Digital Government

A Journey to the Center of the Internet – Part One

Ever wonder where your Internet comes from or where it goes when it leaves your living room? After a squirrel took a bite out of his home internet cable, Journalist Andrew Blum decided to go on a mission to find where the internet is located. Seriously. His goal was to find the physical space thatRead… Read more »

Discover North Carolina’s New Tech Hub, iCenter – Plus your weekend reads!

Every day it seems like tech companies unveiling new and revolutionary technologies and agencies can’t get their hands on the technologies fast enough. But there is a problem. Agencies are siloed. That means that the government often end up buying the same technology twice. North Carolina is trying to curb the problem by creating theRead… Read more »

On the move – Gov Communication Conference Gets Pushed Back

The government shutdown has sucked up all the oxygen surrounding the federal government. It’s impossible to focus on engaging stakeholders and federal communication best practices when hundreds of thousands of feds are furloughed. But communications best practices are essential. When agencies return to full capacity they will need to know the best ways to engageRead… Read more »

Healthcare.gov – 3 Tips for Improvement with Clay Johnson

Last Tuesday the Obama Administration unveiled healthcare.gov. Affordable Care Act mandated the Department of Health and Human Services to build an online exchange, or Internet store, to let uninsured consumers compare and buy plans offered by private insurance companies. But almost immediately problems started to pop up. The website was overwhelmed by up to fiveRead… Read more »

How to Successfully Communicate Digitally – 5 Lessons Learned

How do you get your message through the wild west that is currently digital communication? Think about it, TV and Radio news bulletins have been replaced by text-messaging, Twitter, blogs, Facebook and Google+ updates. There are millions if not billions of tweets and facebook posts alone, so it is almost impossible to break through theRead… Read more »

Engaging Youth in #Democracy Abroad – Plus your weekend reads

“One in five people living in the Middle East and North Africa are under the age of 24. 60% of people across the globe are under the age of 30. 65% in the middle east and north africa are under the age of 35. This is not only the future, but it is a demographicRead… Read more »

Is the key to bridging the digital divide social media?

Cracking the digital divide is no easy task. The barriers for success are high. But a team from the University of Wisconsin was able to make major inroads by using social media to educate and inform community organizers. Jennifer Smith is the communication officer for the University of Wisconsin Extension Center for Community Tech Solutions.Read… Read more »

Making legislation readable – 3 Ways

Have you ever sat down to read a Congressional bill? Probably not. They are difficult to understand, use bureaucratic language and are generally unreadable. So it’s no wonder that most of us don’t have the inclination to pick up a bill and read through it. But this lack of understanding is creating a void betweenRead… Read more »

Meet the gov guru who reinvented websites #engagement – Plus your weekend reads

Martha Dorris has been a driving force behind the use of technology to help citizens more easily and quickly obtain government services and information, whether the contact comes through a website, email, telephone call or social media. At GSA, she created the agency’s two federal Web platforms — USA.gov and its Spanish-language counterpart, GobiernoUSA.gov. InRead… Read more »

Status check – Is the fed gov actually teleworking?

The number of people teleworking in the federal government is a bit murky. The reason for the unclear percentage is that agencies are struggling to report actual numbers to the Office of Personnel Management. Those were the findings of a Government Accountability report. Yvonne Jones is the Director of Strategic Issues at the GAO. SheRead… Read more »