Civic Hacking: Pathways for Participation
The National Day of Civic Hacking is actually a weekend. An awe-inspiring two days of collaborative work where coders, designers, writers, innovative thinkers,
News and Updates
Innovative work, news, and ideas from people and teams in government
‘Operation Predator’ App from ICE Developed to Help Rescue Children, Capture Sexual Predators
It’s disturbing to think about, but essential for all of us to know about: The sexual abuse and exploitation of children. When it comes to rescuing those children and investigating, locating and arresting suspected child predators, “it’s a race against the clock,” says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Acting Director John Sandweg. Luckily there’s
Improving Contact Center Performance with Contract Incentives: Dos and Don’ts
“In business, words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality.” Harold S. Geneen As government contact center managers, we dream of having contact center contractors who regularly exceed our performance expectations. One way to motivate your contractor to excel is by including financial incentives/disincentives directly into your contact center contract.
Need Help Responding to Facebook & Twitter Questions? Use Your Contact Center Customer Service Experts
Government agencies are always looking for better ways to connect with their audiences while making more effective use of existing (or shrinking) resources. To that end, many agencies—including ours, the National Cancer Institute—have begun to use social media platforms to help serve the communications mission. As these tools have become more widely used, NCI’s Contact
Federal Perspectives on Reaching Our Audiences with New Media Tools in 2014
AIDS.gov convenes and is guided by the Federal HIV/AIDS Web Council. The Council includes Web/new media leads, subject matter experts, and communication leads representing HIV programs across the U.S. government. Together we use new media to promote federal programs, policies and resources related to HIV.
Trends on Tuesday: Mobile, It’s Where You’ll Find Millennials
It’s no secret, if you want to reach Millennials, mobile is a great way to connect. This generation of tech-natives is adept at accessing large amounts of information held in the palms of their hands. However, their information overload also poses a challenge for agencies
In Crowdsourcing Competitions, Defining the Problem is Half the Battle
After leading a complex effort to crowdsource ideas to solve a problem facing your agency, the last thing you want to hear is that the innovative solutions you received don’t actually help remedy the issue. More than 20 federal innovators recently took part in
Storyboarding is Key to Successful Storytelling
Communication professionals pride themselves on coming up with big ideas and big messages. But moving a great idea from conceptualization to execution can be challenging, especially when you want to keep your budget in check. Storyboards can greatly assist in this process, a strategy I found to be critical to the success of a new
Architect of the Capitol’s Guide to National Statuary Hall Collection
The Architect of the Capitol’s new app gives users the ability to view the collection of statues donated by the 50 states in its Guide to the National Statuary Hall Collection of State Statues, available on iOS. Visiting the capitol? The app
When Sharing Buttons Work
At the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) we use sharing buttons on our website to help people share content from web pages with their colleagues and friends. With one click, a user can post a page’s link to popular social networking sites or send it via email. The article To Use
Government Social Media Isn’t Lagging, It’s Different: And That’s Good
Social Media tools, trends and algorithms come and go, but federal managers continue to see improvements in their digital engagement initiatives when they put citizens at the center of their programs. It’s common to hear that government social media lags behind
Ten Earth Day Activities in Digital Government
On this Earth Day, federal social media managers are hard at work, sharing and promoting what government and citizens can do to protect the environment. We’ve compiled a sample of the activities that also show how different agencies are using different social media tools in support of a common goal. The United States Environmental Protection
Trends on Tuesday: How Contact Centers are Adapting to the Mobile User
While it does provide challenges, anytime, anywhere digital government provides numerous opportunities for contact centers to do business more effectively. According to this study by Compare Business Products, one of the most important impacts for contact centers is that smartphone users can now connect with contact centers via voice calls, SMS messages, Internet pages, social
Customer Satisfaction: Innovating with Lack of Resources
As government contact centers, we all face financial and technological constraints in our pursuit to improve the customer experience. One challenge faced by many contact centers is staffing limitations to handle the volume of incoming customer traffic. There are barely enough employees to operate phones, let alone work on meeting or exceeding the organizational customer
GSA Acquisition Portal – Usability Case Study
Incorporating usability testing throughout the entire design process, especially before launch, allows you catch glitches and/or make design changes prior to anyone seeing it live. When more than minor adjustments need to be made to your site, it’s much better to have completed them before the public sees it. For Christina Mullins, a Contracting Officer
Defining Ideation in Challenge Competitions
There is some confusion about how “ideation” fits into challenge and prize competitions. Often, we hear from agencies that they would like to ask the public for ideas, to survey them on a specific question, or to request proposals in response to a
Search Is the New Big Data Recap
Search is easy, right? You type a term in a search box and the exact page you’re looking for appears at the top of the list of results. But search is hard and has many shades of grey. On April 10, 2014, Loren Siebert, our DigitalGov Search senior search architect, presented on: Complexities of recall
EPA Mobile Projects Update
Earth Day is next week, so today instead of featuring one mobile product like we do every Thursday, we’re highlighting how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is tackling mobile to help empower citizen environmental decisions. Currently, you can
How to Tell Your Agency’s Story—Plainly
You’ve got the right words, the active verbs, the carefully chosen adjectives and adverbs. You’ve got the facts. You’ve got the talking points. All you have to do is put it together, right?
Trends on Tuesday: e-Reading on the Rise
What’s black and white and read all over? An e-reader. While it may be premature to revise classic riddles, a recent study by the Pew Research Center indicates that e-books are gaining popularity among American readers. Nearly three in ten adults (28%) reported reading an e-book in the past year, up from 23% at the
