Unconventional Facts About Conventions: Republican Convention

The 2016 Democratic and Republican conventions look to be full of drama and historical significance. With the wild election cycle this year, we were inspired to look beyond the basics and find some interesting facts about how these conventions are organized and how they run.[Tweet "We were inspired to find some interesting facts about the GOP convention. #GovEventsBlog"]

Cleveland and Philadelphia will play host to the Republicans and Democrats respectively. For host cities, besides the revenue brought in by the influx of conventioneers, the convention provides an opportunity to highlight what their town has to offer to an international audience. Selection committees look at a number of factors when choosing host cities including available venues and infrastructure. In fact, Baltimore hosted many of the early conventions because it was an accessible port on the eastern seaboard. With the arrival of the transcontinental railroad system, the Midwest became a more viable location and has remained popular. In fact, Chicago has hosted Democratic and Republican conventions 25 times - more than any other city. Continue reading

Defense in Depth: A Look at Defense Industry Events

While the defense community is well acquainted with meeting and defeating big challenges, the dynamic nature of the cyber world is proving to be a daunting adversary for our military. From arming soldiers at the tip of the spear not only with weapons but also with data to fending off threats to cyber networks, defense professionals are in a constant learning mode while being on constant alert.[Tweet "The defense community is well acquainted with meeting and defeating big challenges. #GovEventsBlog"]

At GovEvents we are proud to be the defense community's one-stop-shop for finding training and networking events. We hope that our site takes some of the strain of this new tech frontier off their shoulders.

In this post we want to highlight some of the key events coming up for defense professionals through the end of the year.[Tweet "In this post we highlight some of the key events for defense professionals. #GovEventsBlog"] Continue reading

The Complexities of Government Acquisition

Acquisition-it's a complex topic for the government market. Private sector companies must navigate a complex system to make their solutions and services available to government customers. Federal acquisition professionals are working to ease this process and adapt decades old policies to meet the needs of modern technology buys such as cloud and as-a-service offerings. There are also new mandates and government-wide policies like FITARA that IT and procurement personnel have to understand and comply with.  Add to this the fact that the acquisition workforce is in an incredible state of turnover with older professionals retiring and new ones coming in without the guidance of procurement veterans.[Tweet "Acquisition - it's a complex topic for the government market. #GovEventsBlog"]

The ACQUIRE Conference and Expo that took place in June in Washington, DC was designed to help government agencies create, manage, and run successful programs. The conference program offered federal agency-led training sessions, and government & industry thought leadership panels and keynotes. At the event, the Professional Services Council (PSC) issued their biennial Acquisition Policy Survey that more definitively outlined the challenges detailed above. Some of the findings included: Continue reading

Giving ‘Baby You Can Drive My Car’ a Whole New Meaning

With summer road trips in full swing, many of us may be wishing that driverless cars were available today. The reality is the availability and use of driverless cars is not too far away.  The move to driverless cars may be more of an evolution versus a revolution say some industry experts.[Tweet "The move to driverless cars may be more of an evolution versus a revolution. #GovEventsBlog"] Each model year, cars are introduced with more and more "autonomous" features from self parking, to lane floating warnings, to automatic braking. Some industry experts say this slow inclusion of features is how we'll get to an autonomous fleet of vehicles on the road.

At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this past January, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced that the fiscal 2017 budget proposal seeks nearly $4 billion over 10 years in an effort to accelerate the development and adoption of self-driving cars. While Detroit factories may be busy building the cars, cities around the country have to get prepared to host these cars on their roads. Continue reading

When Retirement Means Getting a New Job

When people retire from the military it does not always mean their days will be filled with golfing and beach-side living. Many veterans retire in their 30s or 40s leaving a whole second half of their professional lives to figure out. And, many who retire from their military career are not ready to retire from professional service. Our veterans bring a deep level of experience and commitment to the private sector but many struggle to translate what they did in the military to an equally fulfilling and challenging job.[Tweet "Many who retire from their military career are not ready to retire from professional service. #GovEventsBlog"]

Each year, between 240,000 and 360,000 people separate from the military (whether through retirement or completion of duty). To meet this need for guided transition, the DoD has set up a number of organizations to assist veterans in making the transition to civilian careers including Transition Assistance Program (TAP) and the Department of Labor's Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS). The private sector also has a number of  non-profit organizations such as the NVTC Veterans Employment Initiative and Serving Together. On the for-profit front, there are a host of employment agencies catered to helping vets translate military experience into new careers.[Tweet "Each year, between 240K and 360K people separate from the military. #GovEventsBlog"] Continue reading