Agile Transformation at Census
The agile transformation at the Census Bureau started several years ago after GAO recommended Census implement a standard Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC).
News and Updates
Innovative work, news, and ideas from people and teams in government
The Data Briefing: Tales from the Dark Side of Data
There are many scary tales in the world of knowledge management and data management. Tales of missing data that was lost through the administrative cracks, such as the story of the missing Apollo 11 moonwalk tapes that most likely were erased by accident. Or the 36-year search for the original Wright Brothers’ patent, which was
Trends on Tuesday: Smartphone Ownership Reaching Saturation, Fueling Media Consumption
ComScore released a report with a lot of great data about how mobile digital media usage continues to explode in 2016. It has 70 pages of charts and information to digest. Here are seven key mobile trends and takeaways: Smartphones are exponentially driving digital media usage. Digital media has tripled since 2013 and digital media
The Content Corner: GIF? Meme? Embeds? Oh, My!
You probably have heard this before, or may even hear it all the time, “Content is King.” What that means is, that in today’s fast moving digital communications age, with social media as the driver—organizations (agencies) must have a content plan to stay relevant.
Recap: How to Overcome Cultural Resistance to Agile in Government
Armed with the knowledge that ‘most studies suggest that losses are twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains,’ federal change agents can better prepare for possible cultural resistance as they begin to implement agile practices at their agencies. There are a variety of resistant-to-change personas (change is painful for most of us, but we dislike it
Microsites, They’re Bigger Than You Think
Lately, we have been hearing a lot about microsites—CDC’s Zika Virus microsite provides up-to-date information on the virus—but the big question is: What are they? A microsite is a single or small collections of pages that are meant to encourage user interaction while conveying information. A microsite has the power to educate consumers regarding a
The Data Briefing: Chatbots and the Rise of Conversational Commerce and Citizen Experience
Ten months ago, I wrote about the rise of the post-app world in which mobile personal assistants would do the work of five to 10 apps combined. These mobile personal assistants, now known as chatbots, would work through conversational interfaces (voice and instant messaging, for example). The idea is to build more natural interfaces for people
The Teams, They Are a Changin’
Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.—Agile Manifesto My team has experienced a lot of change in the past few weeks. We were a team of seven, and now we’ve been reduced to two. We’re off-boarding two developers, a content specialist, and the product owner, and we’re onboarding a new content
The Content Corner: Branches—Stick to the Vine
A branch that does not stick to its source of nutrition will wither away and die. Just ask anyone who has received a bouquet of beautiful flowers about how long they really last. In the same way, as communicators we must stay connected to our audience, or we risk the chance of fading away into
How Gamification Can Break Down Bureaucracy and Address Real World Problems
The world’s toughest challenges require out-of-the-box thinking. But how can agencies facilitate intentional, structured collaboration that leads to this thinking? Gamification. To address issues ranging from maritime piracy to Naval energy use to 3D printing, the Navy uses gamification via MMOWGLI, the Massive Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet. MMOWGLI is an online gaming platform that
GSA Unveils New Hub for Federal Citizen Science & Crowdsourcing
Do you have a scientific issue to address? Wish you had dozens, hundreds, even thousands more people helping you out? There’s help out there, and now that help is easier than ever to find.
The USAGov Bilingual Style Guide Is Now Online!
About a year and a half ago, the Federal Citizen Information Center—today called USAGov—embarked on a very ambitious task: integrating our content operations. We blurred lines that defined silos and adopted a bilingual content approach to offer a more consistent experience, regardless of language preference or point of access to our information. See more about
Law Library of Congress Implements Solution for Link and Reference Rot
Last fall, the Law Library of Congress implemented an external archiving solution for the problem of link and reference rot in its legal research reports. “Link rot” and “reference rot” (a.k.a. “content drift”) are the terms used to describe, respectively, the problem of non-working Web addresses and Web addresses that work but link to modified
Worth a Thousand Words? Announcing Ready-to-Go Interactive Graphics with BLS News Releases
Last spring I wrote about how we’ve been using more and better charts and maps to help you understand our statistics. Today I’m excited to tell you about a new set of graphical tools to make our news releases more illuminating at the moment of their posting.
The Content Corner: Will You Read This Entire Post?
Deep down we’ve always known that people only read a small portion of any content shared online. In many ways that can’t be fixed but there are ways to help people read more or at least scan better. There was a book I loved as a child that featured the Sesame Street character Grover, titled
How Agile’s Being Done in Government
The concepts of agile may not be new, but there is a renewed push across government to embrace this customer-feedback driven methodology, in everything from software development to project management. A government community has even sprung up to help feds learn from one another what it takes to incorporate agile into more efficient and effective
Transcreation: Why Do We Need It?
Transcreation is a relatively new term that blends the words translation and creation. In a nutshell, transcreation involves taking a concept in one language and completely recreating it in another language. A successfully transcreated message (either written or visual) evokes the same emotions and carries the same implications in the target language as it does
UX Exponential: State Department Turning Bad User Experiences into Good
How many times a day do you have a bad user experience? Did you have one: Riding the metro to work this morning this morning? Waiting for your email to open? Watching a way-too-long training video? Trying to find your way around a new-to-you building? How many times have you thought, “there has to be
How to Merge Two Facebook Pages
In the next couple of years as new social media platforms emerge and organizations open more accounts, when do you make the decision to shut an account down? When resources are limited, we must analyze the effectiveness of our social media programs and put our time and effort into the accounts that best serve our
Three Teams Using the Draft U.S. Web Design Standards Talk about Their Experiences
In the five months since we launched the Draft U.S. Web Design Standards, over a dozen government websites have begun to use it.
