Government 2.0 | Reach The Public

How to Gain Subscribers During Special Events

Many government organizations and agency departments plan and promote special events or seasonal occasions that relate to the constituency they serve and support. Highlighting these events through communications and digital content provides a fun and timely way to interact with the public, and can even serve as a platform for gaining subscribers and engaging citizens long-term.

The Environmental Protection Agency replaced its normal home page with specially designed interactive presentations to commemorate Earth Day. The overlay, which included a stunning photo of Earth from space, was a visually pleasing way to inform the public about Earth Day and related events the EPA was sponsoring. The special home page provided slide shows, links to events for volunteers, and an invitation to send in photos from home.

While the EPA’s Earth Day home page is a great example of tailoring digital content to inform and educate stakeholders on issues that impact an organization’s mission, the organization missed a prime opportunity to offer an easy opt-in for email alerts. An out-of-the-ordinary web element like a special home page or highlighted overlay is one of the best ways government communicators can spark interest from a visitor and subsequently call attention to the proactive digital communications offered by the organization. Techniques such as these can even double or triple sign-ups to subscriber lists.

A sign-up form or link is easy to add on to a specially designed event home page and offers a convenient call-to-action for visitors attracted by special event information. This approach leverages the additional traffic that might result from a special event and also maximizes the long-term impact of the short-term custom content by offering ongoing email updates to visitors with specific interests.

On special days or events such as Earth Day, agencies like the EPA can turn new visitors looking for event-specific information into stakeholders by asking them to subscribe. Be sure to offer updates on a variety of topics, and consider a category of updates for subscribers interested in special events or holiday-related information in particular. Taking advantage of times of peak interest in your department or agency’s website can result in big wins in subscriber numbers and stakeholder engagement.

Has your department tied subscription sign-up opportunities into promotions for special events going on in the community? Share your tips on turning one-time special event visitors into lifetime stakeholders in the comments.

Citizen Engagement, communication, digital government, Earth Day, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, Gov 2.0, GovDelivery, outreach, responsiveness, special events, technology

Does channel shift require cultural shift?

We’ve been writing about ‘channel shift’ in government for some time. The benefits of using new digital channels for citizen communications are clear – the Cabinet Office expects the UK government to realise savings of 1.2 billion pounds sterling by 2015 through its Government Digital Strategy.

So, what’s holding us up?

It takes more than time and technology

It’s tempting to see the channel shift issue as an issue of technology and resources. Hire a webmaster to build a better website. Hire someone to post things on social media. Send a few emails. Watch the savings pile up and the citizens rejoice.

If only it were so simple. To deliver a measurable return for agency investments, ‘channel shift’ strategies have to overcome several common obstacles in government organisations.

Decentralised, isolated efforts

For many agencies, the biggest cultural challenge is getting around isolated pockets of efforts and communications. You might hire someone to do Twitter, for example, or maintain a Facebook page that operates on its own, without being part of an integrated strategy to improve service levels.

The result of this approach is isolated ‘silos’ of data that make it difficult to reengage citizens across your multiple channels. This can actually increase your costs (through duplication of efforts) and limit the impact of your online strategies.

Shifting models of engagement with citizens

Government entities face an internet-adept generation of citizens that expects a certain level of real-time communications and interactive relationships with government.

In her paper “Digital Communications and Channel Shift in Government,” government communications analyst Liz Azyan discusses the challenges of adapting to these changing citizen expectations:

“Citizen engagement with the new socially informed generation also calls for two-way dialog. Governments are shifting their view of citizens as consumers and allowing citizens to become contributors in the development of government. ”

Learn from the successes of others

How do you identify and address cultural obstacles? Learning from others is one good way. This blog can be a resource for sharing successes in digital government organisations. And at GovDelivery, we sponsor research and ongoing analysis into what works and what doesn’t.

As part of those efforts, we’re making available a series of white papers by Liz Azyan, a blogger and analyst that specialises in government digital communications. The first of these papers addresses the cultural issues behind channel shift. The paper includes examples of government agencies using digital strategies – including Twitter and Flickr photo sharing – for creative campaigns and citizen engagement. Look for inspiration and guidance – and then share your successes with us.

channel shift, channel shift in government, communications, community, data, digital government, e-gov, engagement with citizens, social media, technology, Twitter, UK Government

Digital communications improve customer service

In an era of limited resources, governments need to build strong relationships with citizens and stakeholders, and what better place to start than by improving customer service. That’s just what public sector entities in the United Kingdom plan to do. In a GovDelivery survey of almost 100 UK government employees, respondents identified customer service as the top trend taking centre stage in 2013. At the same time, more than two-thirds of respondents said that government is already working to improve customer service.

Take a look at this infographic that provides a visual overview of survey results. As one of the graphs depicts, customer service is far and away the top priority for the UK government compared to budget or big data. Collaboration, however, comes in at a healthy second place. For a full analysis of the survey results, download the white paper.

The white paper notes that communication with citizens is the first critical stage of customer service for most public sector organisations and one of the easiest to modify to improve services. One way the UK government is improving communication is via strong support for social and digital programs.

For example, the Government Digital Strategy published by the Cabinet Office calls for government organisations to embrace digital services to constituents. New or redesigned services must conform to a “digital-by-default” standard. It also calls for the Central Government to consolidate publishing on the GOV.UK site and raise awareness of digital resources. With such a strong focus on digital communication, the government has an opportunity to engage with and consult the public, establishing the collaboration that develops into good communication, which ultimately leads to excellent customer service. In addition, digital tools can help departments meet their objectives of improving customer service, even during times of constrained budgets.

Despite the government’s emphasis on a strong digital program, only about half of respondents said their departments use social media to communicate with citizens- so there is room for improvement. Find out more by downloading the white paper, which provides an in-depth analysis of the survey findings and to learn how the three top UK government trends for 2013 are related.

channel shift, citizen service, collaboration, communications, community, engagement, Gov 2.0, government services, outreach, technology, UK Government

Futurism and Government

I know what you’re probably thinking, “What is futurism?” And then your next question is likely, “And what’s that got to do with government?” I’ve been reading a recently published book, Think Like a Futurist: Know What Changes, What Doesn’t, and What’s Next by Cecily Sommers, that explains futurism as the practice of engaging in “new thinking in order to connect today’s pressures with tomorrow’s realities.”

So what’s this got to do with government? Well, it turns out, quite a bit. Government Technology covered a conference where Brian David Johnson, Intel’s director of future casting and resident futurist gave the keynote. The article noted that Johnson stated how “crucial [it will be] for government agencies to think well into the future when planning technology implementations.” Moreover, he is quoted as saying, “…government agencies must prepare for the future of tech by having a vision, and contemplating what humans will be like down the road.”

Especially now, in a time with unprecedented budgetary constraints (re: sequestration), extensive technological advances and broad demographic changes, this kind of forward-looking thinking can help anchor and prepare government organizations to take on tumultuous times.

(www.cecilysommers.com)

And that’s exactly what Cecily Sommers’ book Think Like a Futurist can help you do, whether you’re a government technologist or communications specialist or administrator. In the book, she discusses the “Four Forces of Change” – resources, technology, demographics, and governance – and how understanding each force helps you “get a big-picture perspective on any challenge you may face. Understand how they work together to drive change, and you will be able not only to avert crises but also to uncover ideas and opportunities…along the way.”

Does this sound too pie-in-the-sky? After reading the book, there are some deeply compelling examples of how futurism applies to the broader call for innovation in government through technology. For instance, she writes about a Bangladeshi man, Iqbal, who brings the mobile phone movement to Bangladesh’s most poor and rural citizens after he realizes how critical communications technology is to increasing productivity “by helping people coordinate their work and resources.” For the rural and poor citizens in Bangladesh, this was a profound advancement in their quality of life and the country’s economic growth. Iqbal didn’t invent the cell phone, but he had the vision to use this technology in a new way to improve the quality of life for thousands of people in his home country. Cecily notes that Iqbal understood that mobile phone technology was here to stay. And he understood the demographics of his country. Those two pieces of knowledge inspired his vision.

This is just one example from the book, which I encourage you to read, but why not hear from Cecily yourself? She will be speaking at our next two Digital Communications Tour stops (Oakland and Denver). We’ll also be giving away her book (quantities are limited) and attendees will have a chance to ask Cecily questions after her keynote.

Come find out how you can think like a futurist. Register for the Oakland stop or the Denver stop today.

communications, digital government, engagement, GovDelivery, innovation, outreach, technology

Do RSS Feeds Still Matter?

Co-written by Mary Yang, Senior Communications Manager, and Anna Stroncek, Marketing and Communications Intern- GovDelivery

The recent Google announcement that it would be shutting down Google Reader has led to a flurry of blog posts and discussions around RSS feeds, their importance (or lack thereof), and what to do now.

What is an RSS Feed?

For those of you non-techies out there, or maybe those of you whom just need a quick refresher on what an RSS feed is, here’s a short and sweet explanation.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (RSS), which is essentially a format for delivering regularly changing web content. RSS feeds allow a user to subscribe to their favorite news sources, blogs, websites, and other digital properties, and then receive the latest content from all those different areas or sites in one place, without having to repeatedly visit each individual site.

Picture your Twitter Feed filled with postings of new content from your favorite sources rather than 140 characters informing you of which friend is currently enjoying the new vanilla spice latte from Starbucks, #delicious.

RSS was developed in the 1990s, giving websites the ability to push information out to their subscribers as opposed to a subscriber having to check for new content by going to each individual website. This new development brought on increased capabilities for websites and blogs to capture new visitors and turn them into returning visitors, as well as helping to increase the online ranking of the website to bring increased overall awareness.

Now fast forward to 2013. RSS feeds still exist, and they still do get used. However, they’re no longer the new kid on the block, so they’re not as ‘popular’ as they once were. More and more that small orange widget seems to go missing from the ever-increasing lineup of widgets on any given website.

With all the buzz surrounding social media, it’s easy to argue that RSS feeds are dying out and becoming a thing of the past. Who needs to subscribe to RSS feeds when you can get instant news and updates from outlets like Twitter?

Maybe that’s what Google’s thinking by shuttering Google Reader, which, just a few of years ago, was the RSS tool to use. But what’s next, especially with this new development in the tech world?

The Future of RSS

Today’s world is filled with massive amounts of information. According to IBM, 90% of today’s existing data has been created in just the past two years. People no longer sit down at their desktop and surf the web for an hour a day. Instead, they are constantly creating, searching for information, and retrieving content from all types of devices – smartphones, tablets, e-readers, and laptops. As these digital technologies continue to evolve and move in a more mobile direction, new opportunities arise for technologies like RSS.

Hot new mobile applications like Flipboard provide a great example of how RSS feeds can be leveraged to bring updated digital content to customers. Flipboard publishes content from thousands of sources via optimized RSS feeds. Publishers are pushing out their new content via RSS, and Flipboard leverages these feeds to users in a magazine-like layout (within Flipboard). This application can be used on smartphones, tablets and e-readers bringing customers the content they desire in a simple, convenient, personal and aesthetically pleasing way.

Another example of leveraging RSS feeds is the application Pulse. Pulse, quoted by Steve Jobs as “a wonderful RSS reader”, is an elegant newsreader application that uses publishers’ RSS feeds to read and publish content. Pulse brings its 25 million (and counting) users their favorite blogs, magazines and social networks to one place at one time. Similar to Flipboard, their application is compatible across iOS and Android platforms, but also makes content even more accessible and convenient with its compatibility to Windows, Nook, Kindle, Xbox and the web.

These two applications have been around for a while now but still mainly pull from well-known publications or newspapers. With the death of Google Reader on our doorstep, tech firms are already on the hunt for Google Reader’s massive user base. Digg announced just this week that they’re speeding up the release of an RSS reader/application. But in their statement, they note that they’re going to push the envelope of RSS too:

We hope to identify and rebuild the best of Google Reader’s features (including its API), but also advance them to fit the Internet of 2013, where networks and communities like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit and Hacker News offer powerful but often overwhelming signals as to what’s interesting.

So what does this mean for you?

The demise of Google Reader sounds like an open invitation for some tech firms to start innovating on a well-defined technology to make it more relevant and integrated into the tools we’re already using every day. This could mean that RSS feeds could become the new cool in digital technology, and since it leverages technology that’s fairly stable, you could roll with this curve once it hits simply by instituting an RSS feed.

Much like magazines and newspapers, governments and their organizations possess a lot of information and produce a lot of great content. However, it can be a challenge to attract regular visitors to your digital properties, which is why RSS feeds and proactive communication comes in handy. For GovDelivery clients, all your digital communications created and sent out via the Digital Communication Management (DCM) platform can be collected in an RSS feed, allowing you to push content out to your citizens and stakeholders easily. One great example is the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) in the UK. They offer different types of RSS feeds, tailored to the topics they’ve defined in GovDelivery DCM:

Their digital communications management system allows them to segment their RSS feeds so readers don’t have to figure out what’s important – if you’re an instructor, you merely subscribe to their instructors email topic or you follow their instructors RSS feed.

Another great government example is the White House. The White House has developed a mobile app that pushes out content from The White House Blog, press articles, photo galleries, LIVE stream videos, speeches and more all by way of RSS feeds. The app is visually appealing and easy to navigate. This is a great way to emulate apps like Flipboard and push your organizational content into the mobile sphere while leveraging content and tools you already have available.

And although the White House may have a slight advantage over smaller government entities in terms of content (a live stream of the State of the Union), state and local governments can leverage RSS feeds and content that’s already available to inform and educate. People like to know and see what’s going on where they live. So take a look at what your organization currently produces (blogs, photos, events, news updates, videos, etc.) and find out if you can pull those pieces of content into an RSS feed (or multiple RSS feeds) to help expand your digital communications reach even more.

Do you use Google Reader personally? How do you feel about the announcement? Let us know what you think might be ahead for RSS feeds in the comments.

collaboration, communication, community, digital government, e-gov, engagement, Google Reader, RSS, social media, technology, Twitter, web 2.0

How NHS could benefit from proactive public health alerts

By Kathy Kyle, Digital Communications Consultant, GovDelivery

A recent BBC article explores how the National Health Service (NHS) has spent £13 million on public relations and whether the Trust and the public is receiving value for money. Some NHS Trusts have commented that the use of PR firms is necessary to educate the public on health issues, especially with regard to high-profile public health campaigns.

There is no doubt that when it comes to public health, proactive, timely, and targeted communications can raise awareness, prevent illness, and inform the public, keeping them safe and healthy. Whether it is a campaign regarding healthier choices around smoking, caffeine, or alcohol, an urgent international health crisis, or every day communications with the public to keep them healthy and safe, the value of proactive communications can – and should be – evaluated. Government healthcare organisations and institutions can be much more effective with digital communications by measuring reach, engagement, and in-person visits. This not only bolsters public trust in the system and saves funds, but can dramatically improve healthcare outcomes.

NHS communications staff can potentially demonstrate the return on its digital investment on a campaign basis by measuring any correlation between the reduction of reported illnesses, office visits, and avoidable contact and the increases in the number of people subscribed to digital communications, engagement rates with digital messages, web traffic, and social media follows.

Instead of focusing funds and efforts primarily on PR campaigns, NHS could complement its outreach efforts by maximising direct connections with the public using an integrated digital communications platform. This kind of platform is available at a fraction of the cost of hiring an external PR firm. GovDelivery Digital Communication Management (DCM) is one system that has been successfully used for proactive public health programmes in the United States by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centres for Disease Control (CDC), and many state Departments of Health – as well as in the UK by the Health Safety Executive (HSE), Health Protection Agency (HPA), Department of Health, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and the Food Standards Agency (FSA). These government institutions and organisations are directly connecting, educating, informing and engaging the public without spending a fortune – and their internal staff are easily managing the message and the process.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s goals include safeguarding public health by ensuring that the products they regulate meet required standards, that the products work and that they are acceptably safe. From a communications perspective, MHRA must ensure accurate, timely and authoritative information is provided to healthcare professionals, patients and the public.

MHRA uses GovDelivery DCM to send nearly 28 million messages to opt-in subscribers; more than 50,000 stakeholders around the UK have self-subscribed through the Agency’s email alerting service. MHRA must ensure a high message delivery rate due to the time-sensitive and potentially life-saving nature of its alerts. If you’ve ever had to ensure that a message was delivered quickly, with metrics to ensure it was delivered, you know how difficult this can be to manage in-house. There could be serious consequences if messages are delayed in reaching pharmacists, physicians and the public. By partnering with GovDelivery, MHRA leverages GovDelivery’s active management of relationships with all major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) on behalf of over 550 public sector entities worldwide. MHRA is then assured a high deliverability rate, and MHRA communications staff can spend their time engaging directly with constituents, ensuring potentially life-saving, time sensitive medical and drug-related messages are delivered, instead of troubleshooting why messages are caught in filters and flagged as spam. View the complete MHRA success story.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a $941B organisation with over 65,000 staff, invests in health care, disease prevention, social services, and scientific research. HHS was already reaching a large audience through its use of GovDelivery email alert subscriptions, when the H1N1 pandemic flu outbreak threatened the United States. HHS needed to reach the largest audience possible to ensure individuals were kept informed and safe.

Email subscriptions to Flu.gov information increased more than ten times the normal rate due to higher interest as well as collaboration with CDC and other partners in the GovDelivery Network. Average new subscribers exceeded 3,000 per day versus the previously established average of 215. Over one million email alerts were sent to subscribers at their request regarding H1N1. Emails included “Share This” links with content being repurposed and shared over 120 times via social media channels. HHS also cross-promoted the email alert service with social media networks. Twitter links embedded in email alerts generated more than 10,000 clicks and helped boost HHS’s Twitter followers. View the entire HHS success story.

The difference between proactive digital communications and a PR campaign without measurable impact has more than just financial repercussions. Now more than ever, investments in communications must be made with the goal of building and sustaining public trust and health.

Kathy Kyle
Digital Communications Consultant, GovDelivery

Kathy can be reached at kathy.kyle@govdelivery.com or on Twitter @bonominiyogini.

citizen service, communication, community, digital, digital government, e-gov, email, engagement, GovDelivery, government, local government, outreach, responsiveness, technology, UK Government, web 2.0

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

Email: The Major League Player

When you are formulating your digital communication strategy, what tools form the foundation for your execution? Social media is most likely the first thought that comes to mind these days. And understandably so; social media, in its many forms, can be a very effective communications tool. However, email remains a key tool, especially in the evolving communications industry.

Jeremy Greene, VP of Product Management at GovDelivery, recently shared these key success factors in digital communication strategies during his “What’s Next In Digital Communications” presentation at our kick-off event of GovDelivery’s 2013 Communications Tour. To find out where the next tour stop is, click here. Here’s a quick summary of some of his main points:

1. Email remains the foundation of digital communications
Of the over 80% of adults who are online, 94% of those adults are leveraging email. These are numbers that are hard to ignore. To further illustrate just how large the email user base truly is, picture this for a moment: if the following communication platforms were countries, Facebook would have a population of 1 billion; Twitter would have a population of 200 million (the size of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakstan); and email’s population would be a whopping 3.2 billion.

2. Multichannel communications
The main goal is to create content once, and then push it out through all of your communication channels. Chances are, you and your colleagues don’t have time to create new content for each of these channels on a regular basis. This model is often known as the C.O.P.E method (Create Once, Publish Everywhere).

This can be done from either angle as a starting point. In other words, take content from your blog or email newsletter and use the same content in your Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and any other communication channels. Or pull content from your social media feeds and use it to create email newsletters. This is an efficient and effective way to get information to your audience faster and increases the opportunities for your content to be shared within multiple channels.

Jeremy suggests adding an icon option on your website that allows for people to sign up for a weekly digest of all tweets that come out of your organization. He says this “tends to gain a lot of traction” and that “many clients have more recipients on their Twitter email list than they actually have of Twitter followers.” Find out where your target audience is hanging out — which social media channels they are already using — and hone your focus to those.

3. Messaging optimized for mobile
How do your current communication efforts look on a mobile phone? More people are using their phones to check email and surf the web, and this continues to grow as “78% of US email users will also access their emails via mobile by 2017” (Forrester Research, 2012). In fact, “43% of email is now opened on a mobile device” (Litmus, Email Analytics, 2012).

Jeremy emphasizes the importance of “taking the time and due diligence to make sure that the content that you’re creating looks good on a mobile device.” If you aren’t, less than half of your intended audience will see the message on a device that isn’t optimized for mobile use. The take-away here? Take the extra time and really focus on making your digital communications optimized for mobile.

4. Capturing subscribers during key contacts
Jeremy recommends taking an audit of all the customer touch points that you have with your citizens, and try to turn unhappy moments into a positive experience. For example, if someone is unhappy about missing a town meeting, instead of just giving them the next date, ask if they would like to get signed up for email alerts for all future meetings. Use various opportunities to capture subscribers.

Do you know the answer to this question? (Knowing the answer can be a powerful way to find out where you should be focusing your communication strategy.)

“What percentage of my audience within the last 90 days has seen any of my content?”

To find out how you can get this information, if you don’t have it, attend one of our stops on our 2013 Digital Communications Tour. We’re traveling to different cities nationwide to get the word out on best practices & trends in digital communication. Hear from public sector experts, providing insightful perspectives and strategies on government communications, and from your peers in government on their successful tactics and projects. Register today. Space is limited!

Citizen Engagement, communication, community, content, digital government, e-gov, email, engagement, innovation, local government, outreach, social media, technology, Twitter, 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

The Mayors Challenge: Cities Compete for Innovation Prize

By Mike Bernard, Digital Marketing Manager, GovDelivery

Innovation in government is a hot topic these days. One of the ways innovation is being encouraged is through the Mayors Challenge. The Mayors Challenge, created by Bloomberg Philanthropies, seeks to “celebrate the creative problem solving and incredible innovation that is happening in the city halls from coast to coast”.

Here’s how it works:

Cities from across the country, who have a population of 30,000 or more, submit an application outlining their most creative solution to a major issue within the city. For this years’ challenge, 394 cities submitted a proposal. From there, submissions are reviewed and scored by a team of judges. The top 20 finalists are then announced. Those 20 finalists take part in an intensive two-day collaborative session focused on strengthening and stretching their ideas called Idea Camp. Once the Idea Camp concludes, finalists are given a few additional months to fine tune their ideas. Final drafts of the proposals are submitted and one grand prize winner and four runners-up are selected. The grand prize winner receives $5,000,000 to implement their plan and the four runners-up receive $1,000,000 apiece.

Plans are judged on the basis of boldness of vision, strength of planning, potential for impact, and replaceability of the idea.

Finalists:

Finalists have been chosen from all across the US. Here’s the full list of the 20 finalists for this year (in alphabetical order).

Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Cincinnati, OH
Durham, NC
High Point, NC
Hillsboro, OR
Houston, TX
Indianapolis, IN
Knoxville, TN
Lafayette, LA
Lexington, KY
Milwaukee, WI
Philadelphia, PA
Phoenix, AZ
Providence, RI
St. Paul, MN
San Francisco, CA
Santa Monica, CA
Springfield, OR
Syracuse, NY

Highlights:

You might be wondering what ideas were submitted that got these fine cities to the finals. Well, allow me to highlight two examples I especially like.

High Point, NC – Offender Focused Domestic Violence Initiative “For the first time anywhere, High Point, NC is adapting the focused deterrence model to control domestic violence offenders to protect our mothers, daughters, sisters, and children, simultaneously changing the overall narrative on domestic violence.”

St. Paul, MN – Permit St. Paul “Permit Saint Paul will spur investment in our city by enabling developers, entrepreneurs, and residents to secure their licenses and permits through a user-friendly, web-based consumer portal.”

Congrats:

At GovDelivery, we love it when government organizations think outside the box by leveraging great ideas, technology, community partnerships and lots of hard work. Congratulations to all the finalists and good luck on winning.

Check out summaries of all the finalists for 2013 and winners from years past. What they’ve submitted might spur on innovation within your organization. Finally, be on the lookout for the winners being announced next quarter.

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