News and Updates

Innovative work, news, and ideas from people and teams in government

Case Studies in Thunderclap

Now that Thunderclap has been approved for government use for nearly a year, we checked in with two agencies that have successfully used the crowd-speaking tool to rally their supporters and amplify their messages.
Jun 25, 2014

Hacking the Bureaucracy One Task at a Time

Are you having trouble getting training or professional development opportunities? Federal employees can gain access to a variety of professional development opportunities and work on digital projects across the government through the Open Opportunities program.
Jun 23, 2014

Agency Dataset Publication in Data.gov

Not sure how to get your datasets into Data.gov? We’ve put together an overview to show you how the process works. Agencies prepare their enterprise data inventories in data.json format and post them on their websites (agency.gov/data.json), pursuant to the Open Data Policy and following the guidance and using the tools available on Project Open
Jun 20, 2014

The Golden Metric

Are you looking for the “golden metric” that is the best measure of your agency’s website performance and cross-comparable across .gov websites? If so, stop looking. The concept of the golden metric is a dangerous one because it oversimplifies performance analysis of your website and overlooks the truth
Jun 19, 2014

DOT’s SaferCar App Goes Android

With the start of “astronomical summer” later this week on June 21, that means two things: road trips and car buying. If you’re doing either or both, best be sure to grab the app for the SaferCar program from the Department of Transportation’s
Jun 19, 2014

Government CX: Where Do You Find the Right Foundational Metrics?

Customer service. Customer satisfaction. Improving the customer experience. These buzzwords have become well-trodden territory among government strategists as a new wave of agencies attempt to ignite—or reignite—a focus on customers. Of course, putting customers first is a worthy goal. But what, exactly, do we mean when we use words like “service” and “satisfaction”? These terms
Jun 16, 2014

Search Engine Optimization for Government Websites

On June 10, 2014, the Metrics Community of Practice of the Federal Web Managers Council and DigitalGov University hosted an event to honor the memory of Joe Pagano, a former co-chair of the Web Metrics Sub-Council. This third lecture honoring Joe focused on search engine optimization (SEO). While commercial search engines do a remarkable job
Jun 13, 2014