Content Strategy

Joining Forces with BusinessUSA to Better Serve Our Nation’s Businesses

Four years ago, BusinessUSA launched with a mission to revolutionize the way government provides services to small businesses and exporters. Using technology to erase bureaucratic boundaries, BusinessUSA streamlined the way businesses find and get what they need from government. This “no wrong door” approach combined resources from over 800 websites and created a single point

Ryan Edelstein

Jul 19, 2016

Information Architecture vs Content Strategy—and Why YOU Need Both

The idea of portable content is nothing new. Content needs to be mobile ready, responsive, and readily consumed by tools such as the Internet of Things (IoT)—a proposed development of the Internet in which everyday objects have network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive data. Developers need to stop creating fixed, single-purpose content and

Christen Geiler

Jul 18, 2016

Where Content and Marketing Meet: An email Case Study

Content marketing is everywhere and you’re hearing more about it every day—but how do you do it well? While content marketing can take many forms (articles, infographics, videos, and more), it shares a common purpose: providing useful content to attract new customers to your product or service. At USAGov, customized email messages to our subscribers

Victoria Bitzer-Wales

Darren B. Lurie

Jul 15, 2016

Enhancing our Nation’s Cybersecurity

The mission of U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)’s Integrated Technology Services (ITS) is to deliver best value technology solutions to the government and the American people, and one of the most critically important capabilities that our nation currently needs is strengthened cybersecurity. We have been working with numerous other federal agencies to ensure that the

Mary Davie

Jul 14, 2016

Catch the Mall! With Pokemon and Public Services

“… I have never seen so many people of all ages walking around our civic spaces and small businesses interacting as I have this morning. Teens catching them. People catching them in line for coffee. Moms outsmarting their kids. Local youths teaching my toddler how to throw a ball. Full grown adults. Marines. Kids on

Justin Herman

Paul Ollig

Jul 12, 2016

Trends on Tuesday: Adoption for Pokémon Go Mobile App Goes Crazy

Augmented Reality games have existed for years, but have mostly failed to catch a mainstream audience; Pokémon Go just changed all that this weekend. The game that launched early this month has exploded in popularity and is close to surpassing Twitter in daily active

Will Sullivan

Jul 12, 2016

The Content Corner: How to Leverage User-Generated Content to Resonate With Your Audience

User-Generated Content (UGC) is a buzzword as of late, popularized recently due to the ever increasing demand for new content.

Kyle S. Richardson

Jul 11, 2016

Introducing the Digital Audio/Video Community of Practice

Tech giants have changed the world of broadcast forever. In a little more than a year, video on Facebook went from being a seldomly seen media type on a user’s timeline to a strategic priority for Mark Zuckerberg. The platform now serves over 8 billion video views a day and Facebook continues to roll out improvements

Randy Abramson

Jul 08, 2016

The Data Briefing: I, For One, Welcome Our New Chatbot Blockchain Digital Autonomous Organizations

It is at the intersections of fields where you find the most fascinating and innovative concepts. Recently, a conference on “Open Human Resources and the Cognitive Era” explored the use of chatbots and blockchain technologies in human resources. Human Resources (HR) is quietly undergoing a revolution as many HR practitioners are transforming HR by using

Bill Brantley

Jul 06, 2016

Build Empathy With Stakeholder Interviews, Part 1: Preparation

What stakeholder interviews are, why they’re valuable, and how to prepare for them.

Andrew Maier

Jul 01, 2016

WCMS and Custom APIs—Which One Is Right for You?

Gray Brooks of GSA gave us a great definition of APIs in the DigitalGov University (DGU) presentation, Introduction to APIs. He described APIs as “Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs, are web services that allow people to more easily consume content and data in multiple ways—via mobile devices, mobile apps, innovative mash-ups, and much more.” Simply put,

Christen Geiler

Jun 28, 2016

Using Plain Language to Bridge the Gap Between Government and Industry

Much of our work with government partners to deliver better digital services has resulted in full websites, applications, and embarking on large-scale transformation efforts. In addition to those types of projects, we also work on shorter, faster, smaller-scale projects designed to show our partners different points of view and different techniques to approach their most

Ryan Sibley

Jun 23, 2016

The Data Briefing: NASA’s New Big Data Strategy

Few other federal agencies deal with as much data as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Big science creates big data, and NASA manages many of the biggest science projects in world history. Even in the early days of NASA’s history, NASA pioneered new ways to create and store data. So, in the world

Bill Brantley

Jun 22, 2016

How to Make Your Facebook Content ‘Pop’ with Images

Facebook is a highly visual medium. Studies show that Facebook posts featuring photos are the most noticed, liked, and shared. Posts featuring an image stand out in the news feeds of people who like your page. While a great image can cut through the clutter, you don’t need to fill your feed. Think “representative” and high-quality

AIDS.gov

Jun 20, 2016

Modernizing Federal IT Part 5: Modernizing Software Architecture

This is the fifth in a series describing how the Social Security Administration is working towards a more modern IT infrastructure. You can find part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here and part 4 here. In the next three posts we will consider the problem of modernizing old legacy software. In this post we will start a

Rob Klopp

Jun 16, 2016

The Great Pinterest Experiment: One Year In

Last summer, Kids.Gov revamped its presence on Pinterest in an attempt to find new ways to connect with its followers. The Marketing Team set out to learn more about our audiences and the kind of content they like. Despite being a difficult platform to navigate, we set lofty goals for ourselves and developed a timely

Edgardo Morales

Phat Nguyen

Jun 13, 2016

NIH Image Gallery Data Call Success

In early April, the National Institutes of Health put out a call for images highlighting NIH-funded scientific research. The image call was posted on the NIH image gallery website and advertised through the NIH Public Information Officers (PIO) Network. The NIH Image Gallery, which averages 6,000 views per day, features free-to-use images for the general

Christen Geiler

Jun 13, 2016

Taking an Agile Approach to Content

So, you’ve recently joined an agile team — congratulations! Here at 18F, we work in an agile way — in other words, we base our designs on user needs, conduct usability testing, iterate quickly, and release MVPs (minimum viable products) rather than highly finalized releases. We take an agile approach to content too. While there’s

Kate Garklavs

Nicole Fenton

Jun 10, 2016

Five Things DOE Learned from Making a Podcast

The Energy Department launched Direct Current, our first podcast, on May 9. The first episode—all about rooftop solar, as well as the history of our agency—has been well-received so far by press, stakeholders, and the general public. One review

Allison Lantero

Jun 09, 2016

Welcome to the New DHS.gov

Today, I am happy to announce the newly optimized DHS.gov website. Over the past year, DHS has worked behind the scenes to update and modernize our flagship website, making it faster and easier to use. Some of the specific differences you’ll see are: Compatibility for both desktop computers and mobile devices (phones and tablets) Cleaner,

J. Todd Breasseale

Jun 09, 2016

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