OK, let's review some things we know. The Navy's branch of the Diversity Industry is the Navy Personnel Command's Diversity Directorate - or as I like to call them, the Diversity Bullies.
There is no other organization, outside the crazy aunts in the basement folks in the nuclear weapons world, VAQ, and the "have to change my name every 9 months" super-spook war-winning world, that is more opaque than the Diversity Bullies.
They hold their data and secrets close - as they know it cannot stand the light of day any more than VADM Fowler and his pet CMDCM actions could. Listen to other opinions? Harumph ... if the peasants dare to speak ... then off with their heads!
Bless their hearts ... Detailers have a hard job and an important job. They are totally open compared to their office mates in the Diversity shop - the Diversity Bullies just take advantage of their location and its attitude to do their work. Customer service - if you define customer as those looking for orders - is not their cup of tea. The earlier in your career you accept that - the healthier you will be.
It helps to do a tour at Millington, but isn't required to understand a simple fundamental. You see, you work for NPC - they do not work for you. You have no need for ready access to information or to give feedback. Take it and like it.
Why then does this goodie from our geeky buds with the pocket protectors over at Federal Computer Week (yes, there is a publication by that name) not shock?
It ain't hard ... find our buddies in The Dirty Dozen,The White House’s Open Government Directive, issued in December 2009, mandated that federal departments and agencies develop and implement open government plans to advance transparency of their data and encourage participation and collaboration. Since then, agencies have been rolling out everything from new wikis to redesigned Web sites to IT dashboards to comply with the directive and make government data more accessible.
But not all open government Web sites are created equal; some, in fact, deliver a downright awful user experience, according to Information Week's list of the 12 worst government Web sites.
Nice company you keep there Diversity Bullies. Pardon me for a bit - I need to roll around nakid in some schadenfreude.The IW dirty dozen Web portals belong to:
Army Special Operations Command
National Transportation Safety Board
U.S. Court Of Appeals D.C. Circuit
House Small Business Committee
Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Services
To view Information Week's slide show of the 12 worst government Web sites, click here.
18 comments:
While I don't disagree with anything you wrote, the Army Knowledge On-line (AKO) website is the worst website in the history of the internets...I challenge anyone to find anything there that they didn't have the web address for going into it. SHEESH....it's hooooooorible.
+1 on AKO (and throw NKO in for good measure) -- still, these are veritible gems compared to many of the sites I have to use on a daily basis on the SIPR-side of life *DONT_KNOW*
Make sure you bread yourself really good with beerbatter and lemon pepper!
Ok, now that "State of IL" is on the list, this civilian mom now gets HOW bad it is....
It almost looks like the Government of Cambodia and NPC site were designed by the same people ... right down to the string of VIP/everyman photos across the top, press releases down the middle, and the feel-good "survey" box (with three options: "better," "good," and "need to be improved more") in the upper-right.
I'm was always amazed the NPC and BUPERS Online were two different areas. Never made much sense to me.
Another question is why www.npc.navy.mil requires the www, but navy.mil does not. One would think there'd be a standard.
This is extremely humorous, but has absolutely nothing to do with diversity. Command Support/Diversity is just a tiny tiny slice of the entire NPC website.
Now if the website had been designed with more help from hispanics, muslims, identical twins, and sailors with partial loss of hearing in one ear, it would more effectively communicate the Navy's message.
Right. Or the way the BOL website sends you to a heuristic punishment box mandating that you put in the https (with scripted-in pauses to make sure you get the point) vice, say, auto-referring/transfering you to the secure site.
Sal, do you know if anyone has tried FOIA request to get the results of the diversity / command climate surveys, or the detailing surveys? Seems they always asked questions, but never gave out results.
I've read them for my commands ... but that is about it. I know others have in the past, but nothing really shocking has come out of them on a standard UIC.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/08/financial-regulation-bill-dictates-ethnic-gender-quotas/
Off topic kinda, but thought I would share.
I didn't suspect anything shocking, although I had one CO that may have had interesting results. Just one of those things where the data always went one way. The antithesis of the "open" initiatives.
The put the same things in the medical bill. They need to feed their hate and their industry masters. No shock.
CDR,
First off the VAQ community is very open and transparent. You just need GS-13 TS clearance just to get close enough to overheard what the webmaster's email address is. After that you need to not only know the secret hand shake, but have the background paperwork filled out in triplicate completed no later then the month that ends in the letter z and always ends on a wednesday. After that your good to go and can know all you need to know. Oh and the background paperwork will require you to fill in everyone who was in all of your classes including the substitute teachers while attending K-12, plus thier current names/address/and contact informaiton.
Anyhow, does it really suprise you that NPC's website is a pain the arse to use? I know I spent about four hours underway once just trying to get the phone and email contact list for the AV detailers. Just try to follow the links and you go in a circluar path right back to the front page. Obvious choices don't make sense in Millington. The ditto was for following application paths to help one of my sailors contact the special programs detailer so he could do apply for a NATO program. All over the place there were either dead links or links that said contact them for more information only to find out of date contact numbers or emails. The final insult is just trying to navigate over just to find the computer based versions of the MilPersMan, Uniform Regs, and even the NEC manuals. All of which are study materials for rating exams. Let alone how many times I have navigated over to get up to date information on the uniform changes only to find they are about two years behind in both the message traffic and up dating of the regulations. WTF? Meanwhile my CPO mess is constantly bleating about use your resources. What good is it to use my resources if they are wrong! Christ I can find more information out about how to dumb things on the ship or in the car over at the safety center's website then I can find about how to do help my people via the NPC website.
Alpha,
Reality of the situtation is that you look at command/climate diversity survey's and they tell you that everything is good. I had a CO share the results of one with a PO1 Mess I belonged to. I looked at some of the results and then just on a whim later googled a similar style one that was open source at the school district that my aunt worked. The numbers when figured for the larger sampling size (800 staff/teachers vs 300 squadron personnel) were almost the same about how much people felt racial/sexist comments were made or personnel felt as if they weren't being advanced. Most people have figured out that if you go too much to one extreme or the other then the Diversity Bullies come in to square you away. You can't be diversity blind, cause according to the mantra everyone has hate in thier minds/hearts; ditto for being in an overt racism/sexist command. They will fix you and if you don't like it then you are part of the problem.
Why do I get the feeling a Port Ops job in Diego Garcia opening up for a certain Salamander?
@SAP, first, turn yourself in to your Squadron Intel shop for revealing to Sal how the whole VAQ clearance thingy really works. For heaven's sake DO NOT tell him how VQ clearances work, his head will go all "Scanners" on you. =-O
As for MILPERS website, remember, there are two kinds of people there: Uniformed Military who will be gone as soon as they A) rotate, B) roate early or C) rotate out because they went nuts; and second: Lifetime civilian employees. Many Navy civilians give an honest day's work for a very decent day's wages. My experience with MILPERS is that it doesn't necessarily hold true there...just sayin'
<span>"Pardon me for a bit - I need to roll around nakid in some schadenfreude."</span>
Way too much information there, holmes. What's next, the Village People video from Down Periscope!? *DONT_KNOW*
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