Home > Web Content Managers Forum > Conference Call Archive > Meeting Minutes

A. Agenda

11:00 � 11:05	News & Updates
11:05 - 11:25	Ron Jones (NOAA) and Lisa Wolfisch (Census) on how they've used RSS feeds and other tools to pull together content across agencies
11:25 - 11:50	Russell O'Neill and Bev Godwin (USA.gov) on future opportunities to aggregate content
11:50 � 12:00	Wrap-up and final Q&A

B. News

• Annual Government Web Conference May 5-6
  
  • Breakout sessions : Conference is coming together, we're lining up some dynamic keynote speakers. Breakout sessions are based on YOUR survey feedback, including: Social Media Success Stories, Usability Techniques, Putting Your Website on a Diet, and more.
    
  • Register today! (goes to main registration form for Web Manager University )
    
  • Fee is only $25. If you can't get your agency to cover the cost, we hope you'll see this as a professional development opportunity that is worth paying for. It will include hors d'oeuvres before the Awards ceremony on May 5, and lunch and coffee breaks on May 6 � as well as the opportunity to see top web content experts and network with your peers.

• 2008 Web Managers Best Practice Awards
  
  • Nominations are now open
    
  • We've received a few nominations, and we hope you are all working on yours!
    
  • All nominations must be received by March 7, 2008 (8 pm Eastern time)

• Web Manager University � upcoming classes
  
  • Repurposing Print Documents for the Web - Seminar � February 28
    
  • Paper Prototyping: How to Do Affordable and Easy User Testing - Webinar � March 12
    
  • List of all classes

C. Overview of Agenda Topic

One of the key goals in our Strategic Plan and �Roadmap to a Task-Focused Website� is to reduce duplicate content � both within and across agencies. To do this, we need to aggregate and pull together similar content across agencies, rather than recreate the content on our own websites. This benefits our customers because we direct them to one authoritative source on a given topic. And it makes our work more efficient.

Content aggregation can take many different forms. We'll discuss examples of what some agencies are doing to aggregate content and discuss ways we can better collaborate to deliver content across government.

D. Presentations from NOAA, Census, and USA.gov

Slides available at:

http://www.usa.gov/images/Syndication_and_Aggregation_of_Govt_Information_Feb2008.ppt

Using RSS feeds and other tools to pull together content across agencies

Ron Jones, (NOAA); Lisa Wolfisch, (Census)

• A major benefit of RSS feeds: they increase traffic to your site.

• You can use them on our own site to make it easier to maintain your content (e.g., organize press releases by program or topic, and aggregate to show only the info you want).

• RSS feeds make it easy to get �authoritative source� content out � for example, weather alerts are updated every minute, for every county in the country. State/local governments (or anyone else) can pull content for their local area into their site � making it easy to get the most current info from the authoritative source to the public. If info is coming from another government site, that is a �trusted source�.

• Establishing standard naming conventions across government will make it easier to aggregate content within and across agencies.

• Many people use personalized home pages (iGoogle, myMSN, etc.) which use syndication/aggregation to let people personalize the page to display ONLY the information that is important to them.
  
• NOAAwatch.gov � entire center section is RSS feeds
  

Future opportunities to aggregate content

Russell O'Neill russell.oneill@gsa.gov ; Bev Godwin beverly.godwin@gsa.gov (USA.gov)

• What can you do right now?
  
  • Start putting content out in RSS now, if you are not doing this yet.
  • If you already use RSS, what other content can you move to this format?
  • Look at what other agencies are doing to get ideas.

• RSS is best for content that is frequently updated � press releases, FAQs, news & events, activities, etc.

• USA.gov has an RSS feed for major changes to the site, and another feed (3x/wk) around a frequently asked question. The FAQ content is also distributed via email alerts, so content is repurposed, written once, and used in various ways.

• RSS is great for links, but lacks a lot of content � so there are other ways to do this (e.g., ATOM).

• How can we prepare our content so it can easily be used and �pulled� by other agencies (standard tagging, etc.?)

• We need to work together as a community to create standards for �common� content, such as:

• Common topics: someday we can build a government-wide contact directory)
• Location: GIS, have someone put in their zip code (or state or county) and find all gov data relevant to that location
• Individuals: requires e-authentication, also we need to conquer people's fears about sharing too much information with government. Government has a lot of this information already, but the public is nervous about how much they share.

E. Discussion

• Idea for developing standards for common content: In addition to standardizing �contacts,� we can also create xml standard for �bios� for top agency officials.

• How can you tell if another agency is aggregating content on your site? You will still get visits in your stats if someone visits your content via another site/feed.

• Very few people ask permission (e.g. at NOAA, once every 2 wks) to use your RSS feeds. So it's not common practice. Government content is public domain, so it's available for anyone to use and it promotes seamless government. They don't have to tell you.

• If agencies use RSS feeds, they may want to include language in their policies saying that the feeds are in the �public domain� -- that people are free to use the content and don't need to task for permission.

• Delivering content tailored to individuals is going to be difficult, because there are lots of trust issues. But the �content by individuals� presentation slide is really to get us thinking about possibilities. People sign up and give lots of personal information to stores, etc. How can leverage that information so we can personalize and tailor content to deliver better service from government?

• You don't need a lot of resources to do RSS or syndicated feeds.

• If you don't have too many press releases, can you do a �mixed-use� feed? Generally, it's best to clearly define and set expectations for the content of your feed.

• Full-text feeds are helpful for mobile devices. People can read an entire article without having to open a browser. ATOM feeds are more descriptive than RSS.

• No matter what you put in your RSS feed, different aggregators/readers will only take the �pieces� they want. Be aware that they may not use everything you include.

• You can set up a quick �redirect� to distinguish clicks from readers vs. actual site.

• On Govbenefits.gov site, is there any way to automatically update the content if individual state criteria (eligibility, etc.) change? It's probably possible, but no we're not sure. Forum members should email them directly with the suggestion.

F. Next Steps

• If you've developed standards for �common content� at your agency (press releases, etc.), please share them with the larger Forum. No need to reinvent the wheel!

• Help other agencies by identifying content on their sites that you think would make good RSS feeds.

• Use �suggest a link� on usa.gov to recommend RSS feeds you have, as well as other recommendations for sharing content.

• As you look for opportunities to aggregate content, focus on customers' top tasks -- those tasks that impact the most people and are critical to their daily lives

• Learn more about RSS

• USA.gov
• Webcontent.gov
• Web Manager University will be offering an RSS class in Fall 2008.

G. Wrap-up

Next call:

March 20, 2008 11 eastern, 8 pacific.

For future calls:

• Let us know if you have a topic on which you'd like to speak. We have lots of smart folks in our community, doing lots of innovative things, so this is your chance to share what you are doing, get feedback from your peers, and help your colleagues across government to deliver better online service to the public.

• If you don't want to speak, but have an idea for a topic that you want to learn more about, send your suggestions to Sheila and Rachel.

 

 

Page Updated or Reviewed: February 28, 2008