A blog about government-to-citizen digital communication and engagement, Government 2.0, GovDelivery, and other e-government issues
Header

Is Your Agency SMART?

August 19th, 2011 | Posted by GovDelivery in Current Affairs | E-Government | Local Government | Social Media | State Government | Web 2.0 - (0 Comments)

By Lauren Modeen, Manager of Online Strategy, GovLoop

We all know that government agencies are constantly under pressure to make their conversations with constituents measurable, and results-based to justify the investment. One stand-out action the city of New York is doing to keep this at the forefront of importance is driving an advisory board of SMART members (the Social Media Advisory and Research Taskforce). Under the leadership of Rachel Sterne, the City's first Chief Digital Officer at NYC Digital, the committee acts as a "consulting body for agencies making the digital transition, providing feedback and streamlining social media strategy and policy. They're also highlighting best practices, and planning to hold crash courses and workshops for communication managers" (source).

From NYC Digital's website:

"SMART is New York City's Social Media Advisory and Research Taskforce. This body consists of 15 members elected every six months by social media managers across the city. SMART members are responsible for helping to manage citywide social media feeds such as Facebook and Twitter (@nycgov), providing recommendations on social media tools and strategies, assisting emerging City agencies on social media, evaluating new social media platforms, updating social media guidelines and policies, and liasing with technology and legal authorities in the City."

As you can see from their list of advisory board members, NYC Digital's SMART dream team is made up of members from NYC agencies — the NYC Department of Education, the Mayor's Office, their 311, the Office of Emergency Management — as an example. Since it is crucial in social media to speak the language of your constituents, having members that understand what citizens need and want helps you made bigger strides.

Recommendation 1: take a page out of the NYC Digital book, and get taskforcing! Get your most literate folks, and get conversing/guiding/winning.

Recommendation 2: not only get your task force in order, but create a website to outline your digital mission, social media properties, apps, advisory board members…and anything else you would add! Social Media is just an advanced form of conversing with your constituents — so get your best ideas rolling, best metrics in place, train your people, and take your citizens to the next level of digital connectedness.

Interested in more about NYC Digital? Check out the blog here.

Are Your Prepared if Your Organization’s Twitter Account is Hacked?

July 22nd, 2011 | Posted by GovDelivery in Current Affairs | Government 2.0 | Social Media | Web 2.0 - (0 Comments)

By Lauren Modeen, Manager of Online Strategy, GovLoop

This past 4th of July, the Fox News Political twitter account had some premature fireworks go off, and they weren't a good display. If you didn't hear about the story, you can check it out here. If you want the cliff notes version, a group hacked into their site, and sent out some very disturbing tweets about President Obama. See below:

 

(source = NYTimes)

According to the NYTimes article, "the six messages were removed around noon on Monday, about 10 hours after being posted, but not before attracting a flurry of attention."

In our real-time world, 10 hours with live tweets such as this is more like 10 days. Argh! If you are the Twitter administrator for your organization, here are five ways you can ready yourself for a potential hack, and what actions to take if it actually happens.

1. Above all, realize Twitter for your organization is not a M – F, 9 – 5 operation. Twitter lives and breathes 365 days/24 hours. Even after you punch out, you have to keep an eye on what is going on. In the time of a hack, every minute counts and every minute lost can damage your brand.

2. As the administrator for your Twitter account, don't be the sole holder of the keys to your Twitter kingdom. Have a backup. Additionally, make sure you communicate within your organization that your are the administrator, and who your backup is. A hack is not the time for people to be running around chasing you down.

3. Familiarize yourself now with Twitter's processes for dealing with a hack so you aren't trying to figure things out when under fire. Here's what to do if you can still log-in to your account, what to do if you can't log-in, and what to do if you don't have access to the account's registered email. If you still can't get access to your account, you can reach out to Twitter's help center.

4. If a hack happens, and you can access your account, delete all fake tweets, and have a plan in place for responding to the public. DON'T just ignore what happened and go into hiding. Show how responsive and proactive you are by being transparent, apologetic, and answer any questions from followers up front. In the end, how you handle the crisis will speak reams about your communication and follow-through abilities.

5. Finally, learn straight up from the mistakes of others: How Not to Handle a Crisis: 5 Lessons From the Fox News Twitter Hack

*Something easy to watch out for: as the administrator, if you receive an email saying your Twitter log-in has changed, and you are aware no one else has the log-in, check it out immediately.

 

Community involvement pays great dividends

June 15th, 2011 | Posted by GovDelivery in Current Affairs | Email Communication | GovDelivery | Local Government | Usability - (1 Comments)

Hammer Time

Access to affordable housing is a major concern in many communities across our country, and organizations such as Habitat for Humanity have significantly impacted public attitudes about this important topic.

Inadequate housing is a larger issue than mere living conditions – it impacts physical health, mental health, and the quality of educational opportunities.

As a company working with more than 400 government organizations throughout the United States, GovDelivery appreciates the critical nature of the housing issue and has chosen to support Habitat for Humanity's efforts to not only build homes, but effectively communicate with the public on the issue.

Yesterday, a group of our employees contributed their time to helping construct the "Entrepreneurs House" – a small townhome complex on a vacant lot in northeast Minneapolis. We encourage other organizations to learn more about Habitat for Humanity and get involved in their local community. Any other ideas from you on how to give back?

 

If the public had a hidden camera in your office

May 6th, 2011 | Posted by GovDelivery in Current Affairs | E-Government | Federal Government | GovDelivery | Local Government | State Government | Web 2.0 - (1 Comments)

Surveillance-camera A recent article in Government Technology reported that a Florida mayor, concerned about someone stealing items from his office, installed $8,000 worth of surveillance cameras in his office – at taxpayer expense.

Leaving the details of this case (and the related investigation) aside, the story brings up an intriguing question. How would any of us behave differently if we knew the public was watching us on live streaming video?

On the surface, some out there might say such over-the-top surveillance (particularly if we didn't know when we were being watched or heard) might improve an employee's overall attention to customer service, productivity, communication, attitude, and so on.

And while it's certainly valid to expect professional behavior and productive work habits from public servants, you'd think after a while the cameras and hidden microphones would have the opposite effect. Work and morale would inevitably suffer with this amount of scrutiny. After all, this is not "1984."

Short of actually installing cameras and planting bugs inside city halls, state office buildings and federal offices, however, it's still advisable to practice open communication and be transparent with those who pay our salaries. In any industry, especially government, it's never a good idea to be secretive, and certainly not to assume that people probably won't care enough to hear the details – or be capable of understanding.

To the contrary, providing engaging communication to the public must be a big part of working for the government. Giving people powerful tools with which to make informed decisions about various aspects of their life, neighborhood, and nation should never be something to fear.

Let me know what you think about this or other posts on Reach the Public. Is there a topic you’d like to see us address here? We’d enjoy hearing from you.

Potential of shutdown underscored importance of communication

April 12th, 2011 | Posted by GovDelivery in Current Affairs | E-Government | Email Communication | Federal Government | GovDelivery | Government 2.0 - (0 Comments)

Captial_WashingtonDC

If you are a federal employee, the very fact that you are reading this at your desk today means there was not a government shutdown last Friday night. As a result, on Monday morning, you commuted into work, talked and texted on your smart phone, brewed some coffee, plunked down in your cube and began the work week.

But knowing that this week could have started off much differently – with office buildings, parks, monuments and other federal government institutions locked down – reminded us of the critical nature of communications.

Imagine for a moment that your organization couldn’t – by law – send out any messages to those who need to hear from you. No emails, no texts, no website updates, and certainly no phone calls. What if your iPhone or Blackberry were taken away, your desktop unplugged, and you had no way to let members of the public know about important issues affecting their finances, health, safety and other key topics?

Without question, these restrictions would be incredibly frustrating for any government employee, much less a communications professional dedicated to ensuring the public is fully informed.

You work in government because you inherently care about the public and want to serve your fellow citizens. As a result, regardless of the prevailing political or financial conditions, your mission is to let people know what’s going on and how your small part of the government can help them. That type of dedication is something that transcends politics.

Let me know what you think about this or other posts on Reach the Public. Is there a topic you’d like to see us address here? We’d enjoy hearing from you.

 

Facebook Messages Kills Email? Think again.

November 16th, 2010 | Posted by GovDelivery in Cloud Computing | Current Affairs | E-Government | Email Communication | Federal Government | GovDelivery | Government 2.0 | GovLoop | Local Government | Social Media | Web 2.0 | Web/Tech - (0 Comments)

By Dave Worsell, Director, GovDelivery UK

Facebook’s new “Messages” service was apparently called a “Gmail killer” internally at the company.  Some analysts have pronounced email dead. 

That’s interesting and pretty naive.  Instant messaging already killed email, then RSS killed it, then SMS, then Twitter, and now, finally, Facebook has killed it.  Email is the most frequently killed digital communication channel in history. (see: Channel Surfing)

Email has actually thrived as new channels have increased time online and digital communication in general.

EmailConsumptionChart
 
Far from killing off email, Facebook’s move has increased email’s relevance in social communication.  Email‘s strengths as a channel continue to be reinforced in a world where digital communication increasingly dominates all other forms of human interaction. 

Strength 1: Email works well with others.  For most people online, email is the hub of all online activity.

Strength 2: Email is asynchronous.  Facebook Messages is supposed to incorporate email into the real-time communication that we apparently all want and need.  While that might work for techies and children, most of us still spend a lot of our time not plugged into the “digital Matrix.”  Google Wave was launched to make interactions and collaboration more real-time. 

Facebook Messages seems to draw from the same flawed belief amongst young techies that no one should reflect on anything or go offline for more than a few minutes.  Even digital natives will eventually have demanding jobs, children, school conferences, etc. that limit their ability to be online 24/7 and perhaps reduce their interest in doing so as well.   

Strength 3: Email is open. Facebook Messages does make Facebook email more relevant by creating optional email addresses for Facebook users to allow non-Facebook users to get messages “in” to the Facebook inbox.  This will be particularly useful for government agencies because it will provide an efficient way to get new messages to Facebook users without going through the Facebook message sending interface.

For government organisations, Facebook Messages doesn’t seem to address any of the major challenges facing Government today. How do you build your audience in the first place? How do you automate multi-channel communication?  How do you engage people effectively?  How do you track results?  How do you give them exactly what they want?  It’s nice to get more direct access to the Facebook “inbox,” but that’s just Facebook addressing a deficiency. 

There doesn’t appear to be any new or truly unique benefits offered within Facebook Messages from the standpoint of government-to-public communication.  (see “Facebook Messaging is NOT Good Enough for Government Work on GovLoop”)

It is up to Government to look towards technologies that allow Facebook users to personalise the type and frequency of messages that they receive from you.  Without this you’ll almost certainly end up in the Facebook Messages equivalent of the spam folder.

In our work at GovDelivery with over 400 government agencies, we’ve seen a few things hold up across channels. 

  1. Allowing subscribers to personalise the messages they receive because agencies have diverse content and the public has diverse needs and interests. 
  2. Automating messages when information changes so information goes out quickly and consistently on topics of interest. 
  3. Tracking message usage and reach and connecting outreach opportunities and content across multiple channels and government offices.   

While Facebook has it out with its competitors, governments can continue to focus on these basics and be happy that they now have even greater access to Facebook users than ever before using a channel that once again seems poised to thrive in the aftermath of an assassination attempt… email.

- Dave Worsell, Director, GovDelivery UK