Web Manager University - Spring 2007
Webinar Title: Knowing Your Audience and Their Top Tasks
(FREE Webinar)
Class Format: | Webinar | about our webinars |
Instructor: | Gerry McGovern | |
Date/Time: | February 21, 2007 | 2 pm - 3:30 pm (EDT) |
Place: | N/A (this is an online webinar) | |
Fee: | FREE |
Note: If you would like to reference a copy of this webinar, a Windows Media Player file can be e-mailed to you. Please contact webcontenttoolkit@gsa.gov
If you’re at an agency that has multiple people who want to participate, we encourage you to register one person and view the webinar together in a conference type setting or shared workstation.
Webinar Description
People come to your website to complete tasks. They want to renew a driving licence. They want to have their child’s vision tested and need to know if the state healthcare coverage program covers that. They want to know why their local school is described as a hazardous waste handler.
People have tasks, and they are always in a hurry. They come to your government website because they have to—not because they want to. They’re tired. It’s nine o’clock and they’ve just got the kids to bed, and they need to find out how they go about making a complaint against that cable TV company that’s giving them so much grief. They’re watching "Desperate Housewives," so they’re going to try and figure out the complaint process during the ad breaks.
This webinar will be particularly useful for a team managing reasonably mature government websites, who want to bring them to the next level of excellence. The key take-away will be to change your focus from seeing your website as a collection of content and/or applications, to seeing it as a range of citizen tasks. Success will be about measuring how easy and fast it is for citizens to complete their most important tasks.
Speaker Bio
Gerry McGovern is widely regarded as the number one worldwide authority on managing web content as a business asset. He has spoken, written and consulted extensively on web content management issues since 1994.
In 2006, he was described by The Irish Times as one of five visionaries who had had a major impact on the development of the Web. In 2006, he received the Educational Contribution award from the Irish Internet Association.
In 2004, he was included in the 100 most influential figures in e-commerce in the UK and Ireland, as part of "An Internet Decade," which was organized by NOP World and E-Consultancy. In 2000, he received the Web Ireland Internet Industry Person of the Year award. He is a founding member of the Irish Internet Association and the Content Management Professionals Association.
Gerry has written four books. In 2001, he published two books with Financial Times Prentice Hall entitled: Content Critical and The Web Content Style Guide. Design Research News stated that Content Critical "should be on the reading list of every course in Web design."Knowledge Management Review described it as a "bible" of content management. In 2006, he published Killer Web Content. Suzanne Sowinska, Manager, Content Publishing Excellence, Microsoft Corporation, described it as "essential reading."
Gerry has been nominated as best overall speaker at numerous conferences. He has spoken about content management at hundreds of conferences and workshops in 35 countries. Gerry has appeared on BBC, CNN, and CNBC television, partaken in various radio shows, and featured in numerous print media publications.
Previously, he was founder and chief executive officer of Nua, a developer of content management software and solutions. In 1996, Nua received the Best Overall World Wide Web Business Achievement award from the European Union.
Since 1996, Gerry has written “New Thinking”, a widely read weekly email newsletter covering the role of content on the Web. In 1999, Gerry published The Caring Economy (Blackhall Publishing), which was voted 25th out of the top 50 new economy books by Middleton/Capstone.
Gerry holds a BS from Trinity College, Dublin, and lives in Dublin, Ireland. He maintains a website at: www.gerrymcgovern.com
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Page Updated or Reviewed: June 19, 2007