Have you seen the latest Twitter enhancements: the @username and Activity tabs? If you haven’t, let me give you a summary of what Twitter has done and how impactful they can be. (This is part one of a two-part series. Check back for my next post with three tips to increase your reach on Twitter.)
The @username stream replaces the former @Mentions and retweets streams. It now combines mentions and retweets along with new followers and people who have “favorited” your tweets:
The Activity tab acts as a feed for updates from those who follow you. It shows favorites, retweets of those who follow you, and other activity.
Basically, the @username tab gives you a summary glance into how people are interacting with you and your content. The Activity tab tells you what’s going on with those who follow you.
Prior to the new enhancements, finding out who your followers followed or who retweeted your information was a bit cumbersome, requiring searches and different screens. These new features make it quick and easy to see how your message is spreading and who is helping to extend your reach. The biggest change to the interface that may be most helpful is the Activity of follows — you can see who your followers followed and choose to follow them as well, with just a click of a button.
If you haven’t explored these new enhancements yet, log on to Twitter to take a look. Let me know what you think of these enhancements. Are they useful? Do you think they will help you manage your Twitter account more easily? Let us know in the comments below.
Part three in our David Kirkpatrick video series! Did you catch our first and second videos?
David Kirkpatrick sits down with GovDelivery to discuss the Facebook Phenomenon and why Facebook now dominates social networking.
He also shares his thoughts on how government can leverage the power of Facebook to help improve citizen satisfaction.
Watch the video below:
Do you think his view on government organizations and agencies leveraging Facebook is possible? Are you trying to do this already in your government organization? How successful have you been?
With more than 150 attendees, this unconference’s theme – “Community 2.0” – was clearly one that spoke to people. Though the unconference was held in Minneapolis, some participants traveled four hours or so to attend. The attendees were also from various industries: government, non-profit, education, software development, consulting, etc.:
I had never been to a CityCamp before, so if you haven’t been to one either, the structure is interesting. Instead of a typical conference structure – with a keynote speaker and presentation sessions – CityCamp breaks that mold by crowdsourcing session ideas via the web which are then turned into break-out discussion sessions.
There were about 20 different breakout sessions throughout the day (4 to 5 concurrent sessions in 40-minute sections.) Session topics ranged from Code for America to hackers & libraries (I’m not really sure what that one was truly about) to revamping or visualizing the web with new technologies, but the main theme that stood out to me was social media.
Social media was simply inescapable at CityCamp MN. The first session I went to (which I think was the best session by far) discussed using social media for social change. It’s the age-old marketing question: “how can I get someone to do something (i.e. take action, sign a petition, recycle, vote, etc.)?” My answer: make your content memorable and people will connect with you. Make your call to action simple, and people will take action. Another session I dropped in on focused on leveraging social media to help organize and promote community arts more successfully. In fact, one of my colleagues who participated in a policy-making and data session commented that social media dominated that conversation, too.
In one session, an attendee asked a question that stood out to me: “How do I learn how to use social media tools if I don’t have a teenager at home?” In another social media session, we spent 40 minutes discussing tools to help measure social media ROI but at the heart of the discussion was the question, “What social media success even mean or look like?”
To me, each of these examples reminds me that there are literally millions of people who aren’t yet part of the ever-changing “digital” age and who don’t know how to leverage social media. It doesn’t mean they don’t want to; CityCamp MN showed me that there was a clear thirst for this information. But sometimes we talk about social media success before we talk about the basics of how and where to start (especially if there isn’t a teenager willing to help.)
The best way I’ve learned to navigate social media channels – and the way teenagers today learn – is simply by doing. This may not be plausible in your government job – you probably shouldn’t create a Facebook page for your agency without knowing how Facebook works – but you can start at home. Create your own Facebook page or Twitter account or YouTube channel if you haven’t already. Start connecting with your friends and family and simply poke around. (My one caveat is you shouldn’t put anything out on the web that you don’t want shared with everyone. There is no recalling a message you send on Facebook. I learned that the hard way!) One of the attendees at CityCamp MN talked about “failing fast” with social media, and I couldn’t agree more. Once you start using social media, you’ll understand what works and what doesn’t fairly quickly – and then you can leverage that knowledge to determine what would work for your agency and what might not.
If diving into the deep end seems a bit scary, there are lots of resources out there: Mashable, GovLoop, Social Media Today. These sites are full of ideas, have tons of articles on the top 10 things you should know, and people willing to help you.
Want a little more? Watch this video from CityCamp MN of GovDelivery’s CEO, Scott Burns, talking about social media as part of an integrated, cost-effective digital communications strategy:
Have you attended a CityCamp before? How was your experience? Share your thoughts in the comments!
For a full list of the agenda, sessions, and other key documents/links, visit CityCampMN’s website.
This is part two in our David Kirkpatrick video series. Did you catch yesterday’s video?
David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” sat down with us after our social media conference to discuss how Facebook and social media has changed the way government interacts with citizens.
He also delves into the question that many government employees have: “How should our government organization deal with negative comments on social media?”
Watch the video below:
What do you think? Do you agree with his assessment of how social media has changed how government agencies and organizations interact with the public?What do you think about his recommendations for handling negative comments?
In October, GovDelivery hosted a social media conference in Washington, D.C. with nearly 300 attendees, from local government workers to Federal employees and government contractors.
At the heart of the event was a Facebook foundation: David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” delivered an engaging keynote presentation, and Adam Conner, Associate Manager of Public Policy at Facebook, spoke on Facebook’s Top 10 for Government.
David talked at length about Facebook and how it has drastically changed the way people communicate and connect. He spent a lot of time with Mark Zuckerberg, learning the Facebook story, but he before he wrote “The Facebook Effect,” he spent many years as the senior editor for internet and technology at Fortune magazine. While at Fortune, he wrote cover stories about Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Sun, and numerous other technology subjects. Beginning in 2001, he created Fortune‘s Brainstorm conference series. More recently, he organized the Techonomy conference on the centrality of technology innovation for all human activity. He appears frequently on television, radio, and the Internet as an expert on technology.
With this kind of history and knowledge, we couldn’t help but ask David his thoughts on the future of social media.
Watch his assessment:
What do you think? Have we reached the pinnacle of social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr), or will others develop in the next few years and overtake Facebook (Google+, maybe)? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
This is part one in a three-part video series with David. Check back for new videos!
For a full video of David’s keynote, visit our event video page.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a blog entry about StumbleUpon – what it is (social bookmarking tool), what it does (drives website traffic), and why you should probably know about it (the tool doubled its user base to 20 million in less than two years).
StumbleUpon recently worked with a data visualization/visual content creation agency, Column Five Media, to produce this awesome infographic that offers even more compelling statistics to solidify StumbleUpon’s influence.
Titled “The Life Cycle of a Web Page on StumbleUpon,” the infographic offers some very interesting data – provided by StumbleUpon – regarding the “stickiness” of the websites visited through their services. Some of it was previously discussed in my earlier blog post, such as the claim that StumbleUpon is the top social media referrer, beating out Facebook by approximately 13% and Twitter by approximately 47%.
What was really interesting to me was the half-life (which is defined by Merriam Webster as “a period of usefulness or popularity preceding decline or obsolescence”) of links shared through StumbleUpon versus Facebook or Twitter. The infographic shows the half-life of a page shared through StumbleUpon as 400 hours – about 16.5 days! That’s a wildly superior half-life compared to the statistics from Twitter and Facebook: links shared through Twitter have a half-life of merely 2.8 hours and Facebook is only slightly better with 3.2 hours. What’s this mean? Overall, I think this data suggests that StumbleUpon is better at keeping links and web pages relevant for longer.
Devious Media also blogged about the infographic and pointed out that StumbleUpon’s “algorithm is exceptionally good at finding things [that users will] like.” Furthermore, they note that, unlike Twitter and Facebook, where messages & links get lost in the constant news feed updates, StumbleUpon will point users to links that may be interesting – no matter how old that link may be.
In today’s world, we’re all fighting for relevancy and attention for our messages. With nearly 300,000 status updates being posted on Facebook every minute (I’m sure that number is growing every day), and 250 million tweets per day on Twitter, having your message, link and web page live for longer than a few hours can be a pretty big deal. Maybe it’s worth it to even get yourself a StumbleUpon account just to check out what all the buzz is about.
From amazing metaphors involving adorable puppies to reflections about how data can transform generalities into actions, I was fortunate to attend the first CityCamp held in Minneapolis, Minnesota on 11/12/2011. This un-conference is designed to be more of an open exchange of ideas than the traditional professional conference that most of us are used to – whatever profession you work in.
Prior to the actual un-conference day, we could submit ideas about what kind of breakout sessions we would like to see. The organizers of the conference did this via email, website, and social media streams. When I got to the conference, I was shown the big board of ideas and asked to indicate which I might be interested in participating in. As a data guy, I tended toward those topics because I am always trying to learn about what others are doing with data, how to visual data, and really how to tell better stories with data to help my own company (GovDelivery), but more generally, to help citizens and governmental agencies “informatively” engage with data and the wisdom that comes from understanding that data.
We met in the morning for quick individual introductions of all 100+ registrants and then settled in to listen to 6 amazing “ignite” mini-presentations where folks like the CEO and Co-Founder of GovDelivery, Scott Burns, gave insights into the role of social media in cost effective communications. The presenters were limited to 5 slides in 5 minutes. While these presentations kept us revved up and engaged, the event organizers were collating all the ideas and trying to put together 24 separate sessions on a grid that covered the majority of the topic suggestions. Obviously, some ideas got dropped, but for the most part, organizers were able to combine and build a substantial grouping of 24 topic sessions.
Now, here is where I think the magic of this un-conference truly started. The CityCamp working grid was presented and we could see what topics were going to be discussed at what time of the day during the 4×40 minute sessions. No rules, no agendas, just real interactions amongst various types of individuals working in the public sector, private sector, governmental space, social services, consulting, and others.
I think the first session was the most awkward and disappointing of the day probably due to the fact that many of us didn’t know exactly what we were supposed to be doing. Who talks first? What exactly are we going to talk about when it comes to policy-making and the impact of data on that policy? The flow of the first session never really came together for me, mostly due to the fact that there was no moderation of ideas. My only feedback item to the conference was to say that perhaps a moderator needed to ask the first few questions and be available to pull folks back to the topic at hand during discussions.
My other three sessions were incredibly informative and interesting. I got to talk about how to visualize data and the analysis of that data, good tips, good websites, folks who are doing amazing things (Stephen Few, Tufte for example). The most profound things came in short bursts through the exchange of ideas. For example, Marc Drummond who works for the City of Minnetonka, MN, said something that I thought was so clear and simple about PowerPoint presentations – “Presentations should lead to actions!” It’s simple and concise, but powerful in its vision of what all of us who present information should try to remember.
The last session on the advancement of technologies related to data analysis was a small group who were trying to envision where data analysis is going in the future. I got to meet a fellow Govie named Amelia Brunelle and others who are passionate about the power of data. I got to talk about how remarkable a job I have with GovDelivery as the Client Performance Analyst and the investment they make in my abilities to take information and tell credible, important, and relevant stories to our clients and to help build our business intelligence within the organization itself. Always with the mindset of providing insights that provide agencies the best possible chance to drive efficiencies within organization, effectively communicating with their citizens, and helping them understand how to engage their citizens across multiple communication channels.
I would highly recommend attending one of these CityCamp events in your area. I got a chance to network with others passionate about data analysis, digital communications, social media, and the impact we can all have on the engagement of citizens. I loved my first CityCamp experience.
One of simplest strategies online community managers use to keep the community fire burning bright is to ignite conversations throughout the community. However, there are methods to ignite this discussion that will increase the chances that it will survive versus peter out in a few minutes.
Take a look at the very successful discussion below created by Paul from GovLoop and see if you can immediately spot the 4 successful things this discussion does. If you can’t spot them immediately, read on…
1. Formulate a discussion title that is interesting/catchy/negative, preferably in a question format (helps people know what to do – questions are easier to answer than a general comment).
2. Answer your own discussion question in a concrete, easily digestible way with enough context that a potential member could generate an answer for himself. Notice how Paul starts off with “Mine was a forward from my mother who had received an email…” To turn this around and show you what NOT to do…don’t leave the body of your discussion empty…you need to start the conversation off yourself…once you take the first dive into the pool others will be able to follow much more easily. Monkey see, monkey do…
3. If possible, add some substantiated data that contributes to why your question is important, and/or throw in a little piece of education in the discussion (double win for the reader). See how at the end of Paul’s post he cites a fact about sending emails from a documented source – the David Shipley book SEND: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do it Better.
4. Repeat the discussion question in the body of your post and put it in bold. Like leaving your phone # at the beginning and end of a voice mail, this makes it easier for the potential contributor to remember exactly what you are asking.
Government has made a ton of progress in innovation over the last few years. And many will find it hard to disagree that some of the most innovative citizen creations have been catalyzed and precipitated with the launch of Challenge.gov.
What is it? Challenge.gov is simply a place where the public and government can solve problems together. It is built on a platform that allows government to post challenges, drive citizens to bust some brain cells, submit solutions and vote, share the challenges with their friends, and win recognition. Just 14 months old, government agencies have posted over 100 challenges and been the spur of cool new apps and awareness to important issues.
LEARN MORE! CONVERSATION with CHALLENGE.GOVTHIS THURSDAY, 11/10, 12:30pm EST:
Here’s some news just coming down the pike. This Thursday, November 10 at 12:30 EST, Karen Trebon, Deputy Program Manager, and Tammi Marcoullier, Program Manager, will be sitting down with Joseph Porcelli of GovDelivery to talk about how Challenge.gov got started, top lessons learned from federal agencies that have submitted challenges, and what they wish everyone knew about the platform. This live streamed discussion will be hosted on GovLoop.com. To join in, simply go to GovLoop’s homepage. If you have any questions or challenges, please contact lauren@govloop.com or reach out on Twitter @exilauren.
Follow live tweets at #Hi5Gov.
HOT OFF THE PRESS CHALLENGE.GOV CONTEST RESULTS:
At DCWeek today, members of government such as Aneesh Chopra celebrated the 5 winners of EPA’s Apps for the Environment contest that pulled in 38 total apps, 100+ ideas, and 2000+ votes. The winner of the best overall app is called “Light Bulb Finder” — an “app that makes it easy to switch from incandescent to energy-efficient light bulbs. It empowers users to make informed decisions based on their lighting needs and the financial and environmental impact of their choices. Using the app, the typical American home can cut their annual electricity bill by over $120 and environmental impact by 1,360 lbs. CO2″
GOVERNMENT CHALLENGE FUN FACTS:
While crowd-sourcing might be a term we think of as new to our current age of Twitter, IdeaScale, and Quora, government challenges actually have a VERY long history. As cited in a Washington Post article in January of this year, “in 1714, the British government offered 20,000 pounds to anyone who could devise a reliable way of measuring longitude at sea, a problem neither Newton nor Galileo could solve. (Clockmaker John Harrison won in 1773.) Napoleon offered a prize for innovations in food preservation for his army, leading to the development of modern canning. And the $25,000 Orteig Prize spurred Charles Lindbergh to make his transatlantic flight.” Too cool!
By Jeremy Greene, Director of Product Management, GovDelivery
With the passing of Steve Jobs last month, the blogosphere has been chock-full of commentary around innovation and good product design. As a product guy, I find this fascinating. But as I’ve read through pages of articles highlighting Jobs’ search for “insanely great” product design I started to wonder if any of it is actually applicable to us? Very few of us are making iPads and insanely thin laptops that weigh as much as a paper clip. Where is my opportunity to innovate? Is there an opportunity?
Don’t fret. You can play this game, too. Innovation may be a bit more subtle when you’re working in accounting at a large government agency or as a customer support representative for a small city or county – but it’s possible. And I would argue it’s probably just as important. The word innovation, at its core, means to change. But I’m not advocating making change for the sake of change. There are plenty of ways to make impactful, positive change even when you’re not building consumer electronic goods.
Here are some areas you may want to start with:
Innovative Processes. If you’re doing something because “it’s always been done that way,” you may have found your first opportunity. Even slight modifications to existing process can produce massive improvements. People often get stuck with the concept of innovation because their ideas are too big or too complex. Don’t let scope kill the entire effort. Start with small changes, evaluate their success and repeat. For example, I was recently offered the ability to get government documents from my county electronically instead of via the mail. Small change, but impactful. I no longer need to physically keep track of these documents anymore, which is a huge win for me.
Also, you can seek input from others that live on the edges of existing processes. Sometimes being on the outside looking in can provide additional insight and really help you evaluate possible changes with a fresh set of eyes.
Innovative Customer Experiences. Are there ways you can improve your organizations interactions with your customers? This is an area commonly overlooked when it comes to innovation. Yet, improving customer support even a little bit can have crazy impactful results. Can you provide your customer with information they need before they know they even need it? Can you put processes in place that allow them to serve themselves – thus, avoiding a phone call and expediting their experience? Anytime a process I am forced to do on an ongoing basis is moved online – I cheer! Can you find new ways to effectively engage customers before there is an issue, building a relationship and the trust needed prior to when a really important issue arises?
How about Innovative Management. If you’re managing a team, you have even more possibilities to positively effect change. Are there ways to structure the work week to better accommodate your employees? Are there changes you can make to team dynamics that can improve certain processes and deliver better results? Sometimes moving responsibilities around to different individuals on your team will spark creativity and drive innovation, especially if those individuals have expressed to you that they want to take on something more or different from their normal responsibilities and tasks. The great thing about innovative management is that it’s contagious and viral, meaning your team will start to see the value and begin doing similar things themselves.
This is just a start, and a minimal one at that. Take a chance and promote positive change regardless of how big or small that change may be. Just the thought of innovation promotes discussion and that in itself can be tremendously positive.
At 
How social media has changed government-to-citizen interaction
November 18th, 2011 | Posted by Mary Yang for GovDelivery in E-Government | Government 2.0 | Social Media - (0 Comments)This is part two in our David Kirkpatrick video series. Did you catch yesterday’s video?
David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” sat down with us after our social media conference to discuss how Facebook and social media has changed the way government interacts with citizens.
He also delves into the question that many government employees have: “How should our government organization deal with negative comments on social media?”
Watch the video below:
What do you think? Do you agree with his assessment of how social media has changed how government agencies and organizations interact with the public?What do you think about his recommendations for handling negative comments?
Leave your thoughts in the comments!
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