From garbage trucks to vacant lots, cities and states are often tasked with the thankless job of cleaning up a community’s mess. These are tasks that are often overlooked, but are critical to keeping a community vibrant. But even in these sometimes thankless jobs, there are real innovations happening. Take a few city websites thatRead… Read more »
LinkedIn Company Pages once held a lot of promise, but their value has becoming increasingly limited over time. Most organizations can now probably either live without them or restrict their usage to a simple organizational profile. This post assesses the past and current state of the feature and offers guidance on the most practical ways toRead… Read more »
Today marks the re-launch of my open, free-to-join GovLoop group, Community Cultivators, formerly E2E (Employee-to-Employee Communication), as well as Online Communities Best Practices at LinkedIn. I hope you’ll join the conversation at either place, because online communities today represent the #1 opportunity to reach and influence a target audience, yet few understand the science of influencing their beliefsRead… Read more »
I admit it. I didn’t know much about Marc Prensky or his 2001 article on digital natives until about, oh, 2006. Though I find his article fascinating and the conversations and research that it sparked equally interesting, I want to bring a slightly different and lighthearted perspective to this conversation. I have found that there isRead… Read more »
I’m going to keep this quite short considering this is post about obedience, public sector managers, the nature of evil and social media. I’m going to argue how findings of a few psychological studies suggest the modern communications person needs to be more in touch with ‘the people’ avoid being complicit in evil acts. ARead… Read more »
When going on holiday and handing over a social media account or talking to a new member of staff, I often show a rough ‘how to deal with people on social media guide’. Hopefully, you or someone in your team will find this flow chart handy. If you think it’s useful, you can download a PDF.
Back in 2011, before the former White House aid ever assumed public office in Chicago, Twitter user @MayorEmanuel accrued nearly 50,000 followers and published more than 1,500 aggressively funny tweets showcasing the prospective mayor. In 2012, Secretary of State Clinton was similarly satirized, this time on the Tumblr site Texts from Hillary. Nearly 45,000 TumblrRead… Read more »
When you provide 5,600 blood transfusions, 424,000 measles vaccinations, 18,000 safety trainings, and countless other services to citizens each day, how are you supposed to present a single organization and mission? That was the question the American Red Cross’s (ARC) first Chief Marketing Officer, Peggy Dyer, was challenged with five years ago. Her response wasRead… Read more »
Social media screening (aka social screening) has become an almost commonplace recruiting and hiring practice. Employers are “googling” job candidates and searching social networking sites as part of their pre-employment background checks, and admissions counselors and coaches are using similar practices to make acceptance decisions about prospective students and athletes. Results of a recent CareerBuilder study indicated thatRead… Read more »
The White House’s Open Government initiative encourages citizens to become more actively engaged in budget decisions in their communities. How does this work in practice? Do busy citizens actually get involved? Inspired by successful efforts in Brazil and other countries around the world, several U.S. communities have undertaken pilot efforts to allow citizens to directlyRead… Read more »