Online Fraud Awareness Training for Vendors

There’s lots to like and lots to learn from the Department of the Interior Office of Inspector General‘s online fraud awareness training for vendors.

The first good idea: Giving users the chance to view a text version. Some members of the intended audience will not have the bandwidth or the software to see the video version.

Dividing the video into segments facilitates reviewing particular parts. An option to view the whole video from beginning to end would be a nice addition.

The easy option to download relevant back up documents through the Attachment link in the upper right hand corner is very smart. Videos are good for some things, but they can’t convey all the detail needed for some topics.

OGE Embraces MAX Federal Intranet

The Office of Government Ethics has enlarged its online presence through the launch of the Institute for Ethics in Government MAX Community, the new home for all of OGE’s education offerings.

The significance of this should not be underestimated. Initial uses announced by OGE include:

  • downloading government ethics educational products and job aids;
  • sharing your own products with your peers in the government ethics community;
  • enrolling to attend live or on-demand distance learning courses;
  • enrolling to attend in-person course offerings;
  • applying to participate in a program for new ethics officials assigned to critical roles;
  • applying for OGE’s Agency Instructor Development Program; and
  • learning about opportunities to host or participate in semi-annual ethics symposia.

MAX is a secure intranet service developed by the Office of Management and Budget. MAX was originally created as a “line of business” during the Bush Administration’s open to federal agencies. Leader at OMB with way more creativity and insight than typical bureaucrats realized they were sitting on a gold mine: The robust platform could be expanded and opened up for other purposes at relatively little extra expense. That’s exactly what happened, and the rest of the federal government is now benefitting. MAX already has over 83,000 registered users, and it grows daily.

8 PowerPoint Train Wrecks

There are lots of laughs as well as some good lessons in the CIO.com slideshow 8 PowerPoint Train Wrecks. A particularly busy slide prompts some well deserved Bill Gates bashing:

PowerPoint slides are there to help presenters solidify the point they are trying to make—not to confuse the audience with tons of logos, computing hardware images and arrows pointing here, there and everywhere. Bill, let us guess: You’re alluding to “cloud computing”? Experts universally say: Keep the images to a minimum (like, one image per slide) and keep the text as brief as possible.

You think only Bill Gates has issues like this? Think again. I saw one OGE slide show from four presenters, from four different agencies. They included logos of each of the four agencies. It’s a great idea to add visual interest by including logos like this.

However, including all four logos on every single slide is a different sort of inspiration, no?

 

One Tip at a Time: Use of Government Information

“Mindshare” is a word used by Internet developers to describe public awareness of an idea. Ethics trainers may be able to piggyback on IT security daily tips to increase public awareness of ethical concepts. Here’s an example from USAID:
Tip of Day--Nonpublic Information

Using RSS Feeds to Stay on Top of New Developments

RSS Icon-largeKnowing the material is the first step toward the confidence that marks a top class ethics trainer. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a great way of staying on top of new developments in ethics laws, or other news that interests you. RSS is a standard way of inserting hidden codes into files, making them easier for computers to process.

You can access RSS feeds with smartphone apps, with most modern web browsers, including MS Internet Explorer or even with sophisticated e-mail programs like MS Outlook. The most powerful access method is probably a dedicated RSS reader that runs on your computer or a cloud-based solution that you can access from any computer with web access. The Tech Support Alert website has an extensive list of options, with commentary.

Selected RSS Feeds for Ethics Trainers

More on RSS Feeds

One beauty of RSS is that most sophisticated websites, including major newspapers have adopted multiple RSS feeds, for specialized areas of news coverage. For example the Washington Post’s Federal Diary column has an RSS feed. The Project on Government Oversight also has a feed. This Government Executive page is an index to their many RSS feeds, each catering to specific interest groups.

Two IEC Journal posts have more information on RSS:

  1. Saving Time With RSS Feeds
  2. Fight Information Overload With News That Comes to You

Loewentritt on Travel, Appropriations and Related Ethics Issues

You can’t teach something you don’t understand. A video of the 2011 OGE Conference version of Lenny Loewentritt’s perennially popular lecture on Federal Travel, Appropriations and Related Ethics Issues is available. Lenny is a master trainer, so pay attention to his presentation techniques as well as the substance of his lecture.

Just-In-Time Ethics Reminder: Income Taxes

Federal employees have fewer income tax delinquencies than other citizens, but even a few delinquencies are too many for some politicians. A friendly reminder may help avoid headaches. IEC Journal has been on top of the tax issue for years.

Just-in-Time Ethics Reminder: March Madness

Just-in-time reminders are a powerful tool. Paul Conrad and IEC Journal are on the case:

IEC Journal: March Madness! Ethics Guidance.

Weinman: How to Turn Ethics Training into Professional Development

The slides from Greg Weinman’s presentation from the 2011 OGE conference are available at the OGE website. There’s supposed to be a video, too, but as I write the YouTube connection is not working right. Here’s the OGE summary:

10.  Ethics as Education: How to Turn Ethics Training into Professional Development

This session will help ethics officials step back a bit from the minimum regulatory training requirements, examine their true training objectives, and look at ethics training from a different perspective: that of ethics training as education and professional development, not merely technical instruction or the minimal fulfillment of a requirement. The session will include a discussion of what really works to accomplish a true understanding of ethics among employees, provide dozens of immediately useful teaching tips and exercises for trainers and ethics officials, and review some of the collateral benefits of a professional development ethics program.

Presenter:

Greg Weinman, United States Mint

The use of slides like this has its limitations. They are often prepared to accompany an oral presentation, and don’t make sense viewed in isolation. I could make out enough to see real value in one of Mr. Weinman’s slides:

Present as an Honest Broker

  • If a rule is potentially illogical, don’t deny it, but explain the risk is in ignoring it.
  • If you can, explain how it got to this point and what the arguments are (pro and con) for the policy in question

Especially true with the risks associated with the Hatch Act

I present myself as NOT part of senior leadership, but rather a third party servant

    • “My job is to help keep you out of trouble”

Watch the Confidentiality Question

This is great practical advice. More than one ethics rule appears inconsistent and illogical. Denying this runs the risk of losing credibility as a trainer. In these situations, present yourself not as an advocate for the illogical rule, but a neutral guide to the rule, with the key pragmatic goal of helping the audience stay out of trouble. Finally, don’t give the audience the impression any admissions of wrongdoing they might make in criticizing the rule would be confidential.

How’m I Doin’? (Evaluation Forms)

Ed Koch, former Mayor of New York, was famous for asking random people he met: ”How’m I doin’?”

Koch’s ad hoc style worked for him, but if you are going to be teaching the same block of instruction multiple times, it’s smart to use a more formal feedback mechanism. A friend at OGE was nice enough to provide the attached training evaluation_form.

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