Federal Government | Reach The Public

Three Trends Top the List for Federal Agencies in 2013

More collaboration, better customer service, and expanded use of mobile devices and applications are top trends for federal government agencies in 2013. The trends are intertwined. Mobile devices/apps make information available 24/7 and increase interaction between customers and agencies and between agencies. The result is more collaboration and better customer service.

About 200 individuals in U.S. federal agencies identified the top 2013 trends in a GovDelivery survey. They identified the top trends from a list of hot topics, such as big data/open data, cybersecurity, budgets, technology and cloud computing.

Respondents were asked to look at the trends through three filters:

Trends taking center stage in 2013 (affecting their agencies and others)
Trends directly affecting their own work
Trends that their organizations are already addressing

The three trends ranked at the top of all three categories were those with the greatest impact on government productivity and effectiveness:

Mobility and bring your own device (BYOD)
Citizen/customer service
Collaboration with other agencies and with citizens

Following is a brief summary of each top trend presented in a white paper that is available for download.

Mobile Government Tops the Agenda

Mobile government/bring your own device (BYOD) tops the list of trends that respondents think will take center stage in 2013. Citizens and constituents are embracing mobile technologies and mobile apps at a rapid pace creating new opportunities for government agencies to engage with them. Mobile is an important channel for information distribution and can be critical for time-sensitive communications.

The government recognizes the importance of mobile communications. Improving citizens’ mobile access to government service is a critical part of the White House Digital Government Strategy. As part of the push to make digital government customer-focused, the strategy requires federal agencies to use mobile technologies for priority customer services.

Despite the push by the government to encourage use of mobile technologies, this is one area where agencies may be lagging in their efforts, as the white paper reports. While more than half of the respondents to the GovDelivery survey listed mobile/BYOD as a top trend, only 39 percent said their agencies are addressing this issue.

Citizen/Customer Service is Top of Mind

Citizen/customer service is one of the top trends in all three categories (broad trends, trends affecting the respondents’ own jobs, and trends already addressed within their organizations). Federal agencies want to improve service whether the customer is a taxpayer working with the IRS, a patient at the Department of Veterans Affairs, or one of the many other types of agency customers.

Communication, the first critical stage of customer service, is an area of opportunity for improved service. Yet many federal agencies are ignoring social media for relevant citizen interactions, according to the white paper, even though the White House Digital Government Strategy has a mandate to provide “customer-centric” government through the use of digital technologies. In 2013, expect federal agencies to follow their counterparts in state and local governments with expanded use of social media and other digital channels (SMS, email, self-service web, mobile apps) for customer service and citizen engagement.

Collaboration is Everyone’s Job

The top trend that respondents see affecting their own work is the trend toward collaboration, both with other government organizations and with citizens. They expect an increase in the use of digital communications to support collaboration, both inter-agency and with the public.

For example, collaboration with citizens often takes place on public forums utilizing social media channels. Inter-agency collaboration can range from cross-promoting digital content and initiatives to working together behind the scenes as happens when the government responds to emergency situations. When a major weather event occurs, such as a hurricane, federal agencies communicate internally and with state and local agencies.

Fueling collaboration are several converging trends, including:

Widely available digital tools and technologies that enable new levels of collaboration
The demand for increased productivity and efficiency with existing budgets
A new generation of individuals entering the workforce with collaborative work practices

Agencies will need to identify and implement appropriate technologies and policies/processes for managing digital communications and will need to consider security and accessibility issues.

Download the white paper for full survey details and analysis.

big data, BYOD, citizen service, collaboration, communications, customer service, Federal government, mobile government, outreach, technology, top trends

Trends Show Support for More Digital Services

When the transcontinental telegraph line was completed in 1861, the Pony Express stopped sending riders galloping across the United States to deliver important messages. Change marched on. Mail transport by the railway gave way to the highways and then the airways. Of course, the internet has ushered in the digital age, and again the communications field is experiencing the impact. It should come as no surprise to anyone that a decline in mail volume prompted the United States Postal Service (USPS) to consider stopping Saturday mail delivery, with the plan only being scrapped due to a Congressional mandate that’s been around since the 1980s.

Still, it’s clear that with online bill paying, e-mail, and other electronic communications, businesses have reduced the volume of traditional print mail created and distributed. This trend of decreasing dependence on traditional mail service supports polls showing strong public support for eliminating Saturday mail delivery to help the USPS meet its financial challenges.

In a CBS News poll, 71 percent of respondents favored the delivery cuts, and in a USPS poll, 80 percent expressed support. Both polls show broad support across all age and income groups and all regions of the country. Even Democrats and Republicans are aligned on this issue with 75 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats favoring the end of Saturday mail delivery, according to the CBS poll.

It might seem surprising that senior citizens support the mail delivery cut. But the fact is they too are using digital communications in increasing numbers. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 87 percent of senior citizens use e-mail and search engines. The fastest growth for social network site usage is among users age 74 and older. Also, more older adults than ever before are watching video, listening to music, and using classified ads online. A Nielsen study found that the favorite online activities of people 65-plus are sending and receiving e-mail, viewing maps, checking the weather and paying bills.

Other trends also indicate the importance of the public sector adopting digital methods to meet the needs of constituents. For example, searching for health information online was once most popular among older adults but now is the third most popular activity for all internet users 18 and older. The Nielsen study found key internet activities are becoming more popular across all age groups. These include:

Emailing
Using search engines
Seeking health information
Getting news
Buying products
Making travel reservations or purchases
Doing online banking

Increased online activity and clear broad support for mail delivery cuts further support the need for the public sector to start broadly adopting digital methods of communicating with the public. But I also know that this is the “easy” answer. The Postal Service’s budgetary and service situation much more complex, which means the answer isn’t necessarily going to be as simple as “going digital.”

To this end, there are some highly innovative and invested stakeholders, entrepreneurs, and government employees working together to bring a solution to the table. The upcoming PostalVision 2020/3.0 conference in Washington, DC, currently in its third year, hopes to do just that. GovDelivery CEO and co-Founder, Scott Burns, will be speaking at the conference as well, lending his expertise on government-to-citizen digital communication efforts.

What are your thoughts on using digital communications to provide information to the public? I’d love to hear your thoughts on how the public sector can deliver better services in an increasingly digital world.

digital government, GovDelivery, Saturday mail delivery, technology, USPS

When it matters most: reaching citizens and residents

Yesterday, at just before 3 pm, bombs exploded near the finish line at Boston Marathon, often known as the world’s oldest annual marathon.

There are few words that can express the sorrow we here at GovDelivery are feeling – not just for Bostonians but for all the thousands of spectators from around the world who were in the crowd and city yesterday. While Boston may not be anywhere close to your city or town, the fact is that the Boston Marathon attracts runners from all around the world, in a spirit of sportsmanship similar to the Olympics. It’s likely you know someone who knows someone who was there. One of GovDelivery’s very own staff members was nearby during the explosion, with his daughter.

After reading about the explosions on a news website, I sent a text to my best friends in Boston to see if they were okay. Thankfully, as Bostonians, they had stayed home due to the normal disruptions of the marathon. They told me they were paying attention to television reports for updates on the developing situation, but they hadn’t received any other information. They were also following directions from the media to not use their cell phones for fear of cell phone detonation.

As a communications professional working for a communications software company focused on the public sector, I am acutely aware of how a situation like this disrupts our lives and yet, how critical it is for the public to be receiving important, official updates. Listening to the emergency responder calls on the news last night, one of the responders noted that someone needs to get on social media and let people know that the police were sweeping the area in search of other bombs and to stay inside.

In urgent and emergency situations like the Boston Marathon attack, reaching citizens and residents with information can be a matter of life and death. With clients like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), we’ve seen and partnered with government organizations to get the word out when it’s most critical. Here are three communications tips to implement quickly in any emergency:

Leverage your digital properties. Social media is a great way to get the word out about an emergency situation, as Boston emergency responders noted. There’s no denying the ripple effect of social media in reaching an amazing amount of people. But people have become increasingly aware of the rumor mill on Twitter and Facebook. People still want to hear directly from you, and they’ll visit your website to find out more. Your website can hold as much information as needed. Be sure to update your organization’s websites and blogs, with prominent news placement on the home page, as soon as you can when an emergency hits.
Use every communication channel you can. Your organization’s website or blog should be the main hub for information on the emergency. You can post detailed information to these digital properties, from updates on the current situation to links to other organizations that are providing help, such as the American Red Cross, to contact information for key people – either to report a tip or to try and find a loved one. But this doesn’t mean that you should ignore your other channels. During an emergency, the broader your reach, the better. Be sure to use email updates, text messages/SMS alerts, voice messages, and social media postings along with more traditional methods, such as news releases, press conferences, or media interviews, to push your messages out to the public in as many ways as possible.
Communicate whenever you have an update. This seems like common sense but the truth is that, in emergency situations, the public craves information, and you want to make sure that they are receiving official information. During Hurricane Sandy, false tweets pervaded Twitter, adding to the fear of an already chaotic situation. By communicating often, with updates to your organization’s website and alerts going out via email, SMS, and social media, your organization can help provide the news that’s needed to keep the public informed and safe.

To streamline the communications process for the three tips above, offer the public options to sign up to receive updates from your organization. These updates can be via email, SMS, voice, RSS, or social media. This puts your information directly in the hands of the public. A communications platform that supports multichannel distribution with automation can be extremely helpful in times like these. Below, you can see an example from the National Guard Bureau on multichannel communications regarding the Boston Marathon attack.

Beyond handling the immediate logistics of getting people to safety and securing an area during an emergency, consistent communications in the aftermath of an attack like yesterday’s can also provide a stabilizing force.

Today, our thoughts and prayers are with those who’ve been affected by the Boston Marathon attack while we work alongside our many government partners to communicate critical information to the public.

For more information on what’s happening in Boston, visit:

Photo Gallery: The National Guard Bureau responds to the Boston tragedy.

Website:

Email bulletin:

News Widget:Social Media (Twitter & Facebook):

Boston Marathon, communications, e-gov, emergency communications, Facebook, National Guard Bureau, outreach, responsiveness, social media, Twitter

Don’t Sequester Your Agency from Employees During Sequestration

April 10th, 2013 | Posted by GovDelivery in Current Affairs | Federal Government | Uncategorized - (1 Comments)

By Lance Horne, General Manager, GovDelivery Federal Team

I’m taking on a topic today that few want to think about, let alone manage: sequestration. Like many of you, I find it ironic that when the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 was passed, the unspoken goal was to avoid sequestration. Passing the BCA was intended to serve as an incentive for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (aka the “Supercommittee”) to reach a deal that cuts $1.5 trillion over 10 years. If the committee had done that, and Congress had passed it by Dec. 23, 2011, the sequester would have been averted. Paradoxically, that just didn’t happen.

The BCA stipulated that cuts would take effect at the beginning of 2013. But together with the Bush tax cuts and payroll tax cuts, this would have amounted to a giant fiscal contraction, and that would have thrown the United States into another recession. The combination of all these things rolled into one was dubbed the “fiscal cliff”. While a temporary deal was struck to avert the cliff and avoid sequestration until March 1, here we are today, nearly a month into sequestration.

Because of the insidious nature of the cuts, not all services will be affected at the same time, but instead cuts will be sporadic. For example, some national park areas will likely be blocked off, which right now might not be a huge deal, but once summer rolls around and it’s time to hire seasonal help and the public wants to visit the parks more, it will become a much larger concern. The same goes for IRS refunds – no one will care until their refund is delayed, and then I suspect they’ll care a lot.

But how are government employees – including you – affected by all of this? Are you happy about the prospect of facing potential furloughs, or being told to cut back on a certain percentage of your work? You’ve already been doing more with less. Now you’ll be doing less with less. Therefore, it is critical that agencies not cut themselves off from employees during sequestration. Agencies will need to be able to communicate quickly and effectively with their internal workforce. Gone are the days when reactive communication is status quo – people generally expect faster two-way digital communication where they are given a forum for voicing their concerns – and maybe even offering solutions to problems.

And here’s another irony – it’s very possible that some of the people who have been helping to manage digital communications within agencies are furloughed themselves, so it’s time to ensure that services are optimized and efficiently handled in the face of diminishing staff.

This is where collaborative digital communication tools can be extremely helpful. By using a collaborative forum, you might be able to strengthen your relationship with employees by being able to gather feedback and create dialogue with your coworkers in an environment that’s more secure than a social network but more open than a typical intranet. By creating collaborative communities, you can create secure, virtual communities that encourage higher levels of engagement. Plus, you’ll be able to publish content quickly to as many, or as few, employees as you desire.

I’d like to hear about what you’re doing in your agency to effectively communicate with your employees who may have already been affected by sequestration. Any success stories? Are you forming employee communities? Have you found other ways to keep employees informed? Please share your story here.

citizen service, collaboration, community, government

Going All Digital: How to Move Paper-Based Transactional Messages Online

I don’t have to tell you how constrained government budgets are these days. If you work in government, you know the depth of budget cuts and lack of resources – but this doesn’t mean that you stop doing the important work you’ve done before. You still need to communicate with your citizens and stakeholders about your services, from recycling updates to open park times to tax updates.

A recent white paper titled, Cutting the Costs of Paper: Digital Delivery of Government Messages & Statements, may provide another perspective on how to better reach citizens and stakeholders with important, personalized messages while working within constrained budgets. The white paper notes:

Many government agencies are achieving efficiencies through e-government initiatives that move processes and communications online. Yet paper is still an essential part of many communications between agencies and the public. These paper-based processes are often a bottleneck, slowing down essential processes such as payments while increasing costs for handling paper.

Some agencies send high volumes of these transactional messages, which often represent a sizable cost to the agency. The cost of printing and mailing is just the tip of the iceberg. Keeping these business processes on paper creates significant follow-on costs for handling inbound forms or calls. By moving these printed messages to electronic mail, agencies can realize significant cost savings while streamlining business processes and becoming more efficient.

What’s a transactional message? The white paper gives some examples, but it may be easier to start with a private sector example. For instance, if you have a credit card, you can usually set up a recurring email alert to notify you when your balance reaches a certain threshold. I have one of my credit cards set up to send me this kind of email alert; but it doesn’t just tell me that I’ve reached a certain balance, it also tells me exactly what my credit card balance is in the email. And then it gives me the option of clicking on a link to see more information through my credit card portal.

How would this work for government? An easy example would be property tax statements. Usually this information is mailed to the citizen or business, with a paper statement for payment, if that’s required. Because of the very specific information contained in the statement, it’s been easier for organizations to collate this information and print it, then mail it. The other option has usually been to implement or install an enterprise system that’s expensive and large to manage. But with advances in technology, especially with application programming interfaces (APIs), this is no longer the case. Legacy financial or citizen relationship management systems can remain intact while APIs do the work of pulling in personalized information and then sending out these transactional messages to their intended recipients. Transactions with government organizations that were generated from paper-based communications can move to an all-electronic process, saving your organization time, money and resources.

The white paper goes into more depth. But why not hear from an expert? GovDelivery’s Technical Product Manager, Tor Flatebo, is discussing this very topic on a live webinar on March 27. The webinar is free, and you can pick Tor’s brain on all the ways transactional messaging can work for your organization. Register today.

APIs, citizen service, collaboration, communications, community, digital government, e-gov, email, engagement, Gov 2.0, government services, responsiveness, technology, web 2.0

Becoming a Hero to Returning Veterans and Families

By Lance Horne, General Manager, GovDelivery Federal Team

Last year, Forbes magazine published an article written by a United States Marine Corp sergeant about what it’s like to return from combat. While warfighters are thrilled to be back, many face the surreal task of returning to the life they knew before combat. They come from an environment of unquestioningly taking orders, living in close quarters with their fellow soldiers, and under the constant stress of combat that few of us can easily relate to. Yet they are expected to come back and instantly integrate.

A number of federal agencies face a daily challenge of re-integrating the military when they do return from combat, and making sure returning warfighters are receiving the benefits they are entitled to. Federal agencies have quickly realized that they need to take their communications game up a notch or two to give these veterans and their families the information they need and deserve post-deployment. This has proved to be a perplexing problem, but there are things that can be done to improve.

Federal agencies feel compelled to deliver communications to warfighters and their families – especially when they come home – in a friendly and reliable manner. However, having the expertise to communicate in such a way is a special skill. And if we look back at what I talked about in my “Reach out …” posting a couple of weeks ago, more effective government-to-citizen (G2C) communications can boost an agency’s image and position it as an essential part of citizens’ lives. So where do agencies turn for help? Well, for starters, they could rely on technology partners to help them set up the means and the recommended communication channels to make talking with returning military and their families much more effective.

In the long run, finding the right technology partner is more cost-effective than trying to develop the systems on your own. For federal agencies, it has become essential to not only clearly and empathically communicate with returning military and their families, but to be able to gather feedback and open a two-way dialogue with them as well. Having an ability to communicate in such ways heightens the overall effectiveness of communications and makes the warfighter and his or her family feel more like they are participating in the process of reacclimating to civilian life and playing a strong role in the process of getting the information they need.

One such example of how effective communications can benefit warfighters comes from Washington state, where some war veterans were enrolled in Medicaid but not taking advantage of federal benefits. The state informed them of this discrepancy, and the vets were moved off Medicaid and onto federal programs, saving the state $30 million since 2004.

Once you have a steady stream of feedback from the audience you’re communicating with, what do you do with all of that data? As described in my last blog, “Taking an Entrepreneurial Jump on the Cloud“, agencies are starting to move to cloud computing to access and store data. Using traditional technology to wrestle meaning out of the information at your disposal is challenging.

New technology that you can coordinate through cloud computing will allow you to query gigantic data sets so you could find out where subscriber growth is, and when people are most interested in specific information.

If your agency is responsible for communicating with returning warfighters and their families, what has your experience been like? What success have you had? What could you have done better?

citizen service, cloud, collaboration, communications, community, digital government, engagement, GovDelivery, outreach, responsiveness, technology

Global leaders tweet towards a more open world?

By John Simpson, Business Consultant, GovDelivery Federal

Just after the new year, the Washington Post advertised a recent study showing that an increasing amount of world leaders are taking to Twitter to increase their reach to the public. While this new report from the Digital Policy Council does show a significant upward trend in the number of leaders that are leveraging Twitter, a 75% increase from 2011, the more revealing graph is the one below that highlights which country’s heads of state have the largest amount of followers and supposedly the larger trend towards open government.

The Washington Post continues that “the numbers sound like a big win both for Twitter and for open government, which have gone hand-in-hand since even before the Arab Spring uprisings popularized social media as a form of civic participation in 2010.”

While it is undeniable that Twitter holds enormous outreach potential to a global population that is only increasing its use of social media tools, the assumption that “more leaders tweeting equals a more open society” is a misguided notion. Simply because a member of a leader’s staff maintains a regular presence on Twitter does not mean that anything being communicated is new or the government is becoming increasingly transparent. Having a large amount of followers does not automatically mean that a government is lending itself more to the idea of an active dialogue with its citizens. Without proactive engagement and real participation in public discussions, social media simply becomes an avenue for leaders to spam their followers. It is also not much of an accomplishment to tout a large base of followers over other global leaders when your country already has a large, social media savvy citizenry.

Many organizations that leverage social media, both within and outside of the government, use these tools as simply a device for re-purposing the same, old information. Having a bare bones social media policy does not mean an organization can boast about being more open to the public. Tools like Twitter and Facebook were not conceived as a one-to-many tool, but as a means to connect people across the world and discuss issues relevant to them. Whether it’s talking about your cousin’s ugly baby photos or the organization of a protest against a tyrant, Twitter is about proactive engagement and conversations. A steady and sizable increase in global leaders communicating to their population through social media is a positive trend, but progress cannot stop there. A country’s leader having a large following online doesn’t mean that the country itself is moving towards a policy of open government. It’s what a leader does with his or her social media megaphone that matters.

citizen, communications, digital government, e-gov, engagement, feedback, Gov 2.0, outreach, social media, Twitter

Reach Out and Touch Someone

January 21st, 2013 | Posted by GovDelivery in Community Management/Engagement | Federal Government | Government 2.0 - (2 Comments)

By Lance Horne, General Manager, GovDelivery Federal

More than 30 years ago, an ad agency came up with a tagline to soften AT&T’s image and position the company as an indispensable element of everyday American life: “Reach out and touch someone.” After spending the last 15-plus years working within the public sector in a variety of roles, I’ve formed some strong opinions about how agencies can leverage technology to communicate more effectively with citizens. I’ve also seen how more effective government-to-citizen (G2C) communications can boost an agency’s image and position it as an essential part of citizens’ lives, much like AT&T managed to do with its “Reach out” campaign. Over the next few weeks I’ll share some of my thinking on this, starting with today’s post that focuses on G2C outreach and communication.

Government agencies have come a long way over the years in jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon – more are using web sites, Facebook and a variety of other social media channels to try to facilitate communications with citizens. But one area that’s still a quandary is how to get better at G2C communications, meaning ensuring that targeted information reaches the right audience, measuring the impact of communication efforts, and providing a conduit for citizens to not just consume information, but to react and respond to it. Many government agencies still rely on the more traditional forms of communication to get information to targeted groups of citizens, including advertising, print media, and channels that rely on physical delivery services.

Government agencies, much like industry entities, are most effective when efforts are focused on meeting the core mission. Things like defending our country, coordinating the logistics involved in keeping people fed and safe after a natural disaster such as Hurricane Sandy, and maintaining vital services are just a few of the areas where government focus is critical. It’s understandable that agencies might not have the time – or the expertise – to figure out how to more effectively reach out and touch citizens with vital communications. Clearly, leveraging industry providers with innovative and efficient technological offerings that have the capacity to effectively reach millions of recipients is a better approach.

Anyone who works within government realizes that you’re always going to be asked to do more with less. It’s been a general mandate for the past several years and isn’t going away anytime soon. So what do you do to boost G2C communications? One way is to develop a subscriber base and to immediately adopt subscribers from agencies with interests similar to your own. Working with the right industry G2C partner is something that agencies can do right off the bat to boost their profile and reach out and engage constituents more effectively.

If part of your overall mission is to have better relationships with citizens, then having a process in place for good G2C communications can help you accomplish that. And in the words of the AT&T tagline, you’ll be better able to reach out and touch someone.

Watch for more of my thoughts in coming weeks on topics such as cloud computing, improving communications with returning military and their families, and mining big information and ideas using big data technologies. In the meantime, I’d like to hear your thoughts on G2C communications. What challenges are you having in this area? What successes?

citizen, communications, digital government, engagement, Federal, Gov 2.0, government, web 2.0

Top 10 Most Viewed Blog Posts on Reach the Public

I know 2013 started just over a week ago, but it already feels like it’s been weeks since I celebrated the holidays and New Year’s with my family and friends. I think part of this is jumping back into the work day after some time off, but part of it is probably due to the fact that 2012 “year-end” reviews started weeks ago. (Google posted their Zeitgeist 2012 video a month ago! If you haven’t watched it, take a look and note how many cool events were driven by government organizations like yours.)

So I may be a little late to the game in adding my 2012 “top viewed blog entries” list, but I console myself that it’s only been a week or so. And with the belief that this list contains good reading that’s timeless. For those who may have missed these along the way, here are the top ten most-viewed blog entries on Reach the Public in 2012 and why I think they’re worth revisiting:

In this post, Lauren Modeen, Engagement Strategist extraordinaire, answers a question she received in a Reddit chat: how can you use rewards to motivate your online community?

She highlights four different ways that rewards can spur conversation and keep a community engaged, from simply featuring a member’s activity (whether that’s a discussion, question, or profile) to sending thank you notes or swag.

Why do I think this post is worth revisiting now? As we moved through 2012, it was impossible to ignore the impact of social media in government. Not just because it was a “new” way of amplifying the reach of government communications but also because of the emphasis on social. At the end of the day, people want to be part of a community; they want to interact with others who are interested in things they’re interested in. And government organizations began to understand that creating, developing and managing communities could be one way to truly drive mission value in a way that had never been done before.

Using Rewards to Motivate Your Online Community

This post was written quickly as I sat in a hotel room near GovDelivery UK’s office, up late with jet lag; so please allow me a moment to be a bit proud that it’s in this top ten list.

I logged onto my email to catch up on news in the communications world, and I saw the article on ReadWriteWeb detailing Mark Cuban’s opinion on Facebook. It was a fascinating read to me, mainly because of the very provocative but highly understandable situation Cuban faced with his basketball team (the Dallas Mavericks.) His organization had worked hard to gain Facebook fans, and they’d worked hard to engage that audience over a long period of time. So to come face-to-face with the knowledge that those connections aren’t actually available when you want them — or worse, that you have to pay Facebook to reach them — was jarring. For a government agency, that can mean a matter of life or death when you consider a situation like Hurricane Sandy.

Why is this post worth revisiting? It’s a good reminder that direct connections matter, especially in urgent situations. But it’s also good to remember that an integrated communications approach is still the key to ensuring that your government organization’s message is distributed as broadly as possible.

Abandoning Facebook

You’ll notice as you go through the rest of this list how much of these posts cover social media in government. Do you think it’s odd that the second most-viewed post was about abandoning Facebook but other posts in the top ten are about how to leverage or use social media? I think this is indicative of our society’s love/hate relationship with social media.

In this post, we summarize one of the most popular webinars I’ve ever hosted in my professional career (and I’ve hosted a lot of webinars). Our main speaker, Kristy Fifelski, also known as “GovGirl,” detailed her top 8 ways for government to engage citizens with social media – and boy, did we learn how hot a topic that was.

With nearly 1000 registrants, we had to expand our webinar contract (which had been limited to 250 “seats” to 1000 just in case everyone showed up.) And we had to expand our teleconference capability to ensure that everyone who attended could hear us. The experience gave myself and my IT team a mini heart attack – but it was all for a good cause, because this webinar was really amazing.

With concrete examples, in-the-field knowledge and expertise, and a fun presentation, Kristy/GovGirl gave our audience of government communicators key tips and tricks that could be implemented immediately to start using social media in more engaging ways. This is one post definitely worth revisiting.

8 Ways for Government to Engage Citizens with Social Media

Pinterest, another social networking site, launched in beta form in 2010 but didn’t start picking up more traction until mid-2011. By early 2012, it had become, as our post notes, “the hottest thing in social media.” By the end of 2012, the hotness had worn off a bit; but Pinterest remains a solid social networking site, with the most year-over-year growth for social desktop, web and app usage, according to Nielsen’s 2012 Social Media Report.

So take a look at this post on how government organizations can leverage Pinterest. As a site that stresses the social aspect of images, Pinterest can be a powerful storytelling social platform that extends beyond the capabilities of a social network like Twitter. This post reminds you of some ways to leverage this storytelling foundation to generate more interest and provide more value for your stakeholders.

Why Should Government be Interested in Pinterest?

That’s right, folks. The Internet and technology is no longer the sole purview of the young. In this post, we take on the idea that you can’t reach older demographics with digital means. That’s bollocks, as the British would say.

“Studies show that senior citizens are fast adopting email as one of their primary methods of digital interaction and communication. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 87% of senior citizens use email and search engines, while the Nielsen Company found that checking email was the primary online activity for 88.6% of seniors.”

If that’s not a prime reason to review your communications strategy and ensure that you’re using your digital communications to reach a broad spectrum of stakeholders, take a look at this post to find out which age group uses digital technology to do what (i.e. to get email, to use a search engine, to look for health information, etc.) The statistics will surprise you!

Tech-Savvy Senior Citizens on the Rise

The title says it all. Here’s a guide to help you with the best practices we’ve found in utilizing digital communications to reach your stakeholders and the public.

The post talks about why the guide is important and some of the strategies used by well-known public sector organizations. In fact, the guide’s been accessed more than 8,500 times since it was released last April.

The guide itself is a pretty deep dive into what works for digital communications, culled from over a decade of work with government organizations worldwide. If you don’t have the time to sit down to read it all, why not download it and try to tackle one tip or trick a week?

Digital Communication Best Practices Guide Now Available

Our friend and professional colleague, Steve Ressler, Founder of GovLoop, allowed us to share his thoughts on internal communications.

In the world of Gov 2.0 and Web 2.0, he tackles the next version of internal communications, drawing on current technologies used to communicate with the public to help facilitate internal communications. For instance, Human Resources could use text messages/SMS to remind employees of form deadlines.

As one of the top ten most popular posts of 2012, I think this post speaks to the need not only to reach the public to drive mission value but to reach our own internal audiences to help ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same big goals.

Internal Communications 2.0

I have to be honest: this was one of my favorite posts from 2012. Why? Because it brought something virtual and often “abstract” or conceptual into something physical that I understood: a shining example of how great communications can be.

In this post, our resident community management expert, Lauren, addresses the question, “How do I design an online community? What’s it supposed to look like?” And her answer is, in my opinion, pretty awesome.

If your government organization has an online community or is even thinking about starting one, take a look at this post. It’s a critical piece to consider when developing a community. Oftentimes, when we think about communities, we consider finding people who are going to be the community managers and hype people; how to keep an online community going; or how to generate discussion – all of which is important. But a clean, easy, and structured online community helps with all of that, and Lauren gives you an easy-to-read road map here.

How to Design an Online Community

Just a few days ago, Joseph Marks posted a short note about content on government websites, noting that most “dot-govs fail on content, not technology.”

That makes this post increasingly relevant. As a communications person myself, the power of content is becoming more and more apparent. It’s what drives connections between an organization and its audience.

In this post, our Digital Marketing Manager/Guru, Mike Bernard, tackles the idea of content marketing for government and provides ten tips that your organization can start using immediately to leverage the power of content to help meet your agency’s goals and drive mission value. From repurposing content to curation to making content easily shareable, these tactics can help you see an uptick in your outreach programs.

Content Marketing – Government Style

If you’re remotely interested in government technology, you probably already know the acronym “APIs”. It was hard to miss Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel’s tweet about it.

That’s why I think this post was one of the most-viewed from 2012. In 2013, I’d be surprised if APIs weren’t a continuing hot topic. The integrations available with this technology make it a critical component of the Federal Digital Government Strategy, but even more than that, it allows connections in ways that make government more efficient. What’s not to love?

In this post, Richard Fong, a (master) Technical Implementation Consultant, discusses his work in helping the US National Weather Service (NWS) implement APIs to help get the word out with tsunami warnings. Their API integration with their digital communications tool allows NWS to send out tsunami warning communications more quickly than ever before, helping to save lives in situations where seconds really matter.

It’s a good post to end the list, too, because it’s a great reminder of the crucially important work that government organizations do and how critical communications are in helping organizations meet their mission in serving the public.

National Weather Service Using APIs for Tsunami Alerts

So that’s our top ten list of most-viewed blog entries on Reach the Public. Was there one that you found especially insightful that I’ve missed here? Did you find these posts useful? Let me know in the comments!

APIs, collaboration, communications, community, content, data, digital government, e-gov, email, engagement, Facebook, Gov 2.0, government, GovLoop, outreach, Pinterest, social media, Steve Ressler, technology

Have you met the Digital Governance milestone?

November 26th, 2012 | Posted by Mary Yang for GovDelivery in Current Affairs | Federal Government | Government 2.0 - (1 Comments)

Last week, FCW noted an important milestone for federal agencies: “On Nov. 23, every federal agency will be expected to meet an important deadline set six months ago by the White House: the establishment of a digital governance structure within their organizations.”

The article, written by Ed Meehan, goes on to explain why digital governance is critical, especially to the larger directive of improving citizen service delivery and government-to-citizen experiences:

Digital governance is critical to every agency’s mission. Good governance is strengthened by investing wisely in the resources that can improve the digital experiences of citizens and boost customer satisfaction. In order to make the right investment choices, agencies must first develop a solid understanding of how users currently interact with government and how they are likely to interact when digital enhancements are introduced.

I couldn’t agree more. Meehan rightfully notes that redirecting citizen and customer inquiries – often done via telephone or in person – to online channels can improve efficiency and cut costs. Even more than this though, government agencies can move the needle on improving customer satisfaction by offering citizens and stakeholders the option of interacting with government via digital channels. This can help federal agencies be more impactful in delivering value and fulfilling agency mission goals.

Research firm IDC Government Insights recently spoke at a digital communications event in Washington, DC and provided a perceptive look at how government agencies can move towards Smart Government, a model where “a set of business processes and underlying information technology capabilities that enable information to flow seamlessly across government agencies and programs to become intuitive in providing high quality citizen services across all government programs and activity domains.” If you’re a federal agency looking for more information on how to raise efficiency levels within your agency but also between your agency and others, take a look at IDC’s presentation.

If your organization currently uses a GovDelivery solution, you are already fulfilling many of the milestones in the White House’s Digital Government Strategy. Take a look at our checklist for more information.

For some organizations, the milestones set forth in the Digital Government Strategy may not be that hard to meet. For some, there’s a longer path ahead. Regardless of where your organization stands on the spectrum, the goal of delivering better service through digital means is commonly accepted as a necessary next step for government. If you’re part of a federal agency, how have you met this digital governance milestone? Share your thoughts in the comments.

#digitalgov, digital governance, digital government, FCW, IDC

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