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Newsletter | September 2009
Met Office Launches Automated Alerts for Improved Service to Citizens
The Met
Office now offers its web visitors a convenient way to keep up to date with severe weather
warnings and the latest Met Office information. The GovDelivery Digital
Subscription Management solution is being used to inform subscribers of new Met Office information and Severe Weather Warning RSS feeds. Automation makes GovDelivery a truly
unique and powerful communications platform as notifications can be delivered without
administrative input; alerts are automatically generated when website updates occur.
Met Office launched GovDelivery on July 27, 2009 and has already sent more than 85,000
targeted messages to its 3,000+ subscribers. Subscribers are able to receive regional weather
updates, job vacancy alerts, news releases, and Met Office Twitter® updates. The Met Office is able to support its environmental and climate concerns by "going
green" and communicating information to stakeholders digitally.
For more information on the new
service and to sign up for email alerts, visit www.metoffice.gov.uk.
UK Highways Agency (HA) Strives to Tackle Traffic Congestion by Influencing Travel Behavior
The expectation of Highways Agency is to combat congestion by providing access to information that
enables the public to make smarter travel choices. HA launched GovDelivery in
November 2004 in hopes of keeping citizens well-informed through proactive communication of
relevant information. To date, more than 13 million messages have been delivered to the
agency’s 57,000+ subscribers.
It is now even easier to access HA traffic information with traffic information
widgets. Citizens are free to include these regional widgets on their favourite
social media pages, their own website, or email it to friends, simply by using the "Get
& Share" link at the bottom of each widget. Citizens can sign up for future
alerts directly from the widget.
The traffic information widgets have been installed on 57 individual web pages and viewed
more than 91,000 times by over 12,500 unique viewers. Traffic information
widgets are currently available for the following regions:
To sign up for information updates from Highways Agency, visit www.highways.gov.uk.
For more information on how the UK Highways Agency utilises GovDelivery to communicate with
citizens, click here.
Communicate Flu-Related Updates through Multiple Channels
According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reports of widespread influenza activity in September are typically unusual and already 26 states in the U.S. are reporting such. Within the last week more than 9,000 cases have been reported in the UK, nearly double the number reported the week prior. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and CDC are strongly urging health officials, educational institutions, parents and caregivers to plan and prepare for the 2009 flu season as cases of H1N1 are expected to intensify.
The public looks to government health agencies for official health information. In an effort to reach the public with vital information regarding the H1N1 flu pandemic, government authorities send millions of official updates through GovDelivery's digital communication platform. Since the outbreak in late April 2009, over 22 million government email messages have been sent regarding H1N1 by CDC and HHS alone.
With the expectation of an incredibly harsh flu season, it’s more important than ever for organizations to be prepared to leverage multiple communication channels (email, text messaging, social media, etc.) to reach the largest possible audience.
Visit NHS at www.nhs.uk or Health Protection Agency at www.hpa.org.uk for current H1N1 situation updates and health protection advice.
H1N1 Communication & Outreach: In the News
GovLoop (the Facebook for Government) joins up with GovDelivery
Have you heard of GovLoop?
It's a place where anyone working in the government community around the world can connect
to share ideas, solve problems, and make friends. In less than 1.5 years, GovLoop has gone
from an idea to a vibrant community with more than 18,000 members. If you work in
government, you’ll want to join and contribute to this community. You need it and it needs
you.
Read more from GovLoop & GovDelivery:
Related News:
More news on GovLoop and GovDelivery.
Event Summary: Building Perfect Council Websites
The Socitm Insight "Building Perfect Council Websites" event was held Thursday, 15 July at Olympia 2 Conference Centre, London. In a period of economic upheaval, with budgets squeezed more than ever, the event was geared toward helping councils create and manage a website that is an efficient and effective source of information and services to local citizens.
GovDelivery attended the show to better understand the challenges that councils face in communicating with the public audience. The GovDelivery Digital Subscription Management solution presents government entities with an opportunity to effectively engage with the public through multiple, preferred channels including email, SMS text messaging, social media (Twitter®, Facebook®, YouTube®, blogs, etc.) and personalised RSS.
Engaging with show attendees allowed GovDelivery to gauge interest and found that authorities viewed Digital Subscription Management as a solution to many challenges:
- Reduces customer contact costs by promoting use of the Authority website. Subscribers are steered away from high cost channels such as calls to telephone call centres when rubbish is not collected.
- Reduces carbon emissions and paper wastage, as well as printing and distribution costs, as residents receive important information electronically. (It also enables information to be sent more quickly to residents.)
- Reduces the cost of managing internal departmental email lists as they can be managed centrally in GovDelivery.
- Increases resident satisfaction as residents perceive the Authority is offering a more personalised service directly to them.
- Increases engagement across all ages by communicating in the channel preferred by residents.
For more information on the GovDelivery Digital Subscription Management platform, visit www.govdelivery.com or contact Dave Worsell directly (email: info@govdelivery.com /
call: 0800 032 5769).
Upcoming Event: Digital Engagement – Empowering Citizens & Government through Digital Innovation
6th October 2009 at Church House Conference Centre
GovDelivery is a proud sponsor of the upcoming Digital Engagement event - Empowering
Citizens & Government through Digital Innovation. This conference will explore the key
issues around the use of digital technologies in the public sector and determine how
Government can engage more effectively with citizens to increase social inclusion and
efficiency while delivering better public services.
Helen Rix, Deputy Online Editor for Highways Agency will be presenting on Reaching the
Public Through Multiple Channels: Challenge or Opportunity? Ms. Rix will share how
Highways Agency uses multiple channels in conjunction to improve communication with
the public and increase its reach by more than 140%.
For more information on how Highways Agency utilizes GovDelivery to communicate with
citizens, click here.
Visit http://www.govdelivery.com/ rubiks for more information on the event
and GovDelivery.
Inc. Magazine Ranks GovDelivery as Fast Growth Company in Inc. 5000
Inc. recently ranked GovDelivery No. 2,024 on the annual Inc. 5000, an exclusive ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies.
"Savvy trend spotters and those who invest in private companies know that the Inc. 5000 is
the best place to find out about young companies that are achieving success through a wide
variety of unprecedented business models, as well as older private companies that are still
expanding at an impressive rate," said Inc. 5000 project manager Jim Melloan. "That's why
our list is so eagerly anticipated every year."
Government agencies use GovDelivery to send more than 150 million emails and alerts each
month to individuals who choose to receive official government information on topics of
interest. Individuals can sign up to get up-to-date information on a variety of topics from
various agencies, such as regional weather alerts from the Met Office, energy market price
changes from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, or traffic information updates
from Highways Agency.
Read the full press release here.
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