Communications

Weekly Research and Best Practices

Best Practices 1. GSA Launches Notification.usa.gov (09/21/2010) – New site makes it easy to see the most current government notifications, alerts and to sign up for ongoing updates via email or text message pushed directly to personal computers or mobile device. The site menu provides a live stream of content updates with a Twitter-like searchRead… Read more »

HR=Humans Represent — Emails: Endangering the Environment

They do! Did you ever stop to think about it? I’m not referring to those annoying viruses that make their way around, and I’m certainly talking about more than just printing out e- mails that you receive. Specifically, did it ever dawn on you that those e-mails you have been saving in your email accountRead… Read more »

Lessons from NAGW 2010

* cross-posted on KristyFifelski.com I just got back from the wildly useful annual conference of the National Association of Government Webmasters in the architecturally beautiful City of St. Louis. Here’s a summary of my personal highlights from the conference. Keynote speaker web usability whiz Jared Spool offered an entertaining look at usability, including how educationalRead… Read more »

Cancering – Better Thinking

Learning from history, I am often enlightened by how redefining a problem can lead to a relatively easy solution…even after years and years of fruitless work. John Battelle, a social media pioneer, pointed to an article redefining how we can think of cancer, featuring Danny Hillis, who has previously figured out some important things, likeRead… Read more »

“New Twitter” Kills Custom Backgrounds

If you are an agency, organization or individual that has made use of customized Twitter backgrounds to share contact info, expanded “about me,” Facebook URLs and more in the left-hand side of the Twitter.com profile page, then the roll out of “New Twitter” may leave you with some additional work to spruce up your page.Read… Read more »

Gov 2.0 Roundup (Week of September 24)

The Federal Communication Commission embraces Drupal, the White House Press Secretary presses on in the face of a Twitter bug, IT professionals share the failures that helped lead to their ultimate successes, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is in the process of getting a makeover in this, the first Fall edition of the GovRead… Read more »

Gov 2.0: Creating New Civic Activists

In presenting on social media for local government, I try to emphasize that it’s not about the tool, it’s about the innovation. It’s about engaging people who may not naturally visit your web site or your city hall, but still care deeply about their government and their community. It’s about meeting people where they areRead… Read more »

New Study Demonstrates Social Media’s Predictive Power for Gov’t

OhMyGov Inc. just announced the release of a new study which shows that Congressional Republicans are gaining public support on social media at significantly higher rates than their Democratic counterparts. The study, which ran from May through August this year, examined the percent rate by which members of Congress were acquiring new Facebook fans inRead… Read more »