On the same day I had lunch with one of Delta Airlines’ federal lobbyists and dinner with a small group of energy analysts, which included several former Trump administration EPA officials, President Trump was indicted. The indictment and subsequent arraignment made political history—Donald Trump became the first of America’s 46 presidents to be charged with a crime and forced to surrender to authorities.
Earlier this week, my father was inducted, posthumously, into the George Washington University Hall of Fame; I accepted the award on his behalf and said a few words about his love of family, “dad jokes,” and being a professor.
Over the past two weeks, the Washington office received scholars from the TOMODACHI Sumitomo Corporation Scholarship Program. If you’re not familiar with the program, it began in 2014 to support exchange between the U.S. and Japan. More specifically, the TOMODACHI Sumitomo Corporation Scholarship Program provides assistance to high-achieving university students with financial need to enable them to study abroad for one year.
Last week, the White House released President Biden’s fiscal year 2024 budget proposal (FY 2024 budget proposal), outlining the administration’s priorities over the coming decade…
You’ve just won the award for greatest ____ in your field of all time. As you approach the stage to accept your trophy, what’s your “walk up song?”…As you may know, a walk up song is the anthem played in a baseball stadium as the player walks from the on-deck circle to home plate, getting ready to bat, or from the bullpen to the pitching mound. The idea is to create swagger, an identity for the player, and to personally connect players to fans.
Last week, we looked into generative AI and its potential to impact the lobbying industry. While I was supremely impressed by the speed and accuracy with which OpenAI’s ChatGPT could regurgitate information in the form of what one might expect from a university student answering an essay question, if you remember, the chatbot’s responses lacked imagination, did not include persuasive arguments, and provided no story-telling elements to place issues in context.
To me, the mention of “artificial intelligence” (AI) still conjures up images of Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator or Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. Yet, generative AI is already a presence on social media and in the news.
Yeah, dad jokes are how eye-roll [sic]. And we can only hope that the meetings of the newly established Congressional Dad Caucus are full of these same cheesy, corny puns that have come to be known as “dad jokes.”
This week I attended the Public Affairs Council’s (PAC) annual Advocacy Conference. The conference brings together nearly 500 public affairs professionals in one place to focus on such things as sharing best practices in crafting a grassroots advocacy program, offering tips for post-pandemic lobbying, and outlining strategies for managing a crisis from the public affairs perspective.
Last December, I appeared on the SCOA Americas Week ‘Enriching Lives through Volunteerism’ panel. It was a great opportunity for me to not only showcase the volunteer work that has become a passion of mine, but also express my gratitude to SCOA for encouraging my community service. In a nutshell, I co-founded a non-profit that incorporates the game of golf into the mental and physical rehabilitation programs of post-9/11 veterans.