While You Were Out.....

As some of you know, I was with my family in London from June 19th until the 27th. It was a blast.

Checking my email upon our return, imagine my surprise to find out I had won no fewer than 4 lotteries: Netherlands, UK (of course - I just got back), Swiss and Lottomatica (who comes up with these names)! Zounds - I must be rich!

Not only am I now rich, but famous, too, as I have been nominated for the Who's Who in the Heritage Who's Who, the Presidential Who's Who, and the Starthnmore Who's Who.

Wow, if I wasn't impressed with me before.....I am tingly all over.

NextGov Aggragates Gov Twitterers

Will Colston from GovExec sent me an interesting email.

http://www.nextgov.com/ , part of the Government Executive Media Group (which is part of Atlantic Media Co.), has put together an aggregated feed government agencies Tweets, so you can see dozens of agencies tweets at the same time on one page. I already follow a couple of these agencies separately, so the "feed" is a great way to catch a quick glimpse of many agencies with one click. The link is

www.nextgov.com/thefeed

take a look.

DoD Buyers Guide Blues

My commentary is in italics - what I received is not:

So I get an email today from
Federal Buyers Guide
To:
Subject: Amtower and Co. listing update - DoD Buyers Guide

offering me
SUPPLIERS LISTING APPLICATION Complete & Return By Wednesday, June 17, 2009 Fields in red are required.

for the appently low price of
The cost of a listing is $595 for 6 months and $995 for one year.

Then there is a long form to fill out, giving them more information about you than you give to your spouse. The information they have on me (name, address, email etc is largely WRONG).

Alright. It's an offer. But it does NOT tell me who the directory is going to, how many will go out, when it will go out, or how it is to be delivered.

Hmmm.

They also offer a GSA Buyers Guide, Federal Government, Homeland Security, State & County and more.

This is not the first time I have seen this and I am sure it will not be the last. I have not and would not recommend this as a method of advertising to the government - Federal, state of local.

According to web survey tool http://www.alexa.com/, the web site associated with this directory - http://www.dodworld.com/, is ranked 2,837,858 in web traffic.

Hmmm.

My advice is save your money.

Ken Blanchard in DC

Ken and several of the Ken Blanchard Companies staff were in DC today doing a seminar for Feds on "Staying Focused and Productive During Uncertain Times." It was a great event and well attended.

After having spent a couple hours of the phone with Ken over the past 18 months (including an interview on my show), it was great to finally meet him, and his lovely wife Margie.

Apart from being a prolific writer (over 55 books and counting) and the co-author of one of the best selling business book of all times (The One Minute Manager, which is still in print almost 27 years) Ken is truly a nice man and a class act. He is everything you'd hope he would be, and more.

Beware of B2G Institute, part 2

The Huffington Popst weighs on the alleged mis-deeds of the B2G Institute:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/03/scheming-businessman-hold_n_210851.html

and this major warning from The Center for Public Integrity:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/blog/entry/1404/

A few tips for selecting venues requiring your time and your money:

1) pedigree - has the event producer "been there, done that." Many have beendoing this a long time (Federal Business Council,, Digital Government Institute, 1105 Government Media, government Exec, AFCEA, etc) - and some have not. See my posts from Feb 2009 on Why People Are Leery of Events.

2) how many times has this particular event occurred (annual sinc 1990?, 2001? annual since last week?)

3) will the event producer list the sponsors and exhibitors from previous years?

I have seen events where the event producer will list key government people as speakers, yet when I call the govies, they have no idea who the producer or event is.

Hmmm????