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News and Updates
Innovative work, news, and ideas from people and teams in government
How to Win Digital Like a Grammy
Digital Marketing Evangelist and analytics guru Avinash Kaushik recently published a fascinating article on Six Visual Solutions To Complex Digital Marketing/Analytics Challenges. The article is especially relevant to government organizations, because it talks about the importance of dynamic vs. static content. Government agencies tend
Top 10 Lessons Learned from Launching an Engaging Social Intranet
On January 16th, the Federal Communicators Network gathered at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The topic of the day was Driving Employee Engagement through a Social Intranet, and Kelly Osborn, NARA’s community manager for the Internal Collaboration Network (ICN) was the expert speaker. Kelly has been the driving force behind the project from
Rail Crossing Locator App from DOT
Mobile apps have the power to grant us access to data beyond our expectations, help us get things done easily and quickly, and have some fun, too. But what about apps that can potentially increase our personal and the greater public safety in our neighborhoods and
Extreme Makeover: GC News Release Edition
The Government of Canada (GC) is retiring the traditional news release format in favour of a more digital-friendly product that makes the key messages of announcements clearer, quick facts more accessible and integrates more effectively with social media channels. The old style
Trends on Tuesday: 4th Qtr Online Mobile Traffic Up 40% Over Last Year
According to the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark report, overall 4th quarter online sales were up 10.3% year over year. Here were some of the key drivers: • Mobile Traffic and Sales: Mobile traffic soared, accounting for nearly 35 percent of all online traffic, up
Mobile Gov User Experience Resources and Design Tools
In September 2013, the Mobile Gov Community of Practice released user experience guidelines and recommendations for federal agencies to use in order to create good mobile user experiences. This article highlights private sector and government resources and tools to assist agencies in implementing those user experience guidelines. Mobile User Experience Resources and Tools From the
FEMA App adds ‘Disaster Reporter’ feature
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is taking the well-known slogan, “See something, say something,” to the crowd. Consider it more “See something, submit something.” Harnessing the power of citizen intelligence to understand and respond to disasters, FEMA in late 2013 launched a new feature in
Trends on Tuesday: The Future of Mobile Data
This infographic from Light Reading addresses recent trends in mobile data use. We are struck by how much data was transferred via a WiFi connection vs. cellular. People are using WiFi connections way more than cellular ones. Some other quick highlights: In Q2
Government CX: Finding the Metrics that Matter
Customer experience (CX) is an emerging area of focus within government. My role as Vice President of Customer Experience at the Export-Import Bank speaks to this reality. Our agency’s customers and partners consist of U.S. exporters, financial services institutions, insurance brokers and foreign buyers of U.S. products and services. All play a key role in
Designing for Open Data: Improvements to Data.gov
We’ve written a few times about the changes that we’ve been working on for Data.gov to make it easier for users to find, understand, and use government data. Today you’ll notice even more changes to Data.gov – here’s a quick rundown of some of the main changes you’ll see, and why.
Three Concepts for Excellence in Contact Centers
Using contact centers to deliver digital services is an emerging area in government. Due to the growth of online services, centers receive more attention and represent an important touch point for customers. When you need to speak directly with someone to get help or resolve an issue, it must be a good experience. This reflects on
Updating Blog Comment Policies
The difference between only distributing an online press release and opening up the benefits from a blogging community can be found in how your agency encourages and manages comments and engagement. An easily-referenced comment policy lets authors and contributors know what your agency’s guidelines are in order
Advancing Forward: Best of Social Media in 2013 and Beyond
It was a very good year, as Frank Sinatra sang, in the field of social media for the federal government. Advances were made not only in the technologies applied by agencies, but also the policies and strategies that unlock their potential to improve services and reduce costs. I’d like to share with you just some
Highlights from 2013 #TCOpen Coding Competition
Our team and a few other agencies had the chance to attend the 2013 TopCoder Open this year and meet the best of the best developers, coders, designers, data scientists, and innovative thinkers in crowdsourcing. This
Energy.gov goes Responsive
Did this week’s polar vortex wreak havoc on your heating and cooling system? Maybe now you’re in the hunt for a new furnace or looking for more efficient ways to
Trends on Tuesday: What Might Smartphones Do in 2016?
A recent article in Mobile Marketing Watch suggested location-based sensor fusion would be featured on a billion mobile devices in 2016. Last year Mary Meeker said in 2013 that mobile would be wearable, sharable, drivable and flyable. We’ve gathered some other projections for the future functionality of mobile devices; • Indoor
FCC’s Speed Test App
Feeling the need for [more] speed? Well, so is the mobile team at the Federal Communications Commission. As part of the agency’s Measuring Broadband America Program, the FCC is looking to the crowd (that means you!) to help them assess America’s mobile broadband performance on a national scale. Their hope is
Trends on Tuesday: Federal Agency Mobile Gov Trends in 2013
Today we want to tell you about the federal agency trends we saw this year in the development of public facing mobile products.
