Home > Web Content Managers Forum > Conference Call Archive > Nov. 16, 2006

Government Web Content Managers Forum Monthly Conference Call

Thursday, November 16, 2006
Attendees: Approximately 110 people on the call

News

• Web Manager University
  • We had two sold out classes the last couple of weeks, so we plan to offer them again for the Spring 2007 semester so folks have another chance to attend: a two-hour seminar on Writing for the Web and a two-day course on Measuring the Performance of Government Websites.
  • We have two upcoming classes on Web Governance: a two-hour seminar called “Planning for Change Within Your Agency” on November 28 and a two-day course called “Building Effective Web Governance” November 29-30. See the full class descriptions and registration.
• Spring Workshop
  • We’re planning our next annual conference for the Spring instead of the Fall, to encourage more participation and attendance from outside DC. We’ll let all Forum members know as soon as we have a confirmed date. Right now, we’re tentatively looking at the last week in April.
• World Usability Day
  • Nicole Burton, Usability Specialist at GSA, announced a very successful World Usability Day on Tuesday, November 14. Government web managers were encouraged to organize activities at their agency that promote usability and usable websites. If you didn’t get a chance to arrange an event, it’s not too late. After all, every day is usability day! We’ve posted information about the event on Webcontent.gov. In particular, agencies are encouraged to use the “Test Your Usability IQ” checklist to assess how well your agency is following the latest usability best practices.
• TechAde
  • Joe Pagano of the Library of Congress told callers about a worthwhile event sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission that took place in Washington last week called “TechAde.” The conference focused on key issues that will shape consumers, including how they will use technology into the future. Some of the topics included demographics, technology convergence, and advertising.
  • FTC has created a website where you can read about the sessions and view an archived webcast (which will be available shortly). Joe encouraged Forum members to take an hour or so to watch them. They provide some great insights about the future of technology.
• New Spanish Language Style Guide
  • Laura Godfrey, Bilingual Content Specialist for GobiernoUSA.gov (formerly FirstGov en Espanol), announced on the Listserv today that the Federal Multilingual Websites Committee has posted a Spanish Language Style Guide to Webcontent.gov. It was developed in response to agencies' request to have standard Spanish terminology that could be used across government websites – for use by government employees and contractors.
  • If your agency maintains Spanish content, you should review this valuable new resource.

Conference Call Topic – Blogs: How They Can Be Used on Government Websites

Phil Windley, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Brigham Young University

• BIO: Phil Windley is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Brigham Young University where he teaches courses on digital identity, interoperability, web services, middleware, and programming languages. Phil is also the Executive Producer of IT Conversations and writes and speaks on these topics related to his courses. Phil also writes the popular Technometria blog and is a frequent contributor to InfoWorld and Between the Lines. He is also the author of the book, “Digital Identity,” from O'Reilly Media. Prior to joining BYU, Phil spent two years as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the State of Utah. You can learn more about Phil on his website.
• Phil decided in May 2002 to start blogging. He had an experience that a lot of people have --- he heard about blogs, checked them out, and then decided that it was something he’d enjoy doing. Most people know that blogs are a reverse chronology of events, or a series of discussions. But that definition doesn’t capture why they’re so important. There are two major benefits: 1) They allow people to have conversations. Conversations happen through blogs. 2) Communities form around topics that people are interested in. Phil talked about meeting people at conferences who he’d never met before but felt connected to because they’d communicated via blogs.
• When Phil was CIO of the State of Utah, they wanted to encourage blogging so they obtained 100 free licenses. 40 people started blogs in 2002 and10 are still actively blogging. Management heard about issues via the blogs that they would have never heard about otherwise. They had some problems with bloggers airing dirty laundry about the organization. There are many opportunities for positive outcomes, but you need to have some formal policies in place so you don’t expose what shouldn’t be public. Make explicit that blogging is no different that other public communications. For example, never blog about your boss, the other people you work with, etc.
• They marketed their blogs mainly by linking to each other’s blogs. They also did “blogrolls.”
• Maintaining the blog was time consuming, but Phil had a lot of personal interest so it didn’t seem like a chore. Phil spends about 1-2 hours each weekday blogging (not weekends). But he views it as part of his regular business to communicate with his audience. He’s become a more efficient writer, which makes posting faster.
• There is some concern that public government blogs could become overly controlled. It’s a good idea to put out your press releases and expose them via blogs, since the structure of blog software is well suited to that. But press releases and formal communication vetted through your communications office shouldn’t be the only blogs. You need to have blogs that encourage more informality and interaction. But it’s a fine line – there are some things you don’t want people talking about. You need to tell your employees what they can and can’t write.
• Yes, there are concerns that public dialogue outside of normal communications channels and controls can be risky. Your agency needs to weigh the benefits of informal, interactive communications with the public versus message control.
• One caller mentioned that their General Counsel advised them not to do blogs because the text would become part of the agency’s record. Yes, this is true, but it doesn’t mean that blogs shouldn’t be done. It means that you need to think strategically about how you want to communicate. Blogs are the wrong place to make policy announcements, product announcements, etc.
• Can you put this responsibility of writing blogs into a position description? Some companies have essentially professional bloggers. But the most successful ones are people who aren’t hired for that specifically.
• Phil highly recommended the book, “Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.”

Susanne Wiggins, Montgomery County, Maryland, Division of Solid Waste Services

• BIO: Susanne Wiggins is responsible for the development, care-and-feeding, and majority of the content for the Montgomery County, Maryland, Division of Solid Waste Services website. Susanne maintains four email lists, which had over 10,000 subscribers as of October 2006. She also coordinated several "Behind the Scenes" courses for folks interested in learning about the finer points of municipal solid waste management. To further communicate with her interested audience, she started blogging on the topic of Solid Waste Services in March 2005. Read her blog, called “Talkin’ Trash.”
• Susanne chose Blogger to set up her first blog. She pitched it to management as a test balloon that they would try for six months and then re-evaluate. So far, it’s been successful and they don’t have any plans to discontinue it.
• They looked at various metrics and noticed that people were finding the blog mostly from search engines – not from any proactive marketing they’d done. In fact, they’d been very low-key about marketing -- no big announcement in their listserv. But it still made its way into the mainstream Web. Visitors from all over the world come to the blog, and hits from search engines are continuing.
• They have no regrets about doing the blog. It’s on Blogspot, a major website that posts blogs. People find the blog pretty easily that way.
• They now “tag” their posts using a beta version of Blogger. This makes it even easier for the major blogging sites to pick up the blog.
• Their guidance and policy towards blogs is not that different than other ways they communicate -- how would it look if it ended up on front page of the local newspaper?

Cheryl Thompson, Web Manager at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH)

• BIO: Cheryl Thompson is the Web Manager at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at NIH. Previously, Cheryl was the webmaster for the city of Irving, Texas, a community of approximately 185,000 in the center of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. While in her position there, the website earned the 2005 Technology Excellence Award from the Texas Association of Government Information Technology Managers. She served until recently as the founding Gulf Region director of the National Association of Government Webmasters. Cheryl holds a Master of Business Administration in Information Technology from the University of Dallas.
• Cheryl has a long history with blogs. She used them even before the word “blog” existed. She’s done research on what makes blogs successful and initiated a survey of government web managers to gauge the status of blogs within the government.
• An informal tone is the most important element of a blog. Some overly corporate blogs have gotten very negative reactions.
• As part of her survey, she talked to other cities that had open forums and had used blogs. She asked city managers and mayors about how they’re addressing the policy issues -- especially how to balance the legality of posting some comments and not others. Some cities outsourced to a third- party vendor to manage their blogs and the comments. Others moderated comments themselves.
• The survey revealed that more cities were apprehensive about doing blogs than those that weren’t. Some said they didn’t have the commitment from staff to keep a blog updated. Others said their community wasn’t interested yet. Still others cited PR and policy issues.
• But the survey also revealed that all the cities who were using blogs were very positive. None said they had a bad experience.

Q & A

• Q: There’s still concern about the time commitment to manage a blog. How does a blog affect the already existing tasks of staff? Do you restrict having only a few people do blogs?

Cheryl: This comes up anytime you talk about any new form of communication -- newsletters, listservs, etc. Blogging isn’t any different. It always comes down to how much of a priority it is versus other things.

Susanne: I spend about 1-2 hours a week on my blog. I try to do entries several times a week. But ideas float around all the time so I’m often thinking about it. But the key is to think about blogs as another way of recycling your writing tasks. For example, if you’ve already done research to respond to an email, you might as well post the answer on the blog. Chances are, other people have the same question and this way the answer gets to a much broader audience.

Phil: Often what I’m blogging is something I’d email to someone anyway -- it just leverages it for another use. Blogging is an easy, quick way to add information to a website and get content out to the public without the usual technical steps that are required of posting to a webpage (using HTML).

• Q: What are security ramifications? Once people are at your site and can post a comment to a blog, what protections are in place so they can’t go any further into your site?

Phil: Systems can be set up so that computer security isn’t an issue. You can outsource your blog using software like Blogger. You can also turn off comments, but then you disallow the interaction with the public. It’s best to allow comments, but to moderate them as needed. It’s like having “living room rules” -- if I let you say it in my living room, you can say it on my blog. Otherwise, I’ll delete the comment.

• Q: How much time is spent on blogging vs. email?

Susanne: I still spend more time on email. Emails aren’t going away. But email and blogs can complement eachother. Don’t make time a barrier to doing blogs. Don’t be afraid – try them out.

We’ve used blogs to generate RSS feeds. We provide javascript so other sites can pull our feed and post the headline directly onto another site. The other site gets the headline directly (with minimal effort), so it’s a great marketing plug for us.

Blogs don’t have to be long. But they should give some type of explanation or additional insight that you wouldn’t typically get on your organization’s website. Do more than just give the facts. Say things like, “we don’t accept this kind of paper for recycling, because X, Y, Z ….” This kind of conversation gives the public a better appreciation for what you do and helps personalize the topic. If you’re a regulatory agency, explain a regulation and give a “behind the scenes” viewpoint. This kind of approach helps captivate your audience.

Phil: Use RSS feeds as a companion to blogs. People subscribe to RSS, which allows them to process low priority messages in a different timeframe with a different tool. Takes email messages out of inboxes.

It’s all about driving content to people. The more you can pump content out, the better. Each time you’re providing information that peaks the public’s interest, they’re more likely to come back to your website. People like blogs because of the conversational tone. But they need to be written so they’re real and not viewed as advertising. The tone makes a big difference in how successful a blog will be.

• Q: Who should be writing a blog?

Cheryl: Our experience is that city managers and mayors were most successful. They were making decisions that impacted peoples’ daily lives, so the public was very interested in hearing what they had to say.

Phil: Blogs are more about good communication than technology. You don’t need to know HTML to write nice blog entries. Find the people who love to write (and who have something relevant to say), not the tech folks.

Next Forum Call and Reminders

• Next month’s call is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, December 21, from 11 am – 12 pm EST. However, this date is very close to the holidays, so we may move it up a week. We’ll keep you posted. If you have suggestions for the agenda, please contact Sheila Campbell at Sheila.campbell@gsa.gov.
• Don’t forget to check the schedule for Web Manager University and sign up for the remaining classes this Fall.

 

Page Updated or Reviewed: January 12, 2007