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

December 3rd, 2010 | Posted by GovDelivery in Cloud Computing | E-Government | Federal Government | GovDelivery | Government 2.0 | Software as a Service (SaaS) | Web 2.0 - (0 Comments)

By Bobbie Browning, Senior Vice President

Engaging customers, building relationships and encouraging return visitors are hallmarks of outstanding B2C websites. Leaders in this arena are Apple®, Amazon® and Wells Fargo®. In the age of 4G networks, personalized product updates and mobile shopping applications, we’ve come to expect highly-personalized and efficient online experiences. I can order the latest best seller on Amazon or pay my utility bill through online banking…all from my smart phone while sitting at my favorite coffee shop. This is all made possible through secure cloud computing services. Why shouldn’t I expect to get the same level of experience from government?

In the past few years, I’ve seen the advent of much technological advancement in the area of security, but none are more exciting than the advent of the Federal Risk and Authorization Management   Program – FedRAMP. Why? Because this has the potential to dramatically impact innovation, accelerate the adoption of cloud applications, substantially reduce IT spending and make government more effective and efficient.

FedRAMP, a joint authorization board among GSA, DoD, DHS and NIST, has two primary goals:  aggregate cloud computing standards and centralize certification processes. According to the Brookings Institute’s Economic Gains of Cloud Computing, “Cloud computing services over the Internet have the potential to spur a significant increase in government efficiency and decrease technology costs, as well as to create incentives and online platforms for innovation. Adoption of cloud computing technologies could lead to new, efficient ways of governing.” 

View Federal CIO Vivek Kundra’s Brookings Institute presentation on the Economic Gains of Cloud Computing.

At the helm of improving government effectiveness and efficiency is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST is responsible for defining cloud computing standards for the entire federal government.  A leader in its own right, NIST was one of the recent federal organizations to deploy enterprise-wide Software as a Service digital communication solution. 

Utilizing secure digital communication tools ‘in the cloud,’ has reduced the cost of delivering services, enhanced transparency and improved citizen experience. I’d like to congratulate NIST on their recent “Excellence in Communications Award” for their innovative use of cloud computing to expand audience reach and drive public engagement.

It’s with great pleasure and pride that we recognize the federal government being a ‘game changer’ in changing the way government operates. Moving forward with a cloud computing certification process, establishing standards around interoperability, data portability and security will save taxpayers millions, offer a more personalized relationship with government, and provide more online government services.

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Be a Storyteller of ‘Good Government’

March 25th, 2010 | Posted by Bobbie Browning for GovDelivery in Federal Government | GovDelivery | Government 2.0 | Government Success Stories | GovLoop - (1 Comments)

By Bobbie Browning, VP of Federal Consulting, GovDelivery

As I was reading through the GovLoop Weekly edition a few weeks back, I was struck by the strong sense of emotion I felt about the ‘negative press’ government gets. The public’s perception of government boils down to this: it’s a broken, inefficient system with lazy and overpaid workers. In fact, a recent CNN story indicates 86% of individuals think government is broken.

Government workers like Sandy Ressler from NIST, are reaching out to make a change. Sandy’s blog entry titled “I Work for Government, and I am NOT the Enemy” poses the question – how do we change the perception of Federal employees as the enemy?

It starts with each of us. The stories we tell have a huge impact on our life and community. We’re no longer captive to getting our stories heard through the newspapers.  Social media allows each of us to be an author of our thoughts and gives us an avenue to tell our stories – stories of government workers who are doing excellent work and having a positive impact on real people across the country. So, here’s my part in using social media to spread the word on good government…

I’ve had the pleasure of working with very dedicated government workers for over 25 years. Each and every day I see individuals dedicated to their work and mission to improve government services, engage the public, and make government better.

The hardest part of writing this blog entry was featuring a single individual who serves as an excellent example of my point. The passion and dedication across government is pervasive! To avoid overlooking many excellent individuals, I decided to offer some general observations from recent experiences across government.

Take the entire team at the Census Bureau: many of whom have reached out to us on the weekends to launch a new idea around social media to improve the response rate, thereby dramatically decreasing the number of personal visits to households, and reducing tax dollars spent to complete the 2010 Census. 

Another example is FEMA, where government workers spent countless hours building and perfecting an Agency-wide blog capability to ensure coordinated communications and regional interaction in the event of a disaster. Fortunately, there was a mild hurricane season in 2009, so few people ever learned of the preventive measures that were in place at FEMA.

The stories we tell have a huge impact on our life and community. Join me in building a better government community and improving public perception. Tell your good government story today! Comment on my blog post with a story. Or, if you haven’t already, join GovLoop – the premier social networking site for anyone in and around government. This is the perfect place to tell your proudest moment in government. Look for my next “Good Government” story! 

Signed, Bobbie “Good Government Storyteller”

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