Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot on ways to improve GovLoop. I’ve been looking at ways people use GovLoop and what I could do with the site to better meet everyone’s needs.
So my latest GovLoop survey question was “How Do You Use GovLoop?”
The results are:
40.9% – Connect With Other Govies
25.0% – Get Latest News/Best Practices
20.5% – Ask Questions/Develop Ideas
6.8% – Find Career Opportunities/Events
6.8% – Other
The answers confirmed a few of my thoughts and added some new wrinkles. Personally, the #1 reasons is why I created GovLoop. There are so many government folks spread out across departments, agencies, all levels and there is no place to truly connect. Places like LinkedIn are decent but you are mainly connecting with people you already know and the discussion is not as rich. I created GovLoop as a place where government innovators could connect – whatever happens from there is all gravy.
#2 and #3 are pretty close in percentage and purpose. So if #1 is that people want to connect. #2 and #3 shows that people want information once they are at GovLoop. They want to hear the latest news and best practices but they also want to develop their own ideas and ask questions for help.
I’ll always do my best to listen to GovLoop members and provide them what they want and need. If you ever have any thoughts or comments on how to improve GovLoop send me a note (DM or founder at govloop.com).
On to this week’s question, how do you consume your news?
I’ve started getting 70 percent of my news from Twitter (@breakingnewson). I only read the headlines on most news stories anyway. The rest would be on the Web. Twitter was not a poll answer.
What is the best way to read what people are writing, maybe snatch the headlines of blog posts and discussion forum posts, without coming to the site every day? I’m also trying to minimize the amount of inbound email. Does Ning allow RSS feeds for blog posts? I haven’t looked.
As a former DC resident, I very much appreciate a venue like this to stay in touch with folks around the country — and globe — now that I’m back in San Diego. Thanks Steve 🙂
Big fan of RSS feeds, NOT ENOUGH TIME to read LARGE qty of email, Not to mention “surfing”. I am currently getting 7 “feeds” from govloop through my reader of choice (Thunderbird mail)
Good idea Ari. There are 2 RSS feeds on the home page under quick links – one for blogs and one for forums.
But maybe a daily digest option would be good of the top info?