Share and Share Alike

Notes from NAGW: Share and Share Alike

Focused professional groups such as the Colorado government webmaster group (WebCOG), the National Association of Government Webmasters (NAGW) and GovLoop have helped me to provide better service to my employer and our constituents. The members of these organizations help me gauge what’s working at different levels of government.

WebCOG and NAGW have saved me many hours and even more headaches over the years. When I needed an idea of what other local governments are using for a CMS, my fellow govies were there. When I needed some examples of social networking policies, the govies came through for me again. When I learned about how to get a government YouTube channel, I shared the “how-to” with fellow govies on various listservs. When one of us succeeds, we all succeed.

I love the openness and the willingness to share within these groups. Now that sharing is more commonplace with social networking, open data sets and code competitions, I find that a focused group is even more important. They help filter out extraneous noise and let me keep a pulse on what other web folks are doing. More importantly, I don’t have to re-create the wheel. The information I get is what’s already working somewhere.

Do you have a success story? Share it with the professional groups you belong to and/or right here on GovLoop. You may think that everyone’s doing it, but your story just may be the spark that leads one of your fellow govies to success.

Susan Christophersen is Secretary and Mountain Region Director of NAGW and Senior Web Administrator for Boulder County, Colorado. She is happy to count many of her WebCOG and NAGW colleagues as friends.