OK, holidays are nearing an end; and I’m back to thinking about government communications and customer service. What a year it’s been! Great progress in some areas, like social media. Modest progress toward our long-time goal to make top customer tasks easier to find and use. Not much progress at all (in fact, slippage) inRead… Read more »
I’ve been neglecting this blog. Too busy with holiday doings. So before I forget them, here are three quick thoughts that might deserve longer pieces…after the holidays. 1. Dashboards I’m beginning to wonder about the wisdom of all these performance “dashboards.” I understand that, in the spirit of open government, it’s good to have someRead… Read more »
I was talking to a web colleague a few weeks ago, asking what she’s working on. She said, “collaboration, innovation, participation, best practices – all good stuff.” Indeed, good stuff. But then I starting thinking, leading to what? What is she trying to achieve? The other day, I saw a new job posting at aRead… Read more »
I had been HUD’s web manager for 8 years before I actually watched someone use our website during usability testing. We had won awards for our customer-friendly content, and I was just so sure that we had most of it right. Then I watched 3 people struggle to find the answers to, what we thoughtRead… Read more »
I just returned from a great two-day training session with the Defense Finance and Accounting Service web team, in Indianapolis. Kudos to Debra Harris for organizing it. She’s a real emerging leader in the web community. I was doing the training, but that isn’t what made these two days great (well, gosh, maybe I hadRead… Read more »
A couple of weeks ago, after I’d cut loose with some ideas for the government web community (and witnessed the weary and wary looks on my web colleagues’ faces), my good friend Bev Godwin bailed me out by saying, “as long as I’ve known Candi, she’s always asked ‘what’s next?’ We need to keep askingRead… Read more »
In my Web Manager University course, “Delivering Great Customer Service – Essentials for Government Web Managers,” I do a section on “metrics that matter.” I often start by asking folks if they collect performance data. Heads nod. Then I ask them what they do with it – how they use it. Most use stats toRead… Read more »
Improving government’s customer service means constantly looking for new ways to do things, seizing new technologies, and experimenting. All good. But as we do what’s exciting and new, let’s not forget that we also need to do what’s important. Like implementing all the laws, regulations, and requirements already in place, for government websites. A littleRead… Read more »
Five years ago, we all sat horrified watching the ravages of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf coast. Seeing so many, many fellow citizens losing everything and facing enormous challenges to get their lives back was powerful motivation to act. And the government web manager community did just that – we came together to help. I’veRead… Read more »
For years, many of us have worried there is too much content on government websites…that we’ve let the clutter overwhelm the content that our customers really want and use. Well, let me tell you what Sam Gallagher, my friend and former colleague at HUD, has accomplished because this is an honest-to-goodness hoorah success story inRead… Read more »