Entry bubble Your Wish is My Blog Topic

By: Joanne | May 13, 2008 | Category: General

hand holding a sign that says, sock it to meIt’s a special day—mark your calendar. What’s so special about it? Today the federal government isn’t telling you what to do and how to do it, but instead is asking what interests you and what you’d like us to do.

Take a moment to pinch yourself so you can be sure you’re not dreaming. I’ll wait.

Here’s the thing. We’ve got this blog and a team of bloggers, and we want our work to benefit you. Give us your ideas of how you’d like us to use this blog to provide you with information, services or a place to express your opinions—we’re ready to experiment.

We’re really impressed with how the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has used their blog to engage their readers. The Transportation Security Administration is the agency that’s in charge of airport security, among other things. The public has been really vocal on the TSA blog, and TSA is getting ideas and feedback about airport security operations that they’ve been able to use to make changes and improve service.

I can’t promise that we can implement your every suggestion. There’s nothing I can do about having to remove your shoes at the airport—believe me, I wish there was! I can promise that we read all of your ideas and use them to guide us in our blogging. We can also share your ideas with other federal government bloggers and web managers.

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Entry bubble Government in the Web 2.0 Age

By: Sommer | April 11, 2008 | Category: General

 the word connect spelled out with computer keyboard keys

Since you’re reading this blog you know that government is somewhat active in the social media arena. Here at GSA's Office of Citizen Services, we’re really having fun with this new and exciting way to communicate with the American public. We have very supportive leadership that encourages us to be innovative and creative and to reach out to you in a way that’s most convenient for you rather than making you come to us and conform to the bureaucracy.

However, some government agencies don’t have the same flexibility we do. A lot of agencies are afraid of losing control of their information and content and many don't understand if and how using social media tools can advance their agency missions.

So, America, I pose a question to you… What do you think of government agencies using social media tools like blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts, YouTube, Flickr, widgets, and microblogs to reach out and give you information? Is it good? Bad? Are there ways you’d like the government to provide information that we haven’t thought of or addressed yet? After all, we’re public servants and we’re here to serve, so let us know what you want and need.

| View Comments [21] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: blogging   conversation   government   media   rssfeeds   social   sommer   web2.0