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

Digital Government, Innovation & Communciations

October 15th, 2012 | Posted by Mary Yang for GovDelivery in Events | GovDelivery | Government Success Stories - (0 Comments)

Wondering what Digital Government, innovation, and communications have to do with each other? Well, you’re in luck. GovDelivery is hosting its annual Federal Digital Communications event tomorrow, Tuesday, October 16, and our panel of public sector experts and Federal communicators will address these themes.

Other speakers will address concrete steps agencies can take to address Digital Government priorities in a timely, cost-effective manner.  And we’ll touch upon new technologies and digital communications best practices that you can begin implementing immediately.

For those of you who can’t join us in DC tomorrow, you don’t have to miss out. There will be a live, streaming webcast available. You can also follow the event on Twitter with the hashtag #GovD12.

If you’re joining us on the webcast, the program will start at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.

If you’re on the ground in DC, get there early (registration opens at 7:30 a.m.) for breakfast and to grab a free copy of our keynote speaker’s latest book, Little Bets. There’s a limited quantity of books available, so get there early to grab coffee, eat, and network with hundreds of government peers.

2011 Federal Digital Communications Event

Photo of 2011 Federal Digital Communications Event (October 2011)

 

, , , ,

Say Goodbye to Press Releases

October 10th, 2012 | Posted by Mary Yang for GovDelivery in Community Management/Engagement | Compelling Content | E-Government | Email Communication | Federal Government | GovDelivery | Government 2.0 - (2 Comments)

Emily Jarvis, Producer for DorobekINSIDER on GovLoop, recently posted a compelling interview with GovDelivery CEO and co-Founder, Scott Burns, on the changing nature of government communications. Here’s an excerpt from her post:

The government has a history of thinking of communication as a one-way press-release oriented type of activity. What we try to do is help people understand that now you need to personalize the experience with the mission of the organization and keep the individual in mind.

In the business world goals are very straightforward when it come to marketing. Make money. It is easy to measure success and failures. For government it’s much more difficult. We need to help clients understand that the objectives are different.

Lot’s of planning is needed up front, that way communication can actually support the mission not just about about getting more Twitter followers.

[For example last] year FEMA had 8,000 people participate in online communities. This year that number is already hovering at 20,000 people. The online communities are transforming the way people communicate. It’s no longer a one-way conversation, it’s all about direct collaboration.

DorobekINSIDER_post

To hear the whole interview, see Emily’s original post on GovLoop.

Have a question for Scott? Want to hear more about his thoughts on government communications? He’ll be speaking at a digital communications event in Washington, DC on October 16. You can also hear from leading experts from around the Federal government about leadership development, new technologies, and digital communications best practices. Registration is free, but space is limited. Reserve your seat today.

, , , , , , , , ,

Why government must embrace failure as a mission critical value

September 10th, 2012 | Posted by Mike Bernard for GovDelivery in Compelling Content | Federal Government | GovDelivery | Government 2.0 - (1 Comments)

In the current heated political climate, lots of air time is given to the failures of the opposing party.

“This policy was a total failure.” “That idea cost us a fortune and nothing worked.” “That was a horrible idea, and I will work to reverse it.”

This kind of rhetoric highlights two important issues that need to be addressed:

  1. The right kind of failure can actually be quite helpful.
  2. Negativity about failure obscures true successes.

1) The right kind of failure can actually be quite helpful.

The other day, I was watching a video of Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the United States, speaking at the recent NextGen Conference. Park was discussing why he loves working in government: because of the amazing opportunity to make a huge impact.

Park, while talking about how to have a huge impact in government, suggested applying the principle of Lean Start-Up from the book by Eric Ries:

  • When you need to solve a problem, get a small, agile team who understands the situation and task them with implementing change. Apply the Rule of 5 – no more than 5 people should be on the team. Any more than that and the difficulty in communication trumps the value add of the additional person/people.
  • Determine what is the smallest possible thing you could deploy rapidly to get customers to tell you what they really want? Go with that. That’s called MVP – Minimum Viable Product.
  • Rapid Iteration – Learn from your customers and iterate in days or weeks, not months or years. Failing fast is actually the most cost effective way of doing things because you haven’t invested a ton of time or money into doing something fast.

I was also reading through Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries by Peter Sims.* The book is all about how taking small risks, learning from your failures, and making improvements to your ideas is where true creativity comes from, rather than out-of-the-blue strokes of genius.

Sims writes, “The type of creativity that is more interesting to [University of Chicago economist, David] Galenson, and that is far more common, is experimental innovation. These creators use experimental, iterative, trial-and-error approaches to gradually build up to breakthroughs. Experimental innovators must be persistent and willing to accept failure and setbacks as they work towards their goals.”

What Park and Sims both touch on is the need for the right kind of failure. Implementing a series of small, rapidly deployed risks opens up the potential for huge long term success while minimizing the potential for colossal failure to occur.

For example, if a team of 4 people spent one week building a simple mobile app that never takes off, your organization hasn’t lost a lot. If that same team took 2 years to build a massive, database-driven web portal that addressed every possible scenario imaginable, and it bombs…lots lost!

Now let’s look at the converse. The same team builds a mobile app, and it gets a little bit of traction. It’s not perfect but people seem to like most of it. They spend a little more time fixing the bugs and adding features. More people use it now. More improvements lead to more interest, and ater a couple of years, you have a bona fide hit on your hands. Now, it’s possible that a big 2-year web portal is a hit, too. Great. But if it’s not, you’ve wasted a lot of time and money.

Question to ponder: How do you find ways within your organization to move quickly, fail fast, solicit feedback, iterate, and improve?

2) Negativity about failure obscures true successes.

Government oftentimes gets a bad rap. Lots of critique with little praise. When the rhetoric is constantly negative, people start believing that everything is dysfunctional. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the video I mentioned above, Park states that, with all his experience being an entrepreneur, he is most excited about the possibilities he has in his current role as Chief Technology Officer for the United States.

Why?

Because, as he puts it, Impact = Mass x Velocity.

Startups are great, but when they are in their infancy, they have a lot of velocity but little mass so their impact is small.

The government has a lot of mass. Once it is set on a trajectory toward innovation, and starts gaining velocity, the potential for huge impact is very high.

Park sites several examples where the government has embraced innovation, partnered with change makers, to turn a possibly negative situation into a path of innovation.

Here’s some I can think of:

  • The America’s Economy mobile app that helps you take the pulse of the US economy with real-time updates for 16 key economic indicators. This was a joint partnership between the US Census Bureau, The Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This app was built so previously disjointed, large volumes of data could be accessed quickly and easily.
  • The Milwaukee Police Department creating the coolest police news website in the entire country. They wanted a place where people would actually enjoy going to a government website and wanted to highlight the great work their officers were doing.
  • FEMA’s Ready.gov program that’s using creative technology to bring people together to make emergency preparedness plans…this couldn’t be more timely given the damage Hurricane Isaac is causing. So, now disconnected people from across the country can come together to work on problems collaboratively.
  • The Virginia Tourism Association had some fun and created an interactive map for a craft beer tour. How do you compete for vital tourism dollars? Highlight something no one else is doing!
  • Louisville, KY has created one of the most comprehensive, informative YouTube sites out there. You have great content but no one is viewing it? Get it to the place where people are already congregating.
  • And countless more…

Don’t become stuck in a rut of negativity. Rather, identify areas that need to be improved and start making small changes. You probably will discover that the once-negative problem quickly can become an area of success.

Question to ponder: What are one or two “negatives” you deal with that could be turned into positives by rethinking and reworking how you do things?

Government has the potential to create huge positive impact in people’s lives. It just takes a willingness to fail fast, learn, adapt, and iterate quickly coupled with finding ways to not get mired down in what’s not working by finding ways to create positive new velocity.


Interested in learning more? GovDelivery will be hosting a free event with Peter Sims as the keynote speaker. Register for the Annual Federal Digital Communications Event on October 16, 2012 in Washington D.C.

 

 

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Top 10 Tips for Executing a Successful Website Launch

July 25th, 2012 | Posted by GovDelivery in GovDelivery - (0 Comments)

By Mike Bernard, Digital Marketing Manager, GovDelivery

As you may have noticed, GovDelivery recently overhauled our entire website. A complete web redesign is a major task. It takes months of work to get everything done. Then you get to that critical moment, “go live,” and you find out if your efforts have paid off. Things either work or they don’t. Ensuring that things go smoothly can mean the difference between team high-fives and panicked chaos.

Before: Old GovDelivery website

After: New GovDelivery website

I’ve been through several website launches in my career. Some have gone well. Others, well…not so much. I’ve found that the launches that tend to go the smoothest all follow the following 10 tips:

  1. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Create a detailed launch plan that spells out all the steps, dates when things will happen, roles and responsibilities. Make sure everyone knows exactly what’s expected of them and when major project milestones are occurring. Two important parts of this plan should be an explanation of the objectives you are attempting to meet with a new website and specific metrics you will monitor to determine if the new site is performing as you expected.
  2. Have some people who didn’t create the site go through everything and check for spelling and grammatical errors. Also have them click on links, run searches, click icons. Have them note (and screenshot as much as possible) anything that appears odd or seems to be broken.  Sometimes you need new eyes on the site to catch a mistake you’ve overlooked a hundred times.
  3. Make sure your code is valid and that you have tested it in multiple browsers.  A great place to start is http://validator.w3.org/. This will help ensure that pages are loading correctly across all possible browsers.
  4. If you have forms (or questionnaires linked to an internal database) on your site, check each and every one to make sure everything is working correctly. This can be tedious but necessary work. I did this prior to our site launch and found 3 forms that weren’t working correctly. Fixing this error ensures people are getting the information they want and you are getting the data you need.
  5. Make sure you test your htaccess file, any redirects have a working 301 redirect in place, and your robots.txt is set to FOLLOW so web spiders can begin indexing your new site. Also, spend some time on your 404 page. Include an apology for having a broken link and links to popular pages. Thinking about how your 404 page works can mean the difference between losing a visitor completely and getting them to the information they need.
  6. If you are developing your site on a staging server, make sure any absolute internal links or image links correspond to the production URL, not your staging environment. This will prevent links and images from breaking when the site goes live.
  7. Don’t forget to install your analytics scripts so you can continue to get information about your sites usage.
  8. Save a backup of any databases, style sheets, your CMS configuration (if you are using one), all documents, images, files, and a copy of all your pages once you are done with all your internal testing. A complete backup could be the very thing that saves you from disaster.
  9. If you are making any changes to the DNS record, make sure you have someone who knows what they’re doing the work. If you screw up the DNS, your site will appear down to all visitors and it’s really tricky to figure out what you broke. Also, make sure to make changes to your DNS at a time when traffic is relatively low on your site. Usually, this means late in the evening on a weekend.
  10. Once the site is live and has propagated the web, make sure you spend some time testing the site. Sometimes strange things can happen, and you want to catch any errors as soon as possible.

Bonus tip: Once the site is live and working correctly, find a way for the team to celebrate! Maybe it’s a pizza party or a happy hour outing or a team dance of joy. Overhauling a website takes a lot of work, and it’s important to celebrate major milestones and congratulate each other on a job well done.

PS…I am happy to report that we followed the above tips for the new GovDelivery site and things went extremely smoothly. There was, of course, some nervousness when we finally “flipped the switch” and made the cut over, but that was soon followed by great joy when everything worked as we had hoped. May your next website launch go as smoothly as ours did!

, , , , , ,

When’s the perfect time to engage citizens?

July 12th, 2012 | Posted by GovDelivery in E-Government | Email Communication | GovDelivery | Government 2.0 | UK Government - (2 Comments)

By Amish Patel, Client Development Consultant, GovDelivery UK

Many of our clients rely on us to help them implement digital communication best practices, and one of the many questions we get is, “When is the best time to launch and promote citizen engagement services?”

In our minds, there is never a bad time, but in working with more than 500 government organisations worldwide, our experiences have shown that people flood to government websites when there is an emergency or other event that impacts service delivery.  Severe weather is a prime example of a time when citizens visit local government websites and subscribe in the thousands to official sources of information.  In the UK, with recent  floods along the south coast,  West Sussex County Council saw nearly 1,000 residents sign up for service information in a 48-hour period.

When there is an emergency you need a reliable, effective way of directly reaching as many residents as possible. The more people you reach the greater the impact your information can have. In addition to the obvious public benefits, effective communications help ease the workload of strained customer service teams.  Proactive, informative alerts are proven to help manage call demand and reduce avoidable contact.

Recent analysis of GovDelivery subscription rates to UK local government clients clearly shows that there is considerably more activity between the months of November and February, and it’s no surprise this period coincides with winter service disruptions.  Interestingly, the majority of new subscribers during this period subscribe to multiple topics of interest, including school closures, missed bins, council tax updates and local events.  Even obscure service areas, such as  Pest Control, get multiple subscribers. A typical resident subscribes to 7 – 10 service notifications before leaving the website, giving your local government organisation multiple future points of engagement.

Derbyshire County Council  captures website visitors’ attention with eye catching sign-up links in key areas.  The result of this is that residents who search for the latest information on winter service disruption can easily sign up to receive future updates and be proactively informed across multiple service areas, maximising direct connections with residents.

It goes without saying that informed citizens make better decisions and are generally much happier.  In these austere times, efficient communications save Government large sums in avoidable contact. Therefore, it’s hard to say there is ever a bad time to increase public engagement and improve communication.

 

 

, , , , , , , , , ,

What is Community Culture?

May 3rd, 2012 | Posted by Joseph Porcelli for GovDelivery in Community Management/Engagement | GovDelivery | Government 2.0 - (1 Comments)

Managing an online community can be like being on recess duty at middle school when all the kids are hopped on sugar and have been stuck inside for a week because of rain. Having a set of rules that everyone understands and agrees with beforehand can help restore order when everyone is really excited or a fight is about to break out.

We are human beings having a human experience through technology, and in online communities, we are having the experience together. As human beings we show up to life (and online communities) with our own beliefs, expectations, values and desires. In an online community, the conversations we have and actions we take together become our rituals. Online communities need to be designed and managed with all of this in mind.

Having built, launched, and managed more online communities than I can remember, I’ve learned that the community managers who invest in developing, validating, and managing their community cultures have more productive, fun, and resilient communities.

So what is Community Culture? Here is my take that I have adapted from what I’ve read about culture and my own experience:

Community Culture is the shared set of beliefs, expectations, values, desires and rituals that influence the ways in which individuals, groups, and teams will interact with one another and collaborate to achieve common objectives.

Our clients who run GovDelivery Collaboration for their online communities typically do so to increase the effectiveness and efficiencies of member capacity and to increase awareness and change behaviors of those they influence. As Director of Engagement Services at GovDelivery, my team helps government organizations discover the beliefs, expectations, values, and desires of their community members during the Assessment phase. Then, we infuse the cultural knowledge learned in this phase into the design of engagement flows. In addition, this knowledge is used to customize features that increase the value of member participation, driving ongoing engagement that results in productive, fun and resilient communities.

Below I’ve shared the template we use at GovDelivery as a starting point — feel free to use it. Keep in mind this is meant to serve as a general statement for the community as a whole. I recommend you use this as a part of your community guideline and/or moderation policy. It’s important to remind members of the guidelines periodically and when moderating, point to the guideline to remind them of what is acceptable and unacceptable.

Beliefs:  When we are connected, and use common tools to collaborate, we are more effective and efficient at meeting individual, organizational and collective objectives.

Expectations: We contribute what we can about what we know; ask for what we need; keep doing what is working; communicate about what is not working, and when possible, offer suggestions towards the solution.

Values: The spirit in which we take actions:

  • We are thoughtful, respectful and helpful.
  • We encourage each other.
  • We celebrate each other’s accomplishments.
  • We appreciate the diversity our approaches.

Rituals: The actions we regularly take:

  • We read and comment on each other’s discussions and blog posts.
  • We share our best practices and success stories.
  • We ask for help and help each other out.
  • We are factual, cite sources, and make it clear when something is our own personal opinion.

Desires: What we have in common that motivates us:

  • We strive to serve others.
  • We seek to serve each other.
  • We choose to learn and empower ourselves.

Common Objectives: What we are working towards together

  • Objective 1
  • Objective 2
  • Objective 3

Another lesson I’ve learned is that I don’t have all the answers and the best place to look first is the community itself. And so I humbly ask you:

  1. Do you have any suggestions of what we should consider adding to this template? Is there anything you don’t agree with?
  2. How in your experiences have you seen beliefs, expectations, values, desires and rituals contribute to or hinder a community’s productivity, fun, or resilience?

 

Joseph Porcelli, Director
GovDelivery & GovLoop Engagement Services
202-407-7461 @JosephPorcelli

, , , , , ,

The Power of One

May 1st, 2012 | Posted by GovDelivery in Email Communication | GovDelivery - (0 Comments)

By Dave Worsell, Director, Government Solutions, GovDelivery UK

I was recently asked to present to the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) for a “Lunch and Learn” session.  The purpose of the presentation was to demonstrate the importance of proactive public sector communications and some of the risks and pitfalls when providing proactive communication on a very large scale.

For many Email Service Providers (ESPs) there is strength in numbers.  If you’re sending 1 million messages for a major retailer it doesn’t matter if a few go missing or if a few end up in spam filters provided the vast majority do reach their intended audience.  After all, the recipient doesn’t really care if they don’t get the latest special offers on wide-screen televisions and provided you sell enough, neither do you.

It’s a very different story if you’re sending safety alerts and public notifications.  Every message matters.  Ensuring Peter, the local pharmacist, removes a polluted batch of medicines from his shelves might be the only thing that matters to his customers.

A recent study by ReturnPath estimated that as many as 1 in 5 emails don’t reach the intended recipient and this could increase to 1 in 4 as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and spam filters get more sophisticated.  What if Peter’s message is one of those?

Building large scale message delivery capability is very difficult and expensive as our blog post, The deceptive simplicity of pressing send, explains.  For this reason, many organisations use ESPs to send messages for them. However, as a government communicator there are some important things you need to know.

ESPs go to great lengths to ensure deliverability rates are as high as possible.  They work with the ISPs to manage reputation.  It’s important for them that your “sender reputation” is as high as possible. Why? Because, your reputation impacts their sender reputation and this impacts the reputation of all their clients.

In order to maintain reputation scores and highly impressive deliverability rates (99%+) major ESPs provide sophisticated content filters and spam analysis tools and insist you check your messages deliverability score before you can send the message.  It’s down to you to make the necessary changes to any message that fails these tests.

What happens when you can’t change the message?  What if your message contains keywords that trigger spam filters? For example, the product you’re recalling is a Viagra tablet with a dangerous pollutant or the campaign is about a drug awareness course?  What if you can’t re-write a ministerial statement because it fails the spam checks?  Even if you could, do you have time when lives are at stake?

Before deciding on which ESP to use take a quick look at their delivery rates but much more importantly how they achieve them.  Using message pre-parsers and spam scoring tools is great for ESP reputation management but when you need to get a message out urgently is it what you need?

GovDelivery sends 262 million notifications each year for UK government and this figure is predicted to reach 2 billion in a few years time.  However, it’s delivery of one message that matters most.  The power of one.

, , , , , ,

Changing the government IT landscape with CloudStore

February 22nd, 2012 | Posted by Mary Yang for GovDelivery in Cloud Computing | Compelling Content | E-Government | GovDelivery | Government 2.0 | Government Success Stories | Local Government - (0 Comments)

On Sunday, February 19, the Government Procurement Service officially launched CloudStore for UK central government and local authorities.

The UK government first proposed the G-Cloud initiative over two years ago with the goal of bringing a wider range of cloud suppliers to the public sector while increasing the flexibility of procurement contracts. The programme wanted to create an online store that public sector organisations could use to find services and supplies without the restriction of lengthy contracts and complex procurement. The system is being modelled after application online stores, similar to the Apple Mac App Store and Android Market, and is currently offering more than 1,700 services from 258 suppliers.

The G-Cloud initiative focuses on the need for public sector organisations to adopt more cloud-based IT services and supplies, which costs less and can be deployed quickly, versus traditional IT hardware and software. To this end, CloudStore is organized by four service genres:

  • Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
  • Platform as a service (PaaS)
  • Software as a service (SaaS)
  • Specialist cloud services

Since last week, UK media have been buzzing with news on the G-Cloud initiative, especially as reports from the Cabinet Office relayed information on the launch of CloudStore. So, what’s the big deal?

The truth is that, while the private sector has long seen the benefits of cloud computing, government is still slow on the uptake. A government employee based in Canada shared his frustrations with the lack of technological advancement in government with a recent blog post on GovLoop. He writes: “In 2012, there are many public servants whose computers simply run Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office. In many cases we are still running the 2003 version of each piece of software.  A majority of the work of the public service is still done by traditional desktop or local server based software and e-mail clients. For much of the public service, the reality faced is one where work is conducted on 5-6 year old desktop tower computers in localized applications using outdated desktop software that stifle collaboration, create version control problems and ultimately cost the government more money to run and administer.” While our personal lives are dominated by mobile technology (iPads and tablets) and cloud-based software like Gmail, those who work in government find that their professional technology environment is simply outdated.

UK Government agencies and organisations are under more pressure than ever to deliver services under increasingly reduced budgets. Moving IT infrastructure and software to cloud-based suppliers can have a significant impact. In fact, in the Guardian’s latest article on the G-Cloud the newspaper quotes Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office, as saying: “By creating a competitive marketplace, the G-Cloud framework will constantly encourage service providers to improve the quality and value of the solutions they offer, reducing the cost to taxpayers and suppliers. And it gives SME suppliers of niche products the same opportunities as bigger organisations supplying services.”

The G-Cloud initiative outlined the UK Government’s belief that cloud computing is a necessary next step in government IT evolution. But the launch of CloudStore provides the framework and foundation for central government and local authorities to begin to reap the benefits of cloud-based software and services. It is a giant step in the right direction.

As a cloud-based, government-focused communications software supplier, GovDelivery has always felt strongly that cloud computing can increase government efficiency while reducing cost. Thus, it was an honor to be included as a supplier in the G-Cloud catalogue with the launch of CloudStore. With over 500 government clients using GovDelivery software to manage their communications, we witness how impactful cloud-based software is on a daily basis with government organisations. Here are two UK government organisations that are already benefiting from cloud-based software:

Driving Standards Agency (DSA) has seen enormous success in using Digital Communication Management, a cloud-based solution that is scalable, easily implemented and updates regularly to take advantage of emerging technologies. DSA uses this solution to connect to nearly 47,000 citizens currently. For instance, DSA uses this tool to integrate their communications with the most popular social media networks. As other social media channels develop or gain prominence, this cloud-based software can update to include those channels without disrupting DSA’s regular usage. Read their story online.

Norfolk County Council is using the same solution to help manage their digital communications efforts and is now reaching nearly 35,000 residents and stakeholders directly. Norfolk County Council also predicted a savings of £20,000 per annum by publishing electronic committee reports to County Councilors instead of providing printed reports. Norfolk County Council is not only reducing communications costs but also delivering these committee reports more quickly through email, increasing the local authority’s efficiency. Read the story online.

What are your thoughts on the G-Cloud framework and the launch of CloudStore? Please leave your thoughts in the comments!

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

APIs and Tax Season

February 16th, 2012 | Posted by GovDelivery in GovDelivery | Government 2.0 | Mobile - (2 Comments)

By Richard Fong, Technical Implementation Consultant

Have you wondered how your organization can step into the mobile world? Do you want to extend your reach and drive more engagement with the general public wherever they can consume your content – whether that’s from a desktop or a mobile device such as a smartphone?

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stepped more firmly into the mobile device arena, recently announcing an update to their IRS2GO 2.0 app on iOS and Android platforms. This update adds new features to their previous app, such as access to their YouTube channel. In addition, IRS2GO allows app users to enter in their email address to receive “simple, straightforward tips and reminders” from the IRS. This helps extend the IRS’s reach by encouraging app users to also sign up to receive emails from the IRS, specifically from the “Tax Tips” topic. The sign up portion of the app was built using a Subscriber API (application programming interface) within GovDelivery Digital Communication Management (DCM).

IRS2Go app

This integration isn’t as complicated as it seems. In fact, many GovDelivery clients are already using APIs to help integrate a number of processes. Examples of current API integrations include:

  • The State of Michigan is using our API to capture subscribers for their Fall Colors eNewsletter.
  • A large Federal agency is using our API to sync their internal grants database with GovDelivery to ensure grantees get the most recent and relevant information.
  • San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) sends out email and SMS alerts about elevator service availability on a daily basis via our Send Bulletin API.

Many private companies (Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, Twitter, etc.) have APIs available to build out an automated integration, and GovDelivery is no different. An API is made up of resources that are available programmatically. With a library of industry standard RESTful APIs that clients can use to make requests to GovDelivery DCM – from creating and assigning subscribers to sending a message – your organization can automate manual processes and free up times and resources.

If you have any questions about how your organization can use APIs or integrate with GovDelivery DCM, contact us at info@govdelivery.com.

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sift Through Big Data to Find Real Insight

January 18th, 2012 | Posted by Dennis Still for GovDelivery in Analytics/Data | Compelling Content | Email Communication | Federal Government | GovDelivery | Government 2.0 - (0 Comments)

There is a ton of talk today about “big” data.  The concept comes from our ever increasing ability to collect, store, and manage larger and larger datasets full of vast amounts of information – customer information, habits, purchasing patterns, social media visits, and so on.  Unfortunately, I think many private and public organizations have become much like the Once-ler in Dr. Seuss’ Lorax:

I had to grow bigger so bigger I got. I biggered my factory, I biggered my roads, I biggered the wagons, I biggered the loads…

I biggered my datasets because that is what everyone, everyone needs…

The true test of an organization’s ability to use any data effectively is in the analysis of that data.  What can you understand from “big” data and how can it help government organizations achieve greater efficiencies, effectiveness, and engagement with the citizens they serve?  I think the answer is in the smaller, localized, actionable gems that you sift out of the ever-growing big data.

GovDelivery recently published the 2011 Federal Digital Communications Report in which we reflect on the breadth and depth of digital communications across governmental agencies.  We leveraged big data to highlight actionable information that can provide important insights for government agencies, including what topics were important to citizens.

  • 28% of governmental messages sent out via the GovDelivery platform dealt with Health & Health Care in 2011.  It was a critical topic focused on by the national media, and this report shows that all levels of government agencies provided further analyses, clarifications, policies, and follow-up through their digital communications.

  • Over 25% of governmental messages dealt with Business & Small Business and Jobs & Employment.  Again, the economy has been a major focus throughout the world.  This has given government organizations the opportunity to get out timely information to help its citizens cope as well as help support increased economic activity by educating and encouraging entrepreneurs and small businesses.
  • IRS, National Weather Service, FEMA, and USDA had some of the highest shared content across all Federal agencies that use the GovDelivery digital communications solution.  This list shows the specific messages from government agencies that citizens felt compelled to share with family and other social networks. It demonstrates immediate mission value for government while also providing agencies with information that can help them tailor their future communications. Many shared important updates and news alerts related to subjects like:
  1. SAMHSA – Facebook’s First-of-a-Kind Service to Help Prevent Suicides
  2. USDA – New Food Icon to help consumers make healthier food choices
  3. USA.gov – Moment of silence in remembrance of 9/11
  • By identifying some detailed data, we were able to highlight the incredible growth of specific topics that showed growing public interest. The report showed that the SSA’s W-2 News, FEMA’s Updates During Disasters, and AHRQ’s Patient Safety grew the most by number of subscribers over 2011.

The study overall provides remarkable proof that governments are providing relevant, topic based, and insightful information for their citizens.  GovDelivery is proud to partner with government organizations to help get the word out about the kind of information that impact all of us.

Theoretically, the idea of big data for government sounds valuable, but in reality, big data doesn’t provide the insight that helps you communicate better with the public.  It is not just about “biggering” your data; it is about leveraging specific data to lead to greater wisdom and insights.  If you ever need help seeing the detailed trees through the ever-growing data forest, contact us at GovDelivery.

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,