Communications

How social media helped save our bacon

We have never doubted that the public loves us. With 7 million visitors each year, we know folks love and value Virginia’s state parks. But, knowing they care and rallying support are two different things. More than ten years ago the Virginia Association for Parks was formed to support state and national parks in Virginia.Read… Read more »

Massachusetts State Treasury is getting social

I recently exchanged e-mails with Catherine Gropp who is the Assistant Director of Communications and the Social Media Coordinator at the Office of the Treasury for Massachusetts. Here are some of Catherine’s thoughts on open government (government 2.0) and on th use of collaboration strategies and technologies. Q. What are your thoughts on government 2.0,Read… Read more »

Government Can Learn From Corporate (#ragancoke)

I’m currently at the Ragan Communications Social Media for Communicators conference in Atlanta, GA. So far the presentations are great from Ford, Mark Ragan, CDC, Shel Holtz, Coca-Cola SVP and more. There’s a lot from the commercial world that government can learn from the experiences and trials that private industry has already gone through. ThereRead… Read more »

A Must-Read for Gov 2.0 & Digital Democracy Gurus

I stumbled across a fantastic article in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal that should be a must-read for those in the Gov 2.0 movement as well as anyone that has ever used the “Iranian Election” example when promoting the growing influence and importance of Twitter and other social networks. The Digital Dictatorship, written by GeorgetownRead… Read more »

US Health Care: Why Privatization Is Inefficient – Part 3 of 4

The Industry of Illness It is a reality of our time that the same companies promoting health care products are also largely responsible for underwriting their research. Skepticism about this model of business has led to pharmacoeconomic studies of the popular antidepressants, which demonstrate a clear association between study sponsorship and quantitative outcome (Baker etRead… Read more »

Who’s Done The Best Job at Open Government?

For all you GovLoop Tweeters out there, we are asking the question, “Who is an exceptional example of Open Government?”, for tomorrow’s State of the Union for Technology forum, hosted by The Atlantic and featuring a keynote by CTO Aneesh Chopra (more info here.) Use hashtag #soutech, and if you are planning on attending, weRead… Read more »

Working The Back Of The Room

In this LinkedIn, Ning, Social Media reality, succeeding at face to face meetings and group meetings are stillvery important. On Dick’s Sales Model, I put “Events/Design,” which most people think means talking from the front of the room. Even though Julie once introduced me as a “loud and frequent speaker,” I get most of myRead… Read more »

Why I Tweet? Amplifying Messages & Obtaining Results

Disclaimer: The post below was originally sent to a mailing list of people that are less familiar with social media tools, hence the basic explanatory nature of how Twitter works throughout the post. Lately there have been many articles and interviews, mostly from senior leaders, explaining why they use social media tools. Most of thoseRead… Read more »