May 2009 Archives

Last week was an exciting week for us at GovDelivery, as we joined other volunteers working to make a difference in our community by helping Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity build a house for a family in need.

As a company, we volunteer each year with Habitat for Humanity.  Why? Because, like our government clients we serve every day, we believe in giving back to our community.

Check out these GovDelivery team members, happy to be part of something good..and supporting our local community.

 

Welcome to our second installment of the"Friday's Food for Thought" post where we take a light-hearted (and we hope funny) approach to what's happening in government-related news.  This installment's theme is about the new NBC show "Parks and Recreation."

Parks and Recreation Show Funny, But Real?  I think not.
We are the first to admit that Amy Poehler does a great job playing a bumbling and often confused bureaucrat helping run a department of parks recreation in the city of Pawnee, Ind. She takes a Michael Scott (from the NBC hit, "The Office," played by actor Steve Carrell) approach and always has a good heart, but seems to be awkward and have very poor judgement.

However, as an organization that works with state and local government across the United States, we believe this portrayal is far from the truth.  In fact, there are many local government agencies doing many progressive and forward thinking things that are far from bumbling.

For example, Idaho Game and Fish is especially committed to keeping its citizens and out-of-town visitors updated on new fishing and hunting related information.  And another DNR doing swimmingly well..Wisconsin DNR.  They send out updates on over 25 different fishing topics!

And then we have Texas Parks and Wildlife.  TPWD updates the public on state parks, destinations, fishing and more...  None of these examples reflects the obtuse or clueless antics of the Parks and Recreation show.  But, we can still find the humor right?  

Speaking of fishing, it just so happens that this weekend is opening fishing for Minnesota.  Thousands of people will pack up their fishing gear and head out for the lake first thing tomorrow morning. MN DNR sold over 256,000 licenses as of Wednesday.  

Now that I've reminded everyone that fishing opener is tomorrow and I've checked that 'to-do' off my list, it time to check out a promo clip from Parks and Recreation.  Enjoy and have a great weekend.  Bobbers down!

GovDelivery has had a lot of inquiries from citizens and media this week asking for our recommendations on how the public can stay informed during this critical time.  We are not public health experts, but our work with key health agencies gives us some perspective on resources available to the public.

We are all being bombarded with information on the H1N1 flu virus this week.  Official government information is invaluable when there is so much misinformation coming at us from all sides.

GovDelivery works with 300+ public sector entities in the U.S. and U.K.  The majority of federal health agencies (CDC, HHS.gov, Pandemicflu.gov, NIH, Medicare, & others) use our Email & Digital Subscription platform to manage outbound digital communication, and we work with state and local health agencies and departments in 30 states including the MN, TX, NE, and OR Health Departments, among others.

I'm not trying to provide a full commercial here, but rather establish how we are in a good position to see what citizens are interested in and what tools are available (particularly online) for citizens that want and need to stay informed of official information.

Some quick statistics on the activity we've seen in terms of citizen interest and government communication in the past week is truly unprecedented.

• Over 150,000 citizens have signed up to receive H1N1 flu updates from federal and state public health agencies, cities, and counties  (these same organizations already have millions of citizens signed up through our platform, but this 1 week jump is the highest ever).
• Government agencies have sent over 250 distinct messages through GovDelivery to more than 6 million recipients since the outbreak.

Messages have come out from a whole range of agencies: 

• The CDC has sent over 1 million email and wireless/text messages
  
• PandemicFlu.gov (run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) has also been an active sender
  
• San Diego County, the City of St. Paul, TX Governor's Office, FEMA, and many others have been sending messages as well

You can follow GovDelivery on Twitter for updates on the activity we are seeing.


Recommendation 1: Visit and monitor the official CDC web page on H1N1 flu outbreak where you can also register to receive email and wireless updates on the right hand side of the page.