Anthony Calabrese is a Digital Communications Manager at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
We saw some big changes across the federal government with the introduction of the Digital Government Strategy in 2012. And it was a big year for innovation at the Department of Health & Human Services, where I’m part of a great team that’s working to transform us into the digital age. Looking forward, 2013 promises to be even bigger!
My colleagues at the Digital Communications Division at HHS and the Federal Web Managers Council have teamed up to bring you 12 big ideas & predictions for 2013:
- Help Wanted: Community Manager, Social Media Manager, Social Media Strategist, Social Media Coordinator will become official titles for positions within the federal government. Why does this matter? The right social media team can react quickly and effectively in time of crisis and take advantage of a Super Bowl-sized opportunity on the fly.
- 2013 will be the year that ‘m-dot’ died. More web managers will move to responsive design for their websites or mobile apps for targeted content.
- Not just responsive design. Responsive content too! Citizen engagement and better customer service will lead to a self-sustaining feedback loop that fuels constant iteration and constant site improvement.
- At your service! The success of the Project MyUSA (formerly MyGov) will mean we are finally giving citizens the level of customization and personalization they’ve been getting for years from private sector services.
- May I have your attention please? The use of rotating homepage billboards will continue regardless of their value or interest to the public.
- AP… what? Structured content and “content as data” will be game changers. This year, everybody will finally understand what an API is and what it does.
- #%@! Analytics & sentiment analysis will have a big impact on social media strategy in 2013 and beyond.
- [INFOGRAPHIC] Infographics like this will grow in importance as a light, sharable, and printable alternative to video.
- Here’s to your health! Health data will hit the mainstream as key parts of the Affordable Care Act kick in later this year. And HealthData.gov will exceed 500 open datasets.
- Open Government: Open source platforms will continue to dominate as content management systems offer opportunities for collaboration across the federal government.
- Git with the program! If you haven’t heard of GitHub, Twitter Bootstrap, and LESS CSS, you will by the end of 2013. They may change the way we do web.
- Not just for zombies. Gamification, incentivization, and competition on social media platforms will help our content to go viral. Engagement – it’s not just for zombies anymore.
Let us know what you think and share your own ideas and predictions in the comments. Stay tuned for 12 more predictions coming soon…
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12 comments
MLM Lawyer says:
February 13, 2013 at 7:31 am (UTC -5 )
Zombies are still popular, but we don’t need them to make our content go viral anymore. There are proven techniques that can help us engage with our audience and increase our reach.
Gerardo says:
February 12, 2013 at 9:27 am (UTC -5 )
Thank you for sharing this article. The more I learn the less I know! :-)
Free Forms says:
February 12, 2013 at 7:08 am (UTC -5 )
I think point 11 is where everything will take off, reducing your code from 24 lines down to 14 in one section of the web page, will definitely speed up the web.
Great Article!
formsprintable.com
Casey McClure says:
February 11, 2013 at 5:13 pm (UTC -5 )
Thank you for the excellent article! I work on behalf of Total Med Solutions in raising awareness of the digital means of educating the public about available treatments.
produsecosmetice says:
February 9, 2013 at 8:11 pm (UTC -5 )
I do not know the other two options mentioned at point 11 but for GitHub, I totally agree that it is one of the greatest tools! Also, I understand the responsive design because of the numerous supports existing, but could you please tell a little bit more about a responsive content ?
Anthony Calabrese says:
February 11, 2013 at 5:45 pm (UTC -5 )
Responsive content or as I like to say “Responsive Government” is about responding to you and your needs. It is putting people first in all that we do.
Here are three principles and examples:
Customer Service – making sure that you have a good user experience. We conduct usability testing and collect feedback from people every day: http://www.hhs.gov/digitalstrategy/people-first/voice-of-consumer-tool.html
Using feedback and metrics – making improvements to the website, to our content, and to our digital services over time. USA.gov updated their blog design in response to customer feedback trends: http://blog.howto.gov/2012/11/07/using-feedback-to-improve-the-customer-experience/
Establishing a cycle of two-way communication to build engagement. We made the email newsletter experience on HealthCare.gov more customer friendly and easier to access. We then saw a spike in subscriptions: http://www.hhs.gov/digitalstrategy/people-first/email-newsletters-putting-people-first.html
And not too far in the future, we will be able to provide you with a truly personalized experience based on where you are and what information you choose share with us. Imagine content that responds to your needs in realtime!
Bheem Games says:
February 7, 2013 at 11:49 pm (UTC -5 )
Well the post was really helpful as i got the answers for some questions asked in assignment, but what is the 12th point about?
Robert Jacoby says:
February 8, 2013 at 2:41 pm (UTC -5 )
Gamification. It’s about gamification. Check it out: http://www.howto.gov/training/classes/gamification
Anthony Calabrese says:
February 11, 2013 at 4:34 pm (UTC -5 )
CDC leveraged the popularity of zombies to raise awareness about disaster preparedness and the result was an internet sensation!
Zombies are still popular, but we don’t need them to make our content go viral anymore. There are proven techniques that can help us engage with our audience and increase our reach.
Gamification is one of them. You can learn a bit more about it in this HowTo.gov article: http://www.howto.gov/social-media/gamification
Gary says:
February 12, 2013 at 11:56 am (UTC -5 )
If only those Zombies were accessible to people who are blind or sight-impaired. A text version is hardly as fun or an equivalent experience as seeing and/or hearing zombies is!
Rivalhost says:
February 7, 2013 at 2:31 pm (UTC -5 )
This is an excellent outlook for 2013. Very informative list! The move to responsive design is without the best move for any business with a web presence. Games, social media, and interactive content will definitely rise – as will blogging. I’m curious, what social media site does the U.S. Gov find the most useful?
Anthony Calabrese says:
February 11, 2013 at 4:51 pm (UTC -5 )
Each department uses social media in different ways that meet their needs. So we can only speculate as to which network the government as a whole finds the most useful.
GSA has created a social media registry and API that can help us verify official U.S. government-run accounts: http://www.howto.gov/social-media/social-media-registry
Perhaps this is an opportunity for us (HHS) and GSA to collaborate on a data visualization or an infographic showing the most popular social networks across government.
Here at HHS, we have New Media Database to has information on blogs, social media, and more from across the department: http://www.hhs.gov/socialhub/
And there has been a lot of buzz about Pinterest. Here’s how we plan to grow on that network: http://www.hhs.gov/digitalstrategy/people-first/hhs-on-pinterest.html