Years ago a coworker who lived in a large city in the United States told me a story about how he needed to get a permit from the city’s building department to make improvements at his home. He said he tried for a very long time, but had no luck getting the permit in…
Tag: General Government
The Metaverse Code
It was only a matter of time. Throughout history, whenever people have come together and formed a dependence on each other for their physical, social, and economic well-being, they've eventually had to create some form of governance. The Old Testament, a type of code that governed a group of people no matter where they lived, is one of the…
Applying a Local Government Management Structure to Second Life
Today's post is a break from my usual "A Day in the Life. . ." series. This break is due to two reasons: taking time off for the holiday and working on a project I am submitting to the Federal Virtual World Challenge. The Growing Digital Community Lately I've been thinking a lot about communities….
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 72
Day 72 Government Day In the morning, several of us participated in the city's government day. For this event, we invite students from the high school to spend the day with us learning more about what we do. We all met at city hall to pick up the students assigned to us and then headed…
Can I Get Some Customer Service with that Insult?
Fortunately I rarely experience terrible customer service. But this weekend, I had one of those incidents where someone whose job it is to provide service chose instead to throw out subtle insults and avoid trying to understand or address a problem for which they are responsible. So I thought it'd be a good topic to…
MOSES – Ramping up Government Use of Virtual Worlds
We've been fortunate to have a group of federal employees from the US who are dedicated and passionate about government use of virtual worlds. The work accomplished by Eric Hackathorn (NOAA), William May and Lovisa Williams (State Dept), Charles White and Jeanne Holm (NASA), Paulette Robinson (NDU), and Douglas Maxwell and Tami Griffith (US Army)…
Photocopiers & Depositions
Today I followed a link Governing had posted in a story. This link (http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/03/identifying_photocopy_machine.html)Â led me to what appeared to be an excerpt from a deposition where an attorney was questioning an employee who seems to have worked in the recorder’s office in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The proceeding is somewhat interesting because it is a good…
What It’s Really Like to Work for Government
This week I came to the realization that the majority of people have a totally wrong view of what it’s like to work for government. I guess having worked in government for so long now, I take for granted all the rules, regulations, oversight, and general culture in the workplace. And I assumed with all…
Virtual Worlds: The Next Level of Government
In small numbers, people can usually self-govern themselves. But as the number of people in a group grows, better control is needed. So history has shown anytime a large number of people start hanging out in a particular place, a government structure is formed. In our world today, we have nations which then have further…
The Computer Named My Subdivision
Sometimes, naming a subdivision can be easy – for example a subdivision located in a shady grove of oak trees might be called Shady Oaks. But how do developers choose a subdivision name if there isn't an obvious candidate? Last week I was surprised to find out there are online generators designed for the sole…