General Services Administration officials have told their employees that this year’s GSA Expo in San Antonio will not be a causal event.
They want their employees wearing “business professional attire” to the conference. In other words, don’t forget your work clothes.
“People don’t like to hear that,” said one GSA employee who will attend the annual conference.
In the past, this conference has been a time when people shed their usual workday outfits. Men can wear shirts without ties and women can leave their pantsuits behind.
However, a disaster in April may have landed GSA employees back in their suits.
GSA found itself in the center of controversy last month. The agency’s inspector general issued a report that said GSA employees had spent $822,000 on a swanky stay in a luxury hotel. Since then, GSA officials have put the lockdown on what they consider wasteful conferences and have changed policies on what they think should happen at a conference.
In all, “times are changing,” the employee said, with a ticket booked for Texas. The conference takes place in May, when the average high temperature in San Antonio is 85 degrees Farenheit.
Posted by Matthew Weigelt on May 11, 2012 at 6:59 PM0 comments
Ubiquitous Internet connectivity “from anywhere on this planet” has become so second nature that many expect it even in the most obscure, desolate locations, according to a research analyst.
“You go to airports [and] you sit on an airplane and if you can’t connect, people are indignant and get up,” said Gartner’s Vice President of Research Dale Vecchio, adding a few extra loud sighs to illustrate the annoyance of fellow air travelers.
Speaking at 1105 Media’s Budget Optimization Summit held at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, D.C., Vecchio told a story of his college-age daughter whom he jokingly called a “left-leaning eco-terrorist” because of her decision to study environmental studies.
The daughter recently made a trip from Chicago to St. Louis on a bus that had advertised having wireless Internet. But after texting the daughter, Vecchio found out that wasn’t the case.
“The Internet doesn’t work! They said they had Internet!” the exasperated daughter told him, huffing and puffing in a way only an annoyed teenage girl can do.
“And I’m thinking,‘Okay, [she] expected Internet connectivity on a stinking bus driving through the middle of nowhere in Illinois, through a cornfield, and she's indignant because there’s no Internet,” Vecchio said.
1105 Media is the parent company of Federal Computer Week.
Posted by Camille Tuutti on May 10, 2012 at 6:59 PM1 comments
How does a top White House official live? We know now about one of them: Steven VanRoekel, U.S. CIO, just bought a home for $6.9 million, designed by a prominent East Coast architect.
The Washington Post reports that the former Microsoft executive's six-bedroom home sits on 1.3 acres and has a pool, a separate outdoor dining room and several gardens. VanRoekel and his wife Carrie made the house purchase May 1. (To be clear, we're not suggesting VanRoekel, who had a lengthy career in Microsoft's upper ranks prior to his government service, bought the home on his government salary.)
Located close to Embassy Row and Rock Creek Park, the home was designed by architect John Russell Pope, whose most famous work in the early 1900s include the National Archives and Records Administration building, the Jefferson Memorial and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art.
Posted by FCW Staff on May 04, 2012 at 6:59 PM2 comments