The Federal Consulting Group (FCG), a franchise operation within the U.S. Department of the Interior, is hosting a thought-provoking and educational roundtable event beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 20 - and you're invited. The panel will include federal agencies that are driving awareness, policy and their mission through compelling online content. The panel includes:
Jeff Morin Senior Web Editor, Environmental Protection Agency
Maxine Teller, New Media Strategist, U.S. Department of Defense
Sheila Campbell, Team Leader for USA.gov Web Best Practices Team
David Haradon, Associate, Booz Allen Hamilton
Ron Oberbillig, Chief Operating Officer, FCG
Brett Berntsen, Director of Product Management, GovDelivery
The discussion will focus on embracing new channels, leveraging channels like email and how different agencies use compelling content to engage users.
Event details:
November 20, 2008, 8:30 a.m. EST Treasury Executive Institute 1st Floor 801 9th St NW Washington, DC 20239
Citizens crave information, but they are also busy and difficult to reach.
Blogs, social networks, and other Web 2.0 capabilities can help you reach citizens with critical information how and where they want to obtain
it. But, are any government agencies really using these tools? We've provided examples before, but here are some new findings.
In April, a
ScienceLogic survey found that more than 65 percent of government IT workers
surveyed said Web 2.0 tools are important to their operations and 20 percent
were using tools like wikis, blogs and RSS feeds.
More than 50 percent said they are planning on having these tools in place by
next year.
In some
cases, such as the Intelligence Communities' wikopedia project, Intellipedia and
the Navy Department CIO blog, the Web 2.0 tools are internal communications
tools.
But other
applications face the public such as those at
USA.gov where they use social media applications to reach the public, including blogs, RSS
feeds, podcasts
and microblogs.
A recent
article on Read Write Web, "To 2.0 or Not 2.0? That is the Governments'
Question" (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/government_20.php),
provides additional examples of how the government is using social media to
reach the public.
In a recent
blog
post by Daniel Mintz, chief information officer for the U.S. Department of
Transportation, states, "The second
generation of Web access will change the way government delivers services and
its relationship with the American public."
While there are many examples of government embracing Web 2.0, I am now looking for more examples of how this embrace of technology is resulting in positive change and efficiency in how government interacts with the citizen. The changes instituted following comments on the TSA blog are very positive examples. I hope to find more and document them here over time.
One thing we do see is that content that challenges and engages the citizen (what we call, "Compelling Content") seems to be more successful in Web 2.0 which is fundamentally an environment where content faces a lot of competition for attention.
We will be discussing these issues at the Proactive Communication Roundtable at the Department of Treasury where we will talk about embracing new channels, leveraging channels that have been with us for longer (mainly email), and how different agencies use compelling content to engage users.
I have the following rules for my use of email with colleagues, friends, and family:
Avoid emails when I'm angry
Avoid constructive feedback by email
Avoid emails in the evening (Google has a new tool called Mail Goggles that forces people to do math problems before sending email in the evening so you don't email anyone while intoxicated)
This incredibly insightful video that should be required watching for the whole world really gets to the bottom of why email is not useful for many types of communication.
The main reason... drum roll please... email is good for facts and data, but does not carry the visual and emotional cues that are critical to human interaction and understanding.
For citizen service, email is only useful up to the point where tone becomes important
For internal collaboration and cooperation between offices and agencies, there is no substitute for in person and (as a decent substitute) phone meetings and conversations
GovDelivery thanks guest Blogger, Jamie Findlater, for this interesting post.
Posted by: Jamie Findlater, Department of Defense, Community Relations and New Media Team Member
Going Viral: DoD's New Media Tactics for the Troops
This year marked the fourth annual Department of Defense
America Supports You (ASY) National Freedom Walk in Washington D.C. The ASY Freedom Walk is an opportunity to
reflect on the lives lost on September 11, 2001 at the Pentagon and remember
the sacrifices of our veterans past and present.
Employing new media tactics to communicate to the public
about DoD policy and programs is an important part of the Department of Defense's
public affairs mission, and letting folks know about the ASY Freedom Walk is no
exception. This year, for the first time, we incorporated viral marketing and
new media tactics to increase awareness about the opportunity to walk in the DC
area, which led to great walker registration and turn out. We also experimented
with new media tactics the day of the event, understanding that these
components are an important way to connect with our audiences.
A central part of our new media campaign was the creation of
an America Supports You Freedom Walk widget. The widget displayed a countdown
to the day of the national walk and tallied the number of local walks being
organized around the country. The widget also provided links through which
participants could register and spread the word about the event. Milbloggers,
military spouse bloggers and online publications could post the widget on their
sites. Then, during the ASY Freedom Walk, we enabled participants to send text
messages honoring our troops and the lives lost on the day of the event. The
messages scrolled through the widget after the event.
In terms of viral outreach, we relied largely on cross-promotion
from the ASY homefront groups, military support organizations and partner
government agencies. GovDelivery sent our viral e-mail to its own subscription
lists and partnered us with their other subscribers. Here at DoD, we placed e-mail
footers at the bottom of our news articles. Other organizations, including DisabilityInfo.gov and USA.gov, were instrumental in helping us get the word out to
their subscribers through similar tactics.
The viral outreach campaign also incorporated online video
components. The DoD New Media team created a video blog, or "vlog," to share
information with communities about opportunities to start local walks in their
area. The video was showcased on the DoD "video on demand" Web site, DoD
VClips, along with many other DoD videos centering around September 11th.
This year's ASY Freedom walk and recognition of September 11th was
particularly important due to the dedication of the Pentagon Memorial, and
viral video was an important part of telling this story.
Overall, thousands of participants participated in the ASY Freedom
Walk. This event provided a good opportunity to experiment with viral
notification and new media tactics.
We have a host of other new media ideas
that we hope to develop as well. At DoD, we are constantly experimenting with new
ways of delivering information, realizing that the way the public consumes
information is constantly evolving.
GovDelivery invites anyone with interesting government-to-citizen communication issues to discuss to be guest bloggers on reachthepublic. Please contact product at govdelivery dot com with your ideas.
