IEC Journal

Ode to an Ethical New Year

Rosa Koppel was kind enough to share with us the "Ode to an Ethical New Year," a poem that appeared in last year's in-house FLRA publication:

Download Ethics Corner poem.

Why Doing the Ethical Thing Isn’t Automatic

A recent New York Times article contains a fascinating survey of academic studies on whistleblower psychology. One section describes a phenomenon that is highly relevant to federal sector training:

Research also shows that it is much easier to step over the boundary from ethical to unethical when there is a gradual erosion of moral values and principles rather than one big leap.

A 2009 article in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, also co-written by Professor Gino, used as an example an accounting firm that has an excellent relationship with a client company. The accounting firm, which receives tens of millions of dollars in fees from the client, approves the company’s high-quality and ethical financial statements.

For three years, everything is fine. But suddenly, in the fourth year, the company stretches and even breaks the limits of the law.

Another case? Same accounting firm, same client. This time, after the first good year, the client bit by bit pushes the ethical envelope over the next three years.

The accounting firm would be more likely to approve the financial statements in the second case than in the first, the article says.

One of the reasons, Professor Gino and her colleague write, is that “unethical acts can become an integral part of the day-to-day activities to such an extent that individuals may be unable to see the inappropriateness of their behaviors.”

We have prepared a couple of Microsoft PowerPoint slides based on the Journal of Experimental Psychology article referenced that may be useful to trainers who would like to include a short component on the dangers of gradual erosion of ethical standards:

Download Dangers of Gradual Erosion

These slides have a stark appearance because they don't include any graphics templates. This is to make it less likely they will conflict with any graphics templates that you have already chosen for your presentation

Training With an iPad?

Love your iPad? Ever thought about using it for training?

A Law Technology News article explains how one law firm used an iPad in a high profile personal injury case. Of course, the same persuasive educational techniques will work just as well with an ethics training audience:

In view of our focus, and the challenges the case presented, we decided to take an entirely different approach — and turn to an Apple iPad for our trial evidence presentation. We would still use a couple of documents blown-up on foam boards, for effect — but we didn't use TrialDirector or bring in an independent IT professional. Everything was managed directly from counsel table with minimal hardware and technology.

A related podcast is available.

Tips on Handling Questions

A collection of four of Jerry Lawson's Training Tips columns on the subject of handling audience questions is available for downloading:

Download Selected Training Tips Columns

These columns have been upgraded and reformatted for use as handouts at today's OGE Conference session Do's and Don'ts for New Trainers (and Not-So-New). The electronic version contains hypertext links to various resources.

Reminder: Support for OGC Conference

The OGE Conference website (set up with vendor CrowdCompass) is a great innovation. IECJournal.org is available to assist OGE Conference speakers in multiple additional ways:

• Would you like to keep the conversation going after the conference? We can help. We can post a conversation starter entry here and enable comments. It's an easy way to keep the conversation going, at no cost to you.
• Does your slide show have animations or speaker notes that won't be visible through the static PDF reproductions available through the OGE site?
• Would you prefer to give your audiences better options for reprinting your handouts (like easy multiple slides per page) rather than one slide per page?
• Did you complete your handouts for the 2011 OGE conference too late for distribution through the OGE website?

We are glad to help in any of these ways. Contact us by e-mail or catch up with one of our reporters at the conference (e-mail address & list of reporters in sidebar at left).

Do's and Don'ts for New Trainers (And Not-So-New)

An updated version of the slide show for the Ford/Lawson presentation at the OGE Conference Wednesday afternoon is available:

Download Ogeslideshow6.0-no-studies

This version contains some upgrades over the static PDF version at the conference website. It also contains speaker notes for many pages, and the animations are visible. 

This version does not contain the two case studies, Risky Business and The Cupcake Caper. They will be distributed later.

Training Tip 15: Mobile Learning Options

Fueled by the widespread adoption of smartphones, iPods and similar devices, Mobile Learning, aka MLearning, has become a major educational trend. Such training is frequently delivered in the form of "MP3" files, delivered through a mechanism knownn as "podcasts." While Apple iPods are wonderful devices and seem ubiquitous, it's important to note that nearly any smartphone (iPhone, Droid, etc.) or personal computer can also play podcasts with the help of earphones or speakers. The USA.gov web site has a section explaining podcasts. 

Many organizations are taking advantage of this new training vehicle. For example, the Legal Talk Network distributes podcasts of interest to lawyers, and legal technology guru Dennis Kennedy has an article about the value of listening to podcasts. Previous IEC Journal posts have provided examples of the successful use of MP3 files or podcasts by other respected organizations:

• American Bar Association
• FBI
• Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
• Government Accountability Office
• Project for Government Oversight (POGO) 

The latest POGO example is a lecture by the Office of Special Counsel's (OSC) Adam Miles, who reviews OSC's interaction with federal whistleblowers. This training was originally part of a series POGO provides to educate congressional staffers. Other podcasts from the same series are available.

The Office of Government Ethics has also at least put its toe into the water, having prepared a podcast of "the Senate-confirmed nominations process and video clips that provide scenarios for discussion during training sessions on ethics restrictions on seeking employment."

We see the biggest value of podcasts as a low-cost, low-hassle supplement to the rest of your ethics program, including a way of reaching certain "high value targets" like senior managers, many of whom are into multi-tasking. With so many prestigious organizations using them successfully for other training, this appears to be an area with enormous untapped potential for ethics trainers.

In a future column, we will share nuts and bolts information on creating podcasts to make it easier for those inclined to explore this exciting new training option. In the meantime, we encourage any federal ethics trainers already using it to share with the IEC Journal any products we can distribute to other agencies.

Provide your suggestions and examples in the Comments section below. Biographical information about our Training Tips columnist is available.

Soliciting Gifts from Outside Sources

The following pithy notice from an agency ethics office to the workforce struck us as being possibly useful to other agencies as well. We have edited it to remove agency-specific information:

Subject: Reminder On Rules Regarding Solicitation of Gifts from Outside Sources

One of the regular topics of instruction in your annual ethics training is the prohibition on receiving gifts as a result of your status as a federal employee. Gifts include any gratuity, favor, discount, entertainment, hospitality, loan, forbearance, or other item having monetary value. The reason for this rule is to avoid any actions violating the law and ethical standards of public trust or creating the appearance of private gain.

There are limited exceptions when a gift may be accepted, guidance for which is found at the agency's ethics website or by contacting GC.

This notice is a reminder of the specific prohibitions on the solicitation of gifts. Employees shall not, directly or indirectly, solicit a gift or other item of monetary value from a prohibited source; or solicit a gift because of an employee's official position. There are no exceptions to this rule.

A prohibited source includes any person or entity seeking official action from, doing business with, or conducting activities regulated by this agency. This includes, for example, our implementing partners, or other think tanks or entities we interact with in our official positions.

It would also be a violation to solicit a gift based upon your status as an employee of this agency. For instance, soliciting complimentary or "comped" tickets for a dinner or reception hosted by an outside organization would be improper. This also applies even if the goal is to ensure or increase agency participation. The substance or merit of the activity is not a consideration.

Where improper gift solicitation occurs, any solicited gifts must be returned to the donor or the recipient must pay the fair market value. Disciplinary action against the employee making the solicitation may be warranted.

Once again, if you have any questions, please seek guidance at the above web sites or by contacting GC for advice.

 

New Hatch Act Posters Available

The Office of Special Counsel recently added two revised posters to its website. Both are available here:

1. The Hatch Act and Federal Employee
2. The Hatch Act and Further Restricted Federal Employee

Waxing Poetic About The Hatch Act

The most recent issue of the Federal Labor Relations Authority's in-house newsletter contains a wonderful poetic treatment of the "Federal Employee's Cheat Sheet on the Hatch Act," inspired by OSC's recent update of its Hatch Act Q & As:

FLRA Ethics Corner 6-3-11

In the right hands, creative material like this can be a fantastic spark for ethics training, via newsletters or as a part of live training.

Distributing material like this is one of the main purposes of this website, and we very much appreciate Rosa Koppel's sharing it with us. Please follow her example, and let us know when you create or come across something that could be of use to your fellow toilers in the vineyard.

OGE Resources for Dealing With Contractors in the Workplace

A subscription to the OGE mailing list (address in right column) is a must for all federal ethics officials. Last week's post on resources for dealing with contractors in the workplace is a good example. The resources include:

For employees -

• Working with Contractors: What You Need to Know (Web-based training module)
• Working with Government Contractors: What You Need to Know as a Federal Employee Who Works with Government Contractors (Booklet)

For ethics officials/trainers -

• Ethics and Working With Contractors, DAEOgram (06-023a) (2006).  DAEOgram in Q&A format.

OGE on YouTube

OGE has training videos at YouTube:

1. Criminal conflict of interest statute (18 U.S.C. 208)
2. Impartiality (5 C.F.R. 2635,Subpart E)
3. Gifts from Outside Sources (5 C.F.R.2635, Subpart B)

Resolving Conflicts If Google Exec Appointed to Cabinet

An IEC member tipped us off to a wonderful CNN article about conflicts of interest implicated by a possible appointment of Google Chairman Eric Google to be Secretary of Commerce. Here's an excerpt:

"Putting it in a blind trust would be hopelessly ineffective," said Alan Morrison, professor at George Washington Law School. "It's the worst kind of fig leaf, because it's not 'blind' in any sense of the word. What's Schmidt going to say? 'Do I own Google? Really?'"

The Office of Government Ethics mandates that employees of the executive branch can't own more than $15,000 of a stock or asset that would conflict with their work. Going from $5 billion to $15,000 isn't going to happen in a day.

To get around that requirement, the OGE allows people in conflict to recuse themselves from certain activities. That means even after his Google shares are put in trust, Schmidt would still have to recuse himself if a conflict arises with Google.

The good news for Schmidt is that the Department of Commerce doesn't deal all that heavily in Google's businesses.

Articles about high-profile, real-life occurrences make some of the best training material. It's hard to imagine a better example than this to illustrate the OGE 278, financial disclosure and divestiture of assets.

IEC Journal lives or dies by reader contributions, so keep us in mind when you come across something of interest to the community, especially something this useful.

 

Training Tip 8: The Humor Paradox

Which of these statements is correct?

1. Presenters should never tell a joke just to be telling a joke.
2. Nearly every presentation can be improved by using humor.

Though the statements may appear inconsistent at first glance, they are both correct. Humor is a great way of connecting with an audience—but it is usually a mistake to include a joke just so you will have a joke.

Distinguishing between "canned" humor and "organic" humor is a key to resolving the apparent inconsistency.  Canned humor is something artificial grafted onto your substantive ideas.  Organic humor flows from your substantive ideas and helps advance them.

The difference is critical: If you tell a “joke,” and no one laughs, you look like a dummy, and worse, a dummy who just wasted everyone’s time.  By contrast, if your would-be “humorous” material advances the substantive point you want to make, it doesn't matter if the joke falls flat.  You haven’t wasted anyone’s time.  You’ve still advanced the ball.

Of course, getting a laugh is even better, and one of the little-understood truths is that organic humor does not have to be very funny to get a laugh.  Look for chances to introduce humor that naturally arises from your substantive material.  It the humor advances the substantive point you are trying to make, so much the better.

Graphics are an easy way for even the humor-impaired to work in humor.  Show the audience a picture that relates to your topic.  Sometimes the picture itself will be the "punch line."  More often, you will deliver the punch line orally.

One of my favorite examples was a slide show I did for a humor-impaired friend.  Though a bright and articulate fellow, he absolutely could not deliver a joke in front of an audience. 

I dug up a seventies-era photo of one of the subjects of his presentation.  My friend came up with a mildly sarcastic reference to the subject's "leisure suit."  It was a remarkably garish garment, even by the standards of the 70s.  Though his joke wasn't exactly the peak of wit, my friend never failed to get a laugh.  Even better, knowing that his joke was a winner increased his confidence, making him more effective with the rest of the presentation. 

A beauty of the organic humor approach is that even if no one had laughed, it would not be a problem.  The speaker had not gone "off topic" in a time-wasting unsuccessful attempt to get a laugh.

We will be returning to this important topic in future columns.  In the meantime, we encourage you to provide your suggestions and examples on the effective use of humor in the Comments section below. Training Tips is switching from weekly publication to a monthly schedule. The next column will appear on March 1.

Biographical information about our Training Tips columnist is available.

Training Tip 7: Should You Have Handouts?

Should you give the audience handouts?

A simple question deserves a simple answer:

Yes, nearly always.

There are many reasons for this.  The simplest is that at least a few audience members, perhaps many, will consider the failure to provide some written accompaniment to be evidence of apathy and/or laziness.  Apathetic slacker is not the image most of us want to project.

However, handouts are not merely an appearance issue.  Well-done handouts enhance audience understanding and increase the chance they will retain your message.  They are also a basic courtesy for the audience, freeing them from the frantic scramble to write down every important thing you say.  (You will be saying important things, right?).

Excuses for Lack of Handouts

Excuse 1: I want the audience to be paying attention to me while I'm speaking, not a handout.

I call this the narcissist excuse.  Few presenters are capable of constructing such enthralling handouts, but even if you are one of this talented group, is it really so bad if people learn the material from your handout instead of your eloquent voice? 

In any event, if you think your handouts are really that extraordinary, why not distribute them after your talk, instead of at the beginning?  If you take this approach, be sure to let the audience know at the beginning of your remarks, so they won't feel a need to take duplicative notes.

Excuse 2: Handouts will dilute the value of my jokes or other surprises. 

This excuse has a silver lining of sorts: At least the presenter is trying to keep the audience engaged and believes their material is good enough to deserve protection.

However, in this situation it is possible to have the best of both worlds:

Again, there's no law against distributing your handouts at the end of your talk.  Be sure to alert the audience when you begin speaking that you will have handouts, so they don't feel obligated to write down every word you say.

Another approach is to distribute an edited version of the material at the beginning. Good slideshow software facilitates preparing a redacted version of your remarks.  You can create a separate version of your slide show that omits the surprise-killing slides.  This still requires a little extra work, but it's worth it if you have high quality jokes or other surprises.

Excuse 3: Distributing handouts will make the audience remember the presentation better, so I can't use the same material next year.

Wow!  This is my absolute favorite excuse.  There's so much wrong with it that I don't know where to start. 

Isn't helping the audience remember what you are saying the whole point?  This excuse tacitly admits that handouts increase audience retention of the material.  Isn't that's a good thing, instead of a bad thing?

Our audiences should not have to suffer the same canned presentation every year.  This approach is no more attractive by delivering the material in a quasi-stealth manner, withholding handouts that might help the audiences remember the material. 

A key objective of this series of Training Tips is to empower ethics trainers so that coming up with fresh, engaging material each year does not seem like an overwhelming challenge.  We will be distributing our ideas in future columns, and we solicit your suggestions in the Comments section below.

Biographical information about our Training Tips columnist is available.

Training Tip 6: Make Sure to Cover All Mandatory Topics

The United States Office of Governnment Ethics establishes the minimum required content of ethics training in 5 C.F.R. § 2638.704(b):

Content of training. Agencies are encouraged to vary the content of verbal training from year to year but the training must include, at least, a review of:

1. The Principles;
2. The Standards;
3. Any agency supplemental standards;
4. The Federal conflict of interest statutes; and
5. [Contact information on] agency ethics officials available to advise the employee on ethics issues.

I've attended more than one ethics training session that did not reference these mandatory topics, but I strongly recommend:

If you are going to do ethics training at all, comply with the regulation. 

Otherwise, what's the point?

There is no specified time for the "review" component, so presumably a cursory reference to the cited references will suffice.  Spending most of your time on a limited subset of ethics issues is much smarter than trying to explain every reference cited in 5 C.F.R. § 2638.704(b), but make sure that at a minimum you remind your audience of these references and let them know how to obtain copies. A hypertext link to the references is a good idea, especially if that part of your training is in electronic format.

I remember one trainer who failed to include her name and contact information on her slide show.  She included only her predecessor's name and contact information on the handouts.  Was she lazy, or trying to elude those who might have pesky requests for advice?  Does it really matter?  The damage is the same.  Always include the appropriate names and contact information.  This might be the most important information you give the audience.

We welcome your thoughts in the Comments section below.

Biographical information about our Training Tips columnist is available.

Training Tip 5: What Not to Do (The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation)

Peter Norvig's clever demonstration of how computer slideshow software would have mangled the Gettysburg Address provides more than its share of laughs, but there is also much to learn from it.

In an accompanying essay, Norvig seems to suggest that Powerpoint presentations are always bad.  Antipathy toward slide shows is understandable: A large majority of the ones I've seen have been poorly done. 

However, it's important to keep things in perspective.  Slide shows are merely tools.  They can produce good results or bad results, depending on the skill of the workman. 

One of the goals of Training Tips is to help ethics trainers make sure their presentation skills are workmanlike.  We will be devoting multiple columns toward helping you come up with high quality audiovisual aids, including slide shows.  In the meantime, we welcome your thoughts in the Comment section below.

Biographical information about our Training Tips columnist is available.

Training Aid: Photo Story on White House Gift Report

Lots of news outlets ran stories about the recent White House gift report, but Talking Points Memo has pictures.

Droning oral explanations and abstractions run the risk of boring audiences.  "Show and Tell" is not just for second graders.  Use pictures to catch the audience's attention and illustrate the points you are making.  Our new Training Tips columnist will be expanding on this theme in future columns.

Training Tip 4: Never Complain, Never Explain?

Have you observed trainers doing things like this?

Before beginning her presentation, a trainer tells the audience, "I had planned to show you this wonderful video with actors from The Office singing this song "Let's Get Ethical," to the tune of "Let's Get Physical."  Unfortunately, I can't get the DVD to work, so I can't show it, but let me tell you, it would be really funny if you could see it."

The example brings to mind the "Never complain, never explain" rule.  I've seen this pithy saying variously attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, Henry Ford and Katherine Hepburn.  Regardless of the originator, it always struck me as a little dubious.  "Never?"  Isn't that a recipe for being a jerk?

However, with a little adjustment for rhetorical excess, this saying does describe a sound principle for instructors.  It's nearly always a mistake to apologize to the audience.  In the example described, the trainer was smart to try to use a training aid recommended by IEC Journal, but when that did not pan out, she unwisely demonstrated to the audience not just her incompetence with technology, but her poor judgment. If she had never apologized for failing to get the DVD to work, the audience would never have known of her failure.  Experienced presenters understand that in many cases the audience will never know if the speaker made a mistake unless he or she draws attention to the error by apologizing.

The same principle applies to other mistakes made during your presentation, explains speech expert Richard Zeoli:

When you make a mistake, no one cares but you:  Even the most accomplished public speaker will make mistakes. Yet it is important to remember that the only one who cares about any given mistake is the one doing the speaking.

People’s attention spans constantly wander.  In fact, most people only absorb about 20 percent of a speaker’s message.  The other 80 percent is internalized visually.  This ratio is true in nearly everything: a football game, a favorite television show, and even a heart-to-heart conversation.  The point is that when you make a mistake, the audience rarely even notices.  The most important thing a speaker can do after making a mistake is to keep going.  Don’t stop and – unless the mistake was truly earth shattering – never apologize to the audience for a minor slip.  Unless they are reading the speech during your delivery, the audience won’t know if you left out a word, said the wrong name, or skipped a page.

"Never" apologize?  Probably a mistake.  "Almost never" apologize?  Sounds about right.

We solicit your thoughts in the Comments section below.

Biographical information about our Training Tips columnist is available.

Training Tip 2: Studies Prove Positive Approach Pays Dividends

How many times have you attended training where the trainer seemed nervous, skeptical, just going through the motions, or otherwise acting like they just didn't want to be there?  Perhaps there were attempts at self-deprecating humor, like referring to how much coffee the trainer would need to get through the training?

When we pause for reflection, we intuitively realize that trainer behavior like this cannot be good.  An article by Dr. Brian Fitch for police trainers in the December 2010 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin entitled "Attitudes and Performance: The Impact of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies" explains that multiple scientific studies confirm what our intuition tells us:

Hundreds of studies have demonstrated that, on average, educators' assumptions do influence the actions and achievements of their pupils. If teachers anticipate that students will succeed, they usually do. On the other hand, when they expect learners to perform poorly, they often are not disappointed. In either case, pupils rise to the level of teacher expectations—either positive or negative. Generally speaking, trainers who anticipate more from students by setting higher standards, providing encouragement, and offering positive feedback inspire higher levels of performance than those who lack faith in the ability and motivation of their charges.

While the earliest studies began with school-age children, subsequent research has examined the role of instructor suppositions with salespeople, athletes, pilots, law enforcement officers, and military personnel. [Footnote omitted].

Perhaps the most instructive message in Dr. Fitch's article is the emphasis on non-verbal communications from instructor:

Studies in communication and psychology have suggested that people rely on three channels to convey their emotions.

• Verbal (words and phrases)
• Paralanguage (tone, pitch, and volume)
• Nonverbal (facial expressions, eye contact, hand gestures, posture, and distance)

What is surprising, however, is the relatively minor role played by the spoken word in communicating emotion. In fact, communication studies have indicated that the majority of emotions, including how instructors truly feel about a student's performance and potential, are communicated nonverbally. More specifically, fully 55 percent of the emotional impact of a communicator's message is nonverbal, with 38 percent accounted for by paralanguage and only 7 percent explained by spoken words.

The apparent power of nonverbal communication reinforces the importance of sending consistent messages. When instructors say one thing but broadcast a different message nonverbally, they invariably undermine the credibility of their communication. For example, law enforcement firearms trainers can significantly undermine their effectiveness by telling students that anyone can shoot well while, at the same time, displaying subtle cues of frustration, such as exhaling deeply, looking disgusted, or speaking in a patronizing voice to recruits having trouble attaining a qualifying score.

Students, however, are surprisingly adept at picking up nonverbal cues, such as subtle changes in facial expression, eye contact, posture, or tone of voice. If instructors send mixed messages, learners invariably will pay greater attention to the nonverbal one, especially if it is negative. [Emphasis added, footnotes omitted]:

Of course, these instructional principles apply just as well to standards of conduct training.  If your body language and other cues send the message that the training will be boring and worthless, you are creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.  You must make sure your nonverbal communications are not undermining your verbal training message.

Mere awareness of this potential trap should go a long way toward preventing the problem.  In future Training Tips columns we will address methods for building confidence and other techniques that should further strengthen performance.  In the meantime, we welcome your suggestions in the Comments section below.

Biographical information about our Training Tips columnist is available.

Edited Jan. 23 to correct bad link to columnist biography.

More on "I Wanna Get Ethical, Ethical"

We pointed out previously that the comical "I Wanna Get Ethical" song and dance routine from the popular TV show The Office can be used in ethics training. We provided a UTube link earlier.  In case you need a DVD version, note that it is from Season 5, Episode 2 "Business Ethics."  It is on Disk 1.

Ethical Principles in Verse

Rosa M. Koppel drafts the "Ethics Corner" column for the Federal Labor Relations Authority's weekly newsletter, One of her recent columns contained a poetic translation of the 14 principles of ethical conduct. This excellent teaching aid has both amusement and instructional value, and we greatly appreciate Ms. Koppel's sharing it with us.

We encourage other IEC members to share teaching aids, checklists, etc., through this forum. We can all accomplish so much more if we are not constantly reinventing the wheel.

Let’s Get Ethical, Ethical, I Want To Get Ethical…

Ethics trainers might get multiple uses from a video clip from a 2009 episode of the popular television The Office that dealt with ethics training in a commercial office. 

1. From a "train the trainer" viewpoint, the episode demonstrated poor training techniques, including reading material to the audience and using "HR-speak."
2. The segment featuring trainers singing "Let's Get Ethical" to the tune from the Olivia Newton song "Let's Get Physical" could be used to introduce a training module.  For example: "Since my singing is poor, I'm bringing in some guest stars to introduce today's topic."

The Office is available on DVD for sale or rental, and the Fair Use doctrine allows some free uses of copyrighted materials for educational purposes.

"Tip of the Day" on Dealing with Journalists

United States Agency for International Development employees seeking to access the organization's intranet must read an automated "Tip of the Day" and answer a related True/False question to be admitted. These tips provide an effective way of distributing ethics-related information like this example: Legislative and Public Affairs (LPA) The media has asked for a comment about one of USAID’s high-profile projects. What should you do?   Media inquiries can come from anywhere—newspaper, radio,   television and online journalists, or bloggers. You should   direct all media inquiries to:   • In Washington, the USAID Press Relations Office—the central     point of contact for all media inquiries—at (202) 712-[XXXX].   • In the Missions, the Development Outreach and     Communications Specialists (DOCS). The Press Relations Officers and DOCS coordinate information about USAID's work to the media and set up interviews between USAID’s staff and journalists. If a journalist asks about a USAID project, I should answer his questions immediately and help him meet his deadline.TRUE | FALSE

GAO Launches "Watchdog Report" Podcast Series

From a GAO press release:

As part of its ongoing efforts to utilize emerging technologies to help carry out its mission, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has launched an audio podcast series titled "GAO’s Watchdog Report." These five-minute audio files feature interviews with GAO officials on significant issues and new reports, and are easily downloadable for listening on computers or mobile music devices.

"GAO is always considering new ways to make its findings and products accessible to a wide range of audiences through various media," said Gene L. Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO. "Podcasting enhances the service GAO provides to Congress and the public by offering an alternative means for people to learn about significant issues and new GAO reports and testimonies." ...

Users can listen to all episodes of GAO’s Watchdog Report podcast and subscribe to receive future episodes from a feed at GAO’s website

. The Watchdog Report is also available free through Apple’s iTunes store.

All episodes of the Watchdog report are recorded, hosted, and produced by GAO staff, and are accompanied by a transcript to ensure compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

GAO's move, like that of the FBI recently and others, confirms the value of this new way of distributing information.

FBI Podcasts

The FBI is aggressively using podcasts (audio recordings distributed via the Internet) to educate agents and publicize its successes. The podcasts are distributed via an RSS feed. Here are a sample podcast and the blurb summarizing it:

Ex-Army Major in Prison, Part I
He was a major in the Army stationed in Kuwait. And he was on the take. Special Agent Marc Diehl of the FBI’s Washington, D.C. field office says it was a case of bribes. The episode is part of our "Gotcha" series highlighting closed FBI cases.

As noted here previously, other federal agencies are using podcasts effectively. Since most government-issued computers can play podcasts, they appear to have significant potential as an ethics education/awareness tool.

HHS Annual Training 2006-9

A generous reader provided us with links to archived Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Annual Ethics Training (AET):

• 2009 (Disability Accessible Version)
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006

The 2009 version requires registration and appears to be limited to HHS employees. Requiring registration is understandable as a method of keeping track of which employees have completed the training, but there is something to be said for allowing even non-government employees to access the training. This is the approach taken by the acclaimed Department of Agriculture training program. Openness is particularly appropriate since, so far as I can see, all parts of the training would be releasable to any FOIA requester.

As we begin the new year, please remember: The IEC Journal lives or dies by reader contributions. Please continue to be generous in providing us leads on topics useful to IEC members.

POGO On Organizational Conflicts of Interest

POGO has a discussion of organizational conflicts of interest. It's supplemented by a subsequent audio recording of two POGO staffers, distributed as a "podcast."

Given the popularity of portable music players, especially iPods and cell phones that can play audio recordings, as well as the fact that most office PCs can probably replay voice recordings, podcasts have a lot of potential as a tool for ethics education. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center's Legal Division uses them extensively. Let us know of your results in this area.

Animated Holiday Ethics Slide Show

Jennifer Dickey, of the Department of Treasury's Financial Management Service, was kind enough to share a whimsically charming animated slide show used in her office:

Download HolidayGift09

The slide show is in the form of a Microsoft PowerPoint script that will run automatically if users select the file. Important: You can customize the slide show for use in your own office if desired. To avoid having the show run automatically, open PowerPoint first, then select the file. You can edit it in this manner.

Ethics Training DVDs at Naval Academy

The training techniques used by Navy midshipmen in some interactive DVDs described in this Washington Post story might be adapted to standards of conduct training:

Generations of midshipmen have judged case studies about personal conduct and wartime decisions through the prisms of those wise men of old. Now they're also testing their fitness to be leaders with a series of interactive DVDs that demand snap decisions in 21st-century dilemmas.

Each video presents a scenario with several critical forks. There's no time to philosophize: Click one of the buttons, then deal with the consequences as the rest of the story unfolds.

Your buddy is drunk and argumentative in a bar, and tomorrow is a big day for your unit. Wait to get him home safely, or grab some precious sleep yourself?

Morning comes, and he's drunk on the couch. Persuade him to stay home and face the consequences, or let him report for duty and risk getting caught?

FMS Training Video Available

To see an example of an ethics training video that was produced in-house without any special equipment (aside from a digital video camera) and without any special funding, watch the Financial Management Service's premiere episode of its ethics web series. The Financial Management Service (FMS) is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury. The FMS Ethics Attorney recruited employees to write, film, and act in a web series and an ethics orientation video. Employee response to these training products has been overwhelmingly positive.  

The premiere episode of the web series is available for IEC members to view at the following page:
http://fms.treas.gov/occ_ethics/ethics_tngTEST.html

For more information about these training videos, please contact Jen Dickey, the FMS Ethics Attorney, at 202) 874-6680

Revolving Door Cartoon

Pulitzer Prize winning-cartoonist Tom Toles has a great take on revolving door issues. Consider Fair Use issues before reproducing it in instructional materials.

Ethics Advisory Service

Thanks to Wendy Pond for sharing useful information she picked up about Australian government ethics at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Beijing last month.  

A. The Australian Code of Conduct consists of 13 bullet points:

http://www.apsc.gov.au/conduct/index.html

B. The "Ethics Advisory Service" produces a number of training videos. As Ms. Pond notes, "Part of what makes the video and accompanying written guide interesting, is that there is not a right or wrong, definitive "answer" to the dilemma.  Australia has what the international community calls a "values-based" code of conduct, which contrasts with the U.S. rules-based model." The videos are here:

http://www.apsc.gov.au/ethics/videos.html

The most recent videos are: 

1. Passion (disclosure of information, conflict of interest, procedural fairness) and 
2. A Fine Pair (workplace behaviour and respect)

New Employee Training Checklist

Department of the Treasury ethics officials have successfully used a new employee ethics training checklist for a couple of years now. They recently modified it to accommodate the additional information that political appointees covered by the Ethics Pledge need to know. One version is slightly less-detailed regarding the Pledge information. Here are links to download the MS Word files:

• Download NE Counseling Interview Sheet

• Download NE Counseling Brief 2-09

We appreciate Treasury for sharing these checklists, and we would love to receive material from other agencies.

Ethics Reminder Through Security Tip?

At least one federal agency provides employees a daily security tip when users log onto the computer network. If your IT deparment is agreeable, this can serve as an alternate delivery mechanism for ethics reminders, as demonstrated by this file.

"Preparing for a very rainy day" presentation from OGE Conference

Download preparing_for_a_very_rainy_day.ppt

Ethics challenges for Emergency Planners and Ethics Officials.

Ethics Training Storytelling Resources

Danielle Mozzetta's "Train the Trainer" program was one of the more effective sessions at the recent OGE conference. She stressed the importance of "storytelling" (i.e., providing real examples) as a way of increasing student retention, giving rise to the question, "But what if you don't know any relevant stories to tell the audience?"

Two good sources of instructional ethics examples are:

1. The Department of Defense Standards of Conduct Office's "Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure," acclaimed by the Wall Street Journal and others, and
2. This web site. We routinely link to news accounts of ethical transgressions. Our archives are searchable via by topics using our "Categories" system, linked at the left of every page or by key words using our search engine box in the upper right hand corner of every page.

Incidentally, note that the current search engine results page has advertisements inserted by the company that provides this service. We do not receive any revenue from them. We hope to install a search engine without ads in the not too distant future, but for the time being, this is the best we can do with our limited budget (basically, zero $). 

Education and Communication Award Winners

Congratulations to the winners of OGE's 2008 Education and Communication Award:

• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
• Federal Emergency Management Agency
• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
• Federal Trade Commission
• Office of the Director of National Intelligence
• Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
• U.S. Agency for International Development
• U.S. Air Force
• U.S. Army, CECOM Life Cycle Management Command
• U.S. Department of Agriculture
• U.S. Department of the Interior
• U.S. Department of State
• U.S. Department of the Treasury – Departmental Offices

I hope to learn more about their achievements at this month's OGE conference, including “Ask Cagney the Ethics Dog.”

Whether or not you were a winner this year, if your organization has training aids that you think would benefit other agencies, please contact us about sharing them with the community through IEC Journal. Good ideas deserve wide circulation. You can always find our archive of training aids, sorted chronologically by the date posted, by selecting the category Training Aids in the left margin.

Fixing Broken OGE Web Site Links

At the request of Wayne Johnson, we have posted his revisions to the materials he provided for our Nov. 9. 2007 post on initial ethics training and our Jan. 22, 2008 post on SGE training.

While clearly a large improvement, the recent upgrade to the OGE web site had the unfortunate side effect of changing the URLs, or web page addresses, to many pages on the OGE site. This breaks the existing links that other web sites, including this one, have built to OGE. Due to resource constraints, we don't plan on correcting all the broken archived links to OGE pages. We will try to correct the most important ones that come to our attention (including the ones to OGE pages in the column at right, in the hopefully-not-too-distant future). If you are aware of a key link that should be changed, let us know.

We'll be publishing some advice on finding items on the revised OGE web page soon.

Assessing Your Training Quality: See Yourself As Others See You

O wad some Power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us ...

These lines from "To A Louse On Seeing One On A Lady's Bonnett at Church," possibly the "Greatest Hit" of Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), are relevant to ethics training. "Seeing ourselves as others see us" can be a welcome antidote to complacency as we try to comply with OGE's requirements for initial ethics orientation (5 C.F.R. § 2638.703). Getting feedback from trainees, or even better, having a neutral evaluator go through the training experience, can be an eye-opener. Here's a comment one new employee offered when asked about the initial ethics orientation offered by her agency:

As for my own experience with ethics training/the handout I received I have to say, it was pretty pathetic. If you look closely at the packet I was given, some of the pages are not even readable. I don’t know if the problem was with the printer or whatever, but it seems pretty useless to print out all those documents, if some of them, you can’t even read. There was basically no training whatsoever on ethics or the standards for things like breaks, lunches, what you should/should not talk about, etc. It was mostly a "give this a look" type thing.

Do you know how many new employees would rate your agency's initial ethics orientation as "pretty pathetic"?

DOD OIG FOIA Reading Room

"It can't happen to me." Sound familiar?

Real life examples of high ranking officials whose disregard for ethics rules led to problems are one of the best ways to undercut this overconfident view.

The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General's Freedom of Information Act "Electronic Reading Room" is a good place to look for cautionary tales to use in training. It archives files expected to be the frequent subject of FOIA requests, thus saving the agency processing time and reducing access time for the public. The reports available there include the following:

"Alleged Improprieties Related To Public Speaking: Lieutenant General William G. Boykin, U.S. Army Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence", August 5, 2004

Alleged Misconduct: General Kevin P. Byrnes, U.S. Army Commanding General U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, July 29, 2005

Alleged Misconduct: Vice Admiral John D. Stufflebeem, U.S. Navy Director, Navy Staff, March 19, 2008

New OGE Crossword Puzzle Available

The newest OGE training crossword puzzle is on the subject of SF 278 Financial Disclosure. The DAEOgram announcing it has information on system requirements.

Share the Wealth at OGE Conference

Have you developed training-related materials, automation programs, procedures, or job aids that could be useful to other ethics offices? OGE is providing a place to share such resources at its "Products to Share Exhibit" at the 2008 National Government Ethics Conference in Orlando, Florida. Those interested in participating should contact Ciara Guzman by July 18th:

cmguzman _ AT_ oge _DOT_ gov

(Address disguised to throw off spammers).

OGE Training Award Nominations Due May 30

There are only a couple of weeks left before the May 30, 2008 deadline for nominations for OGE's 2008 Education and Communication Awards. The awards will be presented at the September OGE National Government Ethics Conference in Orlando. The OGE web site has details.

Podcasts for Training

OGE lists "podcasts" as one of the one of the media that is ripe for receiving its training awards. Podcasts are sound recordings distributed via the Internet. They can be used not just on the very popular iPods and similar portable music players, but on most PCs in use in the federal government. They are an inexpensive way to distribute lectures to an audience. The USA.gov web site has a section explaining podcasts.

The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center uses podcasts effectively for training criminal procedure, etc. We are not aware of any agency that uses them yet for ethics training, but it seems like a natural function.

Education & Communication Awards

OGE is soliciting nominations for its 2008 Education and Communication Awards, to be presented at OGE's national conference this fall. Here's a list of previous winners of the OGE Training Awards Winner’s Circle:

*  Bureau of the Public Debt - EthicsSmart posters and newsletters used to complement ethics
training.  New posters are developed monthly.  The monthly newsletter uses a question and
answer format, provides tips and suggestions, and offers information for managers to discuss
at staff meetings.

*  Communications Electronics Life Cycle Management Command - Ethics Smart Card.  The
credit card-sized cards provide useful information about permissible and impermissible post-
employment activities.  Easily read and portable, the cards were widely distributed to senior
military and civilian personnel.

*  Natick Soldier Center - instructor-led, interactive training targeted to the specific needs of a
highly educated group of scientists, engineers, and supporting staff.  The training program
contains numerous analogies and references to current events to illustrate various points.  It
effectively makes the case as to why the information is relevant to the audience.

*  National Aeronautics and Space Administration - Ethics Survivor, an instructor-led game
based on the TV program.  Props are used to facilitate the game and add an element of
realism.  Questions are used to explore a range of ethics issues.

*  U.S. Agency for International Development - a comprehensive ethics program.  This
program includes values-based instructor-led ethics training; customized rules-based
instructor-led training; strong, visible agency leadership buy-in; annual ethics award
(including a plaque and cash award); electronic ethics tip of the day; and an ethics web site.

*  U.S. Department of Agriculture - an online horse race.  Participants select ethics questions of
varying degrees of difficulty. The question selected and the answer chosen define
participants’ pace in the race.

*  The Department also has several Self-Help tools that allow employees to identify possible
ethics problems.  The tools support the work of the ethics official.  By completing the tools,
employees are either directed to the ethics official for guidance or learn that it is unlikely that
they have an ethics problem.

*  U.S. Department of Commerce - an instructor-led program that uses flashcards.  The
flashcards cover a range of topics to include post employment, gifts, misuse of position,
Hatch Act, etc.  The instructor presents information and distributes the cards to participants. 
Based on the cards, participants state whether a particular behavior is or is not allowed.

*  U.S. Department of Education - Ethics Jeopardy, using the TV game show format.  This
instructor-led program is used for basic ethics training.  By varying the format the game was
used effectively for small and large groups.

*  U.S. Mint - 2006 General Training.  This interactive, instructor-led training addresses gifts,
conflicts of interest, outside activities, etc.  The program provides a clear sense of why the
training is important.

*  U.S. Office of Personnel Management - an instructor-led program, Public Service and
Ethical Leadership, sponsored by the Federal Executive Institute.  The highly interactive
program includes case studies, video clips, classic and contemporary readings, and self-
assessment exercises.

OGE Releases "Grand Slam" Crossword Puzzle

OGE has released its "Grand Slam" crossword puzzle, a compliation of the five popular puzzles released in 2007. It's available in multiple versions:

1. Fillable Version (Requires browser with Java)
2. Section 508 compliant version
3. Print Versions:  Puzzle (PDF)    Answers (PDF)

OGE suggests the following possible uses:

• During in-person annual ethics training
• As part of written annual ethics training during the two years in which you do not provide verbal training
• As part of a leadership initiative aimed at your agency’s supervisors, encouraging them to discuss the answers with their employees at a staff meeting
• During presentations to employees
• As part of your ethics or agency newsletter

Lessons From Army Legal Trainers

The faculty at TJAG Legal Center & School (the Army's school for lawyers) maintains a high level of instruction that would be the envy of many civilian law schools. While attending a course there recently I observed a number of slide show presentation techniques that could enhance standards of conduct training:

• Showing the text of a statute or regulation on a slide as a screen capture from an original source. The slide is then modified to highlight the key section(s). This technique is a refreshing visual change of pace that subtly highlights the fact that the cited material is from an authoritative reference.
• Including the numbers of handout pages relevant to a slide in the lower right corner of the slide. Particularly useful if you have voluminous handouts.
• Use of "organic" graphics, i.e., pictures of real things that directly support the theme of the presentation, rather than using canned clip art as decoration.
• Frequent use of well-designed charts and graphs to summarize or convey a lot of information in a short time.
• Use of themes, gimmicks or other attention getters.  These are particularly useful if your presentation is part of all-day or multi-day training where there is a danger of audience burnout. For example:

One instructor had a running series of illustrations that amusingly illustrated her love of her alma mater's football team. Her best laugh line came after to the audience's reacted to a slide showing a lynched mascot of her favorite team's rival: She drolly stated "It's only a doll."

Other instructors made points by showing short television commercial clips,from other countries. Obtained via YouTube, clips like this can really grab an audience's attention. Avoid any uses not protected under the Fair Use exception to the copyright laws.

Updated February 5 with minor improvements.

Updated SGE Training Materials

Updated September 2, 2008 to correct web links changed during OGE web site upgrade:

Wayne Johnson thoughtfully provided an updated version of his materials for SGE training. Wayne explains:

I have replaced the previously attached files with Internet web links that everyone should be able to use/access.  The other difference is that this template, in addition to covering IEO or AET for an SGE, also sends them the links to complete their OGE 450 form and the HHS Foreign Activities Questionnaire Form.  It of course could be edited down by a user to just cover training or collecting forms.  Although some materials are HHS specific, they could be easily copied and edited for use by another federal agency. 

Other material from Wayne is available in our November 9, 2007 posting. Thanks to Wayne for sharing these useful training documents.

The below EMAIL TEMPLATE is an IEO and AET email for ethics officials to send to committee SGEs.   It was originally created by Wayne L. Johnson to help HHS Division Ethics Officials to train their SGEs in advance of attending committee meetings using only Internet links. 

(Revised August 29, 2008 to replace earlier version on IEC web site due to OGE creating new OGE web site and ethics topic links in August 2008)

Text for Email/Letter for Advisory Committee SGEs for IEO and/or AET AND OGE 450 and HHS 697 Filing Using Internet Web Links:

INTRODUCTION: THE INFORMATION IN THIS EMAIL/LETTER TEMPLATE IS INTENDED TO PROVIDE SPECIAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES (SGEs) ON FEDERAL ADVISORY COMMMITTEES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (HHS) THEIR INITIAL ETHICS ORIENTATION (IEO) OR ANNUAL ETHICS TRAINING (AET).  IT MAY ALSO BE USED TO OBTAIN FROM THE SGE THEIR OGE 450 FORM AND HHS FOREIGN ACTIVITIES QUESTIONNAIRE (HHS FORM 697).  IT ONLY USES INTERNET LINKS SINCE SGEs ON ADVISORY COMMITTEES DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE HHS INTRANET UNLESS THEY ARE AT AN HHS FACILITY.  MOST COMMITTEE SGEs PERFORM THEIR DUTIES LESS THAT 30 DAYS A YEAR. MATERIAL HEREIN THAT IS HHS SPECIFIC SHOULD BE REVIEWED FOR APPLICABILITY AT OTHER AGENCIES.  FEEL FREE TO DELETE HHS SPECIFIC ITEMS OR REPLACE WITH ITEMS THAT ARE MORE SPECIFIC TO YOUR AGENCY.  

(The term SGE includes members of Federal Advisory Committees and Intermittent Workers.  An SGE is defined as an “officer or employee... who is retained, designated, appointed, or employed” by the Government to perform temporary duties, with or without compensation, for not more than 130 days during any period of 365 consecutive days.  See Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 202(a).)

OGE 450 and HHS 697 Forms Section:

As an Special Government Employee (SGE) on the (Name of FACA Committee) you must file with my office a “New Entrant” OGE Form 450, Confidential Financial Disclosure Form, (Revised January 2007) and an HHS 697 Foreign Activities Questionnaire, within 30 days of your appointment as an SGE as well as annually.  Even if you have been board member for more than a year on the same committee, your OGE Form is always a New Entrant. 

The two forms are available on the INTERNET as follows:  OGE 450 Form, http://www.oge.gov/forms/form_450.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 or http://www.usoge.gov/forms/form_450.aspx and HHS 697 Form, http://ethics.od.nih.gov/forms/hhs-697.pdf.  You should save these forms to your computer and then fill them out.  That way you can update them next year rather than start from scratch. 

After completing the two forms please sign and date them and mail them to my attention at the below address no later than (date).

Initial Ethics Orientation (IEO) and Annual Ethics Training (AET) Section

As an SGE with Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Ethics in Government Act, at 5 CFR Sections 2638.703, .704 and .705, requires HHS to provide Initial Ethics Orientation (IEO) and Annual Ethics Training (AET) to you and for you as an SGE to spend one hour reviewing the material provided below. You are authorized to use official duty time to accomplish this. (If this information is being done by letter, provide the SGE with paper copies of these items or make sure the Internet links are written out.) 

The below three items and their web links apply specifically to SGEs (including advisory committee members and intermittent employees).  In addition to reviewing them for at least one hour, please save this email and the first three items to your computer or print them off for future reference. 

1.  HHS OGC Ethics Division October 2004 Memo for SGEs - "Ethics Rules for Advisory Committee Members and Other Individuals Appointed as Special Government Employees" http://www1.od.nih.gov/cmo/ethics/SGETRAININGOCT2004.pdf

2.  HHS OGC Ethics Division 2005 Pamphlet for SGEs - “Overview of the Ethics Rules for Special Government Employees Serving on Advisory Committees" http://www1.od.nih.gov/cmo/ethics/SGE3.pdf. 

3.  Office of Government Ethics (OGE) 2008 Booklet –To Serve With Honor: A Guide on the Ethics Rules that Apply to Advisory Committee Members Serving as Special Government Employees (2008)

(PDF) http://www.usoge.gov/training/training_materials/booklets/bkServeHonor.pdf or

(TEXT) http://www.usoge.gov/training/training_materials/booklets/bkServeHonor.txt 

This booklet highlights some of the ethics rules that are most likely to affect these committee members, in addition to providing them with a game plan of eight general principles that will help promote peak ethical performance.

NOTE: IN LIEU OF, OR IN ADDITION TO, ETHICS OFFICIALS MAY USE THIS TRAINING MODULE FOR SGE AET/IEO

OGE 2007 Online Training Module
Ethics Training for Special Government Employees WBT (2007)

An interactive web-based training module designed to be completed in about one hour and is intended for use by Special Government Employees (SGEs). The course contains a summary of ethics laws and rules that apply to SGEs and may be used as part of your initial or annual ethics training program. (Begin Module) http://www.usoge.gov/training/module_files/ogesge_wbt_07/10.html 

PRIMARY ETHICS MATERIALS

In addition to the above items, you can access the primary ethics regulations upon which they are based by going to the following web links on the Internet.  

1. The Standards of Ethical Conduct: 

http://www.usoge.gov/laws_regs/regulations/5cfr2635.aspx or http://www.usoge.gov/ethics_docs/publications/reference_publications/rfsoc_02.pdf or http://www.usoge.gov/ethics_docs/publications/reference_publications.aspx 

2.  The full HHS Supplemental Ethics Regulations (As of August 2005) Note 5 CFR Section 5501 subsections .104, .106, .109, .110, .111 and .112 and 5 CFR 5502 do NOT apply to SGEs:   http://www.fda.gov/opacom/ethics/5CFR5501-5502compilation.pdf or http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_08/5cfr5501_08.html and http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_08/5cfr5502_08.html . Other Federal Agencies that have supplemental ethics regulations can obtain for their’s at http://www.usoge.gov/laws_regs/agency_supp_standards.aspx .

3.  Roster of Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Ethics Officials:  http://www.hhs.gov/ogc/hhsethics/contacts.html or http://www.hhs.gov/ogc/contact/contacts.html .  If you have any questions about the ethics materials use this roster to find the appropriate ethics official to contact for assistance. 

4.  The 14 Principles of Ethical Conduct [Codified at 5 CFR Section 2635.101(b)]:   http://www.usoge.gov/ethics_guidance/daeograms/dgr_files/2001/do01004a.pdf  or http://www.usda-ethics.net/science/training/14PRINC.DOC  or http://www.usoge.gov/laws_regs/exec_orders/eo12731.aspx  or http://www.usda-ethics.net/rules/rule2.htm 

5. The Federal Conflict of Interest Statutes:  http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sup_01_18_10_I_20_11.html and http://www.fda.gov/opacom/ethics/criminaldig.html 

6. HHS Residual Standards of Conduct: http://ethics.od.nih.gov/lawreg/hhs-resid-std.htm.

If you have any questions regarding the above, please contact me.

(Here provide the name and contact information of the sender which is usually the Deputy Ethics Counselor, Ethics Coordinator, or the Committee Management Officer.)

Newsletter With A Light Touch

USDA's Ethics Newsletter illustrates how a light tone and good graphics can go a long way toward making ethics information palatable to employees. The most recent issue features a Dear Abby-style Q & A featuring "Spotless the Wonder Dog," a brief story on the execution of an unethical Chinese official, and more. It's worth checking out.