Wednesday, September 29, 2010

PMF Community Roundup

[Updated 9/29/2010] Perhaps you've found some of them already, but a number of Presidential Management Fellows communities have emerged as different social networks reach maturity. I'm probably preaching to the choir about the power of social networks within a cadre that is, by semi-official estimates, only about 7,000 strong in its entire history, but in case you aren't sold, let me just point out that PMFs share an experience that is capable of transcending agency boundaries, and these networks can help us harness that spirit, hopefully for the improvement of the Civil Service.

This post will attempt a comprehensive listing of such communities. I am purposefully excluding mere websites that include information about the program, because the emphasis is on connecting with others. I will, however, list out all of the blogs, pages, groups, and other networking tools run by or in support of agency-specific, school-specific, or other demographically specific PMFs. If you encounter anything I've missed, or have started your own community somewhere, leave a comment and let us know!

A quick note on criteria: If I didn't already know of a group, and it was not submitted as a comment on this post, then I found it in one of two ways. Either I searched on Google (and found it somewhere on the first page of results; I don't have a great deal of time to dig for hidden treasures here), or I searched directly on likely networks. If the community has few members and/or doesn't seem to be providing value (is demographically restricted AND walled off, for instance), then I am probably excluding them here. I am open to persuasion, however, so if you want your community profiled here, and I've excluded it, make your case. In any event, you can simply include it in the comments, since I won't remove those unless you're a spambot.

Facebook

Perhaps because Facebook makes it pretty easy to set up Group and Fan pages, plenty have chosen to make PMF-themed Group and Fan pages.

LinkedIn

Quite a bit fewer results turned up on LinkedIn, probably because LinkedIn is much smaller than Facebook and more narrowly focused.

Twitter

Not much to see on Twitter yet. Aside from yours truly (@pmfellow), you can do a search for PMF or Presidential Management.

Yahoo! Groups

Yahoo! Groups have been around a while, and it totally shows. My search turned up 9 usable results, but I don't doubt there are some other groups lurking out there. The frustrating thing about Yahoo! Groups, and the reason I rarely use them, is that the membership restrictions are, well, too restrictive. Oh, and there's the fact that you have to have a Yahoo! email address. Anyway, here's a certainly not comprehensive list of what I found there.

GovLoop

GovLoop isn't as mature as the other networks, and its subsequent lack of niche groups is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. I was only able to find 2 groups.

Blogs

These are the hardest to track down. I had to wade through numerous Google results gathered with a variety of different search terms, and even so I was left with many blogs that either mentioned the PMF only in passing or were talking about something completely unrelated. What I was looking for with blogs was information similar to what can be found here. The blogs in question do not have to be devoted to PMF, but I would like to gather as many perspectives as possible, especially from those who are in various stages of Fellowship, from finalist to graduate (or beyond). If you know if a resource I am missing, let me know.
  • Courtney Fong's PMF Assessment Blog: Courtney, if I recall, was class of 2006, and she keeps a blog similar to this one about PMF happenings.
  • Aaron Helton's PMF Postings: Aaron is a class of 2009 PMF, and although his blog seems to be dead now (and not accepting comments), there is a good deal of information out there. I hope to replicate some of it here.
  • Pete Ruscitti's PMF Papers: Pete is a 2011 PMF hopeful who is chronicling his journey through the process, so you might find some good information there as well.

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