called it “immersion” rather than orientation, to emphasize that we would use this time to acquaint the fellowship cohort with the actual work of the Bureau, rather than how time cards and fire drills worked. That time together (we housed them all at the same hotel just north of the White House) built bonds that I knew would be critical as these individual people turned into scrum teams. B: When you want to change your own IT organization—its culture, its processes, its expectations for itself—doing so one person at a time is very difficult. For new patterns and beliefs to take hold, you need to create a moment in which the new is more powerful and energized than the old. With traditional hiring, you’ll get one person this month, another the next. As more new people join, your earlier new hires will have already adopted the old, broken way of doing things. This is why we wanted our entire cohort to start on the same day. Their presence filled our team with hope and energy. C: A sudden large influx of talent is a signal to the broader organization that IT leaders are serious about change. Every day during that initial immersion period, we introduced the cohort to various non-IT groups around the building: Bank Supervision one day. Regulations the next day. Then Enforcement. And so on. Each of these sessions was designed very intentionally to be a collaborative period: there was probably a brief slide deck at the beginning of the day, but most of the time was spent as unstructured conversation between tech people and policy people. That interaction, where technical people are sitting down next to front-line staff and hearing and seeing their work first-hand, is absolutely critical. I dream of a U.S. Government that builds its own mission systems through continuous direct, face-to-face collaboration between tech and mission staff. Our immersion period was crafted with that future in mind. In short, having lots of people show up at once creates ENERGY. And speaking of energy, we had a ringer in our front office: Stacy Kane. Part logistician, part cheerleader, her excitement and organization powered everyone involved. Thank you, Stacy.

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The latest issue of PSJ, Volume 52, issue 4, is available! Discover fresh insights on policy actors, advocacy dynamics, and policy diffusion! Highlights include U.S. presidential speech analysis, First Ladies as policy actors, senators’ responses to Dobbs, and challenges like antimicrobial resistance and climate policy diffusion. Read here: https://lnkd.in/gbzHzFda #PSJ #PolicyStudiesJournal

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Learn how to find, apply, and create strategies to gain funding for a growing technology business. Don't miss this introductory look at how small businesses can utilize federal research grants.

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Recently, DQC convened federal and state data leaders to discuss key challenges with and opportunities for modernizing statewide longitudinal data systems. Six key challenges and opportunities emerged from that discussion: ✔️Addressing information gaps in state data systems; ✔️Modernizing state data systems and ways of doing business simultaneously; ✔️Addressing data privacy barriers; ✔️Building and sustaining human capacity; ✔️Enhancing federal funding frameworks for state data systems; and ✔️Fostering research partnerships and technical assistance In her blog post, Kate Tromble unpacks these themes and the actionable strategies that state and federal data leaders came up with to address them. https://lnkd.in/eS2xV-By

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Today, the Department of Homeland Security announced the establishment of the Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board to advise the secretary on critical infrastructure risks. While a worthwhile initiative, the design of our current critical infrastrucure policy structure is a fundamental disservice to such efforts. Today, critical infrastrucure encompasses 16 industrial sectors, an unwieldy 60% or more of the U.S. economy, and a grab bag of non-critical assets including casinos, ride share vehicles and the cosmetics industry. For a small committee of 22, this unwieldy scope will strain priorities, waste time, and distract focus from the core systems that really matter. Effectively securing our critical infrastrucure demand we set the priorities, shrink policy scope, and finally determine what is indeed the most critical and the most deserving of DHS’s limited resources. https://lnkd.in/eXdRveWB

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Today, as we head to the polls, I'm reflecting on how much policy shapes our daily lives. Let's keep showing up, not just on Election Day, but every day, we remain steadfast to make our vision for higher ed a true possibility. #StudentAffairs #CollectiveAction #Advocacy

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Dear friends and colleagues, DHS (US Department of Homeland Security) is hosting a listening session for the public to share concerns about data privacy and integrity. Please see link in Sasha’s post below if you would like to join.

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What is the Office of Regional Affairs? By Office of Advocacy On Oct 15, 2024 by Will Purcell, Director of Regional Affairs The Office of Advocacy (Advocacy) advances the views and concerns of small businesses before Congress, the White House, federal agencies, federal courts, and state policymakers. As the voice for small businesses in the federal government, it is critical for Advocacy to hear from small business stakeholders all over the country so that we can better understand their concerns. After all, different regions have different concerns, and the Office of Regional Affairs works diligently to make sure those are heard in Washington D.C. Advocacy’s Office of Regional Affairs consists of staffers spread across the country. A regional advocate is located in each of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) ten geographic regions. The advocates are the eyes and ears for Advocacy across the nation. They help promote and champion small businesses in their region. Regional advocates: Represent the Chief Counsel for Advocacy in their regions, often facilitating opportunities for the Chief Counsel and DC staff to meet with local businesses concerned about regulations that impact their business. Conduct extensive outreach to regional small business communities so that Advocacy’s DC team is better informed of distinct regional and local small business concerns. Maintain a partnership with regional and district SBA staffers to ensure that SBA is aware of Advocacy’s products and actions. Refer regulatory concerns for already existing rules to regional Regulatory Fairness Boards and the SBA Office of the National Ombudsman. This ensures that even small businesses outside of Advocacy’s scope of work are heard. Each regional advocate engages with small businesses differently, based on their region, their network of contacts, and their background. However, all the regional advocates work to amplify the voices of the small businesses in their regions to ensure that critical information makes it back to Washington D.C.  The advocates amplify small business voices by relaying stories from the field. The advocates’ news articles are a useful way to showcase their work. This allows Advocacy to spotlight small business struggles and successes, which provides personal insight into complex regulatory law and a face to government statistics. If you are a small business and wish to reach out to an advocate in your region, or you are a trade group or local association that wishes to have a regional advocate speak at one of your events, feel free to reach out to an advocate in your region. Alternatively, you can reach out to Will Purcell, Director of the Office of Regional Affairs, at [email protected].

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A follow up conversation on branding in GovCon with Lisa M. Sherwin Wulf and Mark Amtower on Amtower Off Center on Federal News Network. Their lively discussion covered: ▪ Do small contractors understand the power of branding and how to implement it ▪ Key elements of a brand plan ▪ Tag lines and logos ▪ How does a company determine the need for a “rebrand” ➡️Listen here: https://lnkd.in/evYhGYpd #B2G #governmentmarketing #B2Gmarketing #govconmarketing #publicsectorIT #marketing #federalmarketing #federalIT #publicsectormarketing #GovCon

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Join FutureEd and a national panel of experts for a lively webinar conversation on Nov 13 at noon about the future of state standardized testing, a critical but controversial issue in the national education conversation. Register here: https://lnkd.in/exdAGnfV  #standardizedtesting #ESSA #schoolaccountability

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#Missions should sit above any one ministry, playing a coordinating function across policy priorities and across government. Proper implementation requires serious capacity, learn about mission boards and more in our latest report on mission-oriented strategies 🔗 https://lnkd.in/ewNghNAA

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