Don't Forget Your Mission (or your /mission)

I'm a big fan of the Open Government Directive that recently came out of the Obama Administration. I've spent the past 10 years of my life trying to help government improve transparency, participation, and collaboration, and this Directive speaks to what I care about and what my company, GovDelivery, has been trying to facilitate.  We're launching a lot of resources in support of the Directive and have made embracing the Directive the theme of our first open Proactive Communication Roundtable of the year on February 9th in Washington, DC.

One of the components of the Directive I appreciate is an "after the slash" requirement for agencies to post their Open Government plans and progress at a specific URL-- in this case, "www.agency.gov/open."  It's a novel idea, but it's something that has been used well by the administration in other areas-- notably with Recovery (see: www.dol.gov/recovery) for an example.  Individual agencies use this concept now in other areas, but it's something that should be rolled out much more broadly.

Here are some ideas:
/data  Data feeds that an agency offers
/socialmedia  (Check out this example from the Navy)
/widgets (CDC example)
/emailupdates (FEMA example)
/metrics (Another CDC example)

However, the most important link should be /mission.  Every website should have the mission or purpose of the website with a link to the metrics being used to track success as well as the mission of the agency.  With all the "buzz" around new technologies and initiatives, I've been trying to go back to the importance of mission when we look at any agency's technology needs.  I put a longer (more GovDelivery-centric) blog entry about this up on our client blog here.

These high profile initiatives (Recovery and now Open Government) have introduced this easy way of organizing websites to be more consistent across government.  Let's institutionalize this concept across all levels of government and make sure mission is included.  I see clear benefits to search engines, consumers of information across many government agencies, anyone looking for best practices, and others. One current example of the benefit is that the Sunlight Foundation has put out an automated check of whether each agency has an "Open" page up and running.  These types of useful indexes of online activities and resources at agencies will be commonplace if "after the slash" standardization becomes widespread.

What do you think?  What key items would you include after the slash?

Friday's Food For Thought: All things "Awesome"

Welcome to our semi-regular, and ever popular, Friday's Food for Thought post. As many of our readers know, this post provides us with the opportunity to lighten things up a bit and let our hair down. Today, let's talk about everything "awesome."  The latest buzz and excitement has been around the GovDelivery/GovLoop partnership...which is awesome, by the way.  GovLoop founder, Steve Ressler, is a huge fan of the word "awesome." So, in honor of Steve, we are aiming to make this the most awesome post ever.

GovLoop is Awesome

Called the "Facebook for Government," GovLoop is THE place to go to for just about anything government-related.  It's an awesome place for anyone working in and around government to connect, socialize and get answers (one good example is Gov 2.0 University - Learn. Share. Succeed.)  My favorite, the GovDelivery User Group.

The Definition of Awesome

Here's the official definition from our friends at Wikipedia: that which is awesome inspires awe. And the etymology of the word is awe + some = awesome. In terms of usage, the word is also a common slang expression in English. In our case, we aim to bring the word awesome into the business lexicon. More to come on that.

1,000 Awesome Things

We stumbled upon this most awesome blog called 1,000 Awesome Things. Yes, it lists out 1,000 awesome things in life like suddenly remembering it's a long weekend, or when you drive from a rough road onto a smooth one (yes, we agree that is awesome). And, the blog author just signed a deal to write a book based on the blog called "The Other Side of the Pillow and 199 other awesome things in life." What an awesome title for a book, huh?

A Rock n' Roll Band Named "Awesome"

Besides naming a band "Free Beer," this has to go down as one of the best band names ever. That is right there is a band named "Awesome."  Not to be confused with "The Awesome," which is an '80s cover band. Check out their version of Duran Duran's "Hungry Like a Wolf" here. Truly awesome.

Reading Is For Awesome People

Naturally, we are proponents of education and find that reading is an awesome thing. And, fortunately, we found a T-shirt that says, "Reading is for Awesome People."  We could not agree more.  Click here to order the t-shirt.

"Hey, How'd They Do That?" Bringing Awesome Into Popular Culture

How could we do a Friday's Food for Thought post about the word "awesome" and not show you something cool...er...awesome from pop culture?  Enjoy and happy Friday.

GovLoop (the Facebook for Government) joins up with GovDelivery

Have you heard of GovLoop? It's a place where anyone working in the government community around the world can connect to share ideas, solve problems, and make friends. In less than 1.5 years, GovLoop has gone from an idea to a vibrant community with more than 18,000 members. If you work in government, it is imperative that you join and contribute to this community. You need it and it needs you.

If you work with government and have a passion for continuing to make it better, I hope you'll join GovLoop now and encourage your colleagues to do the same. You won't believe all of the great conversations and resources. For example, is your agency debating whether it needs a social media policy? On GovLoop, one discussion thread on the topic has reached over 65 comments with links to specific examples and real-world advice from practitioners across the world on how they have solved the problem.

Today, I'm pleased to share the news that GovLoop has joined up with GovDelivery to form one company that is focused on doing awesome work with government. GovDelivery's mission is to provide the best possible communications platform to the public sector. GovLoop connects government to improve government. It is a great match, and we're really excited about it.

Why are GovLoop and GovDelivery such an exciting combination?

• GovDelivery serves over 300 government agencies across all levels of government; in 2009 alone, government agencies have already sent over 1 billion messages to stakeholders using the GovDelivery platform.
• We've seen the need for better collaboration across government, but most importantly, we've been a part of the amazing things that can happen when different government agencies work together. The GovDelivery Collaboration Network (an idea brought to us by our clients) has allowed different government agencies to cross-promote their content on GovDelivery so a citizen interested in information from the CDC is also offered relevant updates from NIH, FDA, and FEMA. It's a simple concept, but the results are powerful: the average government agency using the network has seen subscription rates more than double.
• Every day 10,000 - 100,000 new people signup to receive updated information from a government entity using GovDelivery-- 15-30% of the people signing up everyday work in government, the military, or as government contractors (the same groups that participate on GovLoop).

GovDelivery is known for its work helping government improve email communication with the public, but since launching the collaboration network using a simple Web 2.0 mashup concept in early 2008, we've deployed a number of additional social media integrations and innovations including the ability to stream updates into a shareable widget, a share this email capability, and a discuss this email blogging capability.

What we've learned reinforces what we've heard from our clients: social media is most powerful when it creates connections that either improve government, improve citizen access to government, or both. While we will continue to help our clients use the GovDelivery platform to launch content into social media, we believe that, together with GovLoop, we can help create the kind of connections between government people and organizations that lead to enduring and positive change in the governments we serve.

This will be good for our clients, the people in the government organizations we serve, and for the public.

GovLoop and GovDelivery believe that we can work together to help grow the GovLoop community so it becomes even more vibrant than it is today. We also intend to work together to give GovLoop more resources than it has had in the past. Effective immediately, GovLoop President Steve Ressler is working full time on GovLoop and he will be building a team to work with him in support of the community. I encourage you to read what Steve has to say about all of this here.

If you are a current GovLoop member, I personally commit to you that I will do whatever I can to support Steve in making GovLoop even more awesome. Steve is a terrific leader, and his leadership at GovLoop has helped unleash the power of the community. From the time I first met him at Gov 2.0 camp (where he sold me a terrific GovLoop t-shirt), I hoped that I would have a chance to work more closely with him.

I welcome your feedback on this exciting change. You can find me on GovLoop or comment on this blog.

If you are a current GovDelivery client, please take the following steps:

1. Join GovLoop if you have not done so already
2. Join the newly created GovDelivery User's Group in GovLoop where you can share your ideas and seek collaboration with other GovDelivery users and the GovDelivery team
3. Consider starting a GovLoop Group around your government organization and/or relevant topics where improved collaboration with other entities/agencies is needed; there are free groups and premium groups available

Best regards,

Scott Burns
CEO & co-founder
GovDelivery

P.S. You can read the GovLoop press release here.

Friday's Food for Thought: Ecosystems, Social Media and Government Communication

Welcome once again to Friday's Food for Thought post.  As always, we try to highlight information and ideas that stir the imagination, confound, and heck...hopefully make you laugh!  This week's theme is about the concept of 'ecosystems.'

When you think about it...humans live and work in ecosystem-like environments much like those you'd find in nature.  We are connected through personal and professional relationships that ensure survival. 

So, What Exactly is an Ecosystem?
Let's face it.  It's probably been a long time since we've had Biology 101.  And, for many of us focusing on government and the business world, we probably forgot quite a lot about the biology 'stuff' we learned way back when.  So, here's the quick definition of an ecosystem:  it is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all of the physical (abiotic) factors of the environment. Now...do you feel smarter than a 5th grader?

Ecosystems and Social Media in Government
Government agencies are now better able to engage its citizens through a multitude of social media channels:  Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, widgets, etc.  In fact, when you consider all of these social media components together, it is an ecosystem.  And, the highest point of the food chain within this ecosystem is communication, which is the nourishment that allows an ecosystem to thrive.

Symbiotic Relationships in Government
A symbiotic relationship, often found in ecosystems, is one where both organisms stand to benefit.  Flowering plants and pollinators (like bees) is a great example.  If you think about it, the relationship between government and citizens is symbiotic.  A government exists to serve its citizens, and citizens rely on government for services, safety and; it's a two-way street.  That brings us back to the fundamental core of a healthy relationship - communication right?   Citizens expect government to provide up-to-date information and proactive communication. 

Now It's Time for "Rap Chop"
We admit this Friday Food for Thought post may have been a bit more serious than the other posts.  "But wait!  There's more!"  In the ecosystem of infomercials, here's an example of how th Slap Chop guy and the Slap Chop product have a symbiotic relationship.  Slap chop quirky guy...slap chop sales! 

Check out this hilarious video of the ubiquitous "Slap Chop"infomercial brought to life through rap music.  Stop having boring tuna, stop having a boring life.  Enjoy!

 

If it Matters, Measure It (and share the metrics!)

One of my first mentors who ran a region of what was then called Ameritech (a baby bell in the midwest), had a saying, "If you value it, measure it." 

The larger the organization, the more this holds true.  In government, tracking results and sharing results promotes transparency, accountability and understanding of the value of the work you're doing within your agency.

The CDC National Center for Health Marketing has taken impressive steps to get their Web metrics online. They've actually been doing this for years.  Here's an example of the kinds of reports they post.

They've recently been recognized in NextGov for their new http://www.cdc.gov/metrics page.

Here are just a handful of the benefits of getting the data out there for the world to see:

• Makes clear to internal and external stakeholders how you measure the impact of what you are doing
• Gives everyone something to celebrate and work towards
• Engages colleagues and helps them see and understand how they might be able to assist with your work.  For example, if getting people signed up for email alerts is one of your metrics as it is at CDC, your colleagues might see that and decide to promote the email alert option at a future conference
• Encourages continuous improvement mentality
• Gives everyone an opportunity to ask tough questions "Is activity A worth the investment?  Should we be using more of technology X if it's working so well?"
• Helps ensure continuity when personnel changes occur

With the plethora of new technologies out there, it is even more important to share your stats with all stakeholders to make clear that the work you're doing matters and that you know how to gauge whether it is successful.  Just like you track the number of page views, Web visits, and the number of people signining up for your email alerts, you should also track Web 2.0 / Social Media metrics. 

You can track your Twitter followership ( If you have a Twitter feed, use TwitterGrader to track followership overtime), number of comments on your blog, number of Facebook fans, and man other metrics without much effort.

There are even external free services that make some of the tracking easy such as Quantcast which I wrote about last year.  I can't vouch for their accuracy, but they provide additional data points that can be helpful.

I don't believe that hard metrics are all that matter.  In fact, I find it much more compelling when we can go further and tie these metrics directly to mission and to $ savings if cost reduction is a goal.

At GovDelivery, we love to track overall growth in the number of messages that government agencies send to the public through our platform.  However, we get most excited when clients can tie the hard metrics directly back to agency/city/county/transit authority mission. 

At the end of the day, metrics are not an end in and of themselves, but if you track them and share them, I'd be willing to bet that they will be a useful tool in gaining support and momentum for your efforts to support your organization's mission.

Massive Public Outreach on Swine Flu

Federal, state, and local health agencies are working overtime to inform the public about the recent Swine Flu outbreak that is currently affecting Mexico and small portions of the United States, but that poses a real international threat. 

Direct information from the government is an important primary source of information for the public, the media, and the public health community during an outbreak.

Because the majority of federal health agencies and a large number of state and local agencies use the GovDelivery platform for digital outreach, we see the broad range of critically important messages going out the public. Already, government agencies have sent hundreds of thousands of messages regarding Swine Flu.

Here is a sample of those messages:

• Centers for Disease Control (English)
• Centers for Disease Control (Spanish)
• U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
• USA.gov
• Texas Health & Human Services System (English)
• Texas Health & Human Services System (Spanish)
• Minnesota Department of Health
• San Diego County
  

When there is an emergency or potential emergency affecting your agency, you should follow the lead of these government communicators and get the word out as quickly as possible by using all key online and offline channels including your website, email, text message, and traditional media.  The key is to act quickly so that the citizens learn as much information as possible directly from their government.

See this story from the recent peanut recall to understand how every bit of communication makes a difference.

GovDelivery is currently working on a major information sharing project that allows government communicators and citizens to see updates coming out from across the government on a range of topics.  We are also encouraging more posting of information into social media to help spread the word when pressing issues arise.

You can learn more about this project, view a live prototype of information going out from different types of agencies in real time, and provide us with feedback by reading our blog entry on the topic.

Beware the Social Media Police

I was discussing online communication plans with one of our clients recently, and I heard something that surprised me.

We'd like to use more social media, but we don't want to do anything if we're just going to be criticized for doing it wrong.  Everyone is so opinionated about how blogs and Facebook pages should be used, and we don't want to set off a bunch of bloggers criticizing our efforts.

That's right friends, there are many people out there who are reluctant to use blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. And not because of their security and privacy concerns, but because they are afraid of being criticized by the Social Media Police.

I've seen a lot of this "policing" related to Twitter lately so I'm going to focus on that channel to illustrate Social Media Police behavior.

I have heard two prominent "Web 2.0 Experts" recently criticize agencies that setup Twitter feeds to stream news updates.  The criticism came in two forms.  One "expert" thinks everyone on Twitter should be a person.  He says that the benefit of Twitter is to put a personal face on government.  Another expert thinks that Twitter must be a two-way medium.  If you aren't going to engage others, he thinks you should not share your information at all.

My first caution to the "social media police"... if you want to be an expert in a medium as fluid as social media, I think you need to be careful about stating facts with too much confidence. 

One fact I'm sure of: I like to get the official EPA updates from @usepagov in my Twitter feed (as do over 500 other people).  The real power of Twitter, for me, is that I setup a stream of updates that are of interest to me, but I don't have to monitor that stream like I have to monitor my inbox. 

Tim O'Reilly has a really good blog post here regarding what he likes about Twitter.  He stated his view on NPR's Science Friday program that the power of Twitter, for him, is that it's a stream of information running by his door that he can get in and out of as time allows. 

For a lot of people, Twitter is a more social channel. They might find the @usepagov feed to be too "impersonal" and one way.  Rather than criticize an agency trying to dive in and participate in a channel, I suggest that those who find a particular feed or approach annoying, just avoid it and let the collective wisdom of the crowd dictate how a channel can be used.  The benefit of social media is that it's easy to iterate based on user feedback and behavior so agencies don't have to get things perfect the first time. 

Different groups of stakeholders will gravitate to different approaches for different reasons.  Social Media uses that don't gain audience will eventually fade away, but not before providing a lot of useful learning to the agencies that tried them in the first place.

If your first instinct is to criticize an agency (or individual for that matter) for using a medium in a way you don't appreciate, you might be having a chilling effect on agencies embracing these new channels that is not unlike the chilling effect from overzealous privacy & security experts.

Where are the Social Media Opportunities?

As I've been working with our government clients to encourage use of social media channels for public communication, I am currently most enthusiastic about three areas of opportunity, but I would love to hear other opinions:

• Widgets that allow our clients to easily share information from others and encourage partners and other agencies to share their information (see www.cdc.gov/widgets or www.fbi.gov/widgets.htm).  The FDA Peanut recall widget saw massive uptake.
  
  
• Point sharing which allows me as a citizen/stakeholder to post valuable content seen in an email alert from my city or on a web page from the State Department to my Twitter feed or blog.  This type of sharing is easier than putting a widget on my Facebook page and allows me to really focus on sharing the content that I find most interesting.
  
  
• Blogging... this is already an established channel and is proving incredibly successful in engaging users online in ways that are already making government (and citizens) better.
  
  

Other channels (e.g., Twitter and Facebook groups) are important and useful for engaging certain groups, but have real limitations as official channels for mass communication. The actual usage of social media channels for government information / public outreach continues to trail email dramatically in the same way that users express a strong preference for email as a professional channel and social media (and in Europe and young groups in U.S., text messaging) as a personal channel.

Take USA.gov as an example.

They saw 13,628 citizens subscribe to updates by email last month with the average sitting selecting more than 15 topics of interest.  By contrast, they have 431 total fans on the USA.gov Facebook Group page that it launched early in 2008.

We pulled together some additional information on email alert interest from citizens vs. Twitter in an earlier entry and the stats are equally as compelling.

Our observations about the power of widgets, point sharing, and blogging have guided our focus for improvements of the digital communication platform we offer our government clients.  Government agencies use GovDelivery to send hundreds of thousands of emails monthly promoting blog content to email subscribers, and we released discuss this email blogging capability in 2008.  We also have an exciting information sharing project underway that you can see in prototype form at this time.  We expect production release of these new sharing capabilities in May.

Channel Surfing

Everyone likes a horse race.

A headline for an article on the popular Mashable.com blog yesterday read: Social Networking More Popular than Email. We wrote an article a few weeks back titled: Email Rules! Internet's Killer App Promotes Collaboration, Communication, and Content.The Mashable.com blog article reviews some recent Nielsen Online Research that says that the percentage of Internet users using social media has now reached 66.8% vs. 65.1% using email. We noted that Internet users in the U.S. spend over 80% of their time using email.

Our focus is on how to interpret these trends in determining how government organizations should communicate with the public. Luckily, this is not the kind of race where there needs to be a winner. What these statistics really point to is that communicators have more ways than ever to reach the public.

There are several interesting comments on the Mashable.com article including:

I wonder if you took away either social networking or email, which would have a more devastating effect on society. Popularity does not equate to importance.

Social networking is the best way to remain connected

Did Nielsen release any frequency numbers on email versus community usage? Seems like that might be a more compelling argument if people are using Facebook everyday versus their email once a week. I have my doubts though.

Social Media is not a monolithic channel that is threatening email for dominance of the world. Social media and email are actually highly complementary with each filling different roles in how we engage citizens.

In general, new channels serve needs that are not met effectively by other channels. While email has many strengths and works well for official communication, long documents, and asynchronous communication, it is very poor at connecting disparate stakeholders together on issues of common interest and also falls short as a public content archive and group discussion mechanism. For example, everyone has been part of an email discussion "group" or "List Serve"that became unwieldy. Appropriately, we are seeing all of those types of discussions migrate to blogs, wikis, Twitter, and Facebook.

All government communicators whether in government or in support organizations like us here at GovDelivery are working hard on engaging in new channels.

What is really exciting for me is to see organizations ranging from Ramsey County, Minnesota to the CDC embrace the opportunity to learn how best to use new channels. Overall, we've seen citizen interest in receiving email updates from government grow exponentially even as other channels have emerged.

The most effective government organizations are engaging in all channels. That allows you to cross-promote channels (e.g., promote your Twitter feed in your email alerts and vice-versa) and focus different messaging on different mediums. For example, I love how CDC has made one of its 300+ email subscription options "Social Media Tools" and has built a base of over 15,000 subscribers in just a couple of months.

We see many mayors, governors, and other public officials engaging in social media as well. If you are trying to build a sense of community around your local government, agency, or campaign, it only makes sense that you want more communication between your stakeholders and more ability to comment and repurpose content.

I have written about how email is a key hub of social media. GovDelivery has also just launched a massive information sharing project that will make it easier for government agencies to create widgets, mash together content from different agencies, and encouraging reposting of content into social media.

So, I don't have a horse in this race.

I think that when new channels emerge they compete with old channels creating new opportunities for reaching the public and, in some cases, replacing existing channels but only where those channels were functioning poorly. Where do you think things are heading?