Federal Web Council Reveals New Study: Putting Citizens First, Transforming Online Government

“There are about 24,000 U.S. Government Web sites now online.”

“Only a minority of government agencies have developed strong Web policies and management controls. Some have hundreds of “legacy” Web sites with outdated or irrelevant content.”

“We have too much content to categorize, search, and manage effectively, and there is no comprehensive system for removing or archiving old or underused content.”

“Agencies should be required and funded to regular content reviews, to ensure their online content is accurate. relevant, mission-related, and written in plain language. They should have a process for archiving content that is no longer in frequent use and no longer required on the Web site.”

According to my twitter search RSS feed, the term “Government 2.0” is increasing in frequency and popularity. More bloggers and more blog posts continue to emerge on what and how government should improve its online Web presence, leveraging social media. Thus, I was enthused to read last week’s report from the experts themselves: government, to accomplish just this.

Last week, the Federal Web Managers Council, comprised of Cabinet agency Web Directors released its study titled, “Putting Citizens First: Transforming Online Government.” Its purpose is to “recommend specific strategies for revolutionizing how the U.S. Government delivers online services to the American people.

One of the most exciting pieces of the report (in my opinion) is what I understand as the government’s endorsement for more social media:

“The Government should use social media, not just to create transparency, but also to help people accomplish core tasks…To do this, the government must ensure that federal employees who need access to social media tools have them, and that these new ways of delivering content are available to all, including people with disabilities.”

Within this document, the Federal Web Managers Council also reveal their shared vision for the government’s presence online. This vision is for the public to:

Easily find relevant, accurate, and up-to-date information
Understand information the first time they read it
Complete common tasks efficiently
Get the same answer whether they use the Web, phone, email, live chat, read a brochure, or visit in-person.
Provide feedback and ideas and hear what the government will do with them
Access critical information if they have a disability or aren’t proficient in English.

The list of recommendations is not limited to but includes:

Establish Web Communications as a core government business function
Help the public complete common government tasks efficiently
Clean up clutter so people can find what they need online
Engage the public in a dialogue to improve our customer service
Ensure under-served populations can access critical information online.

For more information or to read the report in its entirety, the full report is available here.

Your Turn: What do think of the recommendations, how would you prioritize and what else might you include?

Liked what you read? Feel free to share with others: and/or connect with me on Twitter – @socialbttrfly.

6 thoughts on “Federal Web Council Reveals New Study: Putting Citizens First, Transforming Online Government”

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frets January 8, 2009 at 8:01 am

I’m in an agency that is just getting top-down support for a formal Web program, so this is good timing. Thanks.

Please fix the link to the actual report. I was able to get it by copying/pasting, but there’s extra code in the link URL.

admin Post authorJanuary 8, 2009 at 8:20 am

Thanks for the tip! The link is now updated. =)

James S. Walker January 8, 2009 at 8:40 am

Hi Alex,

I’d make these two top priorities:

* Clean up clutter so people can find what they need online.

* Ensure under-served populations can access critical information online.

Both are very tall orders, but they can be done. Glad to see that some focus has shifted not just to Gov2.0 and social media just to be “in”; focus also appears to be on leveraging these channels/tools to improve basic functions.

This vision mentioned above would go on my wish list: “Get the same answer whether they use the Web, phone, email, live chat, read a brochure, or visit in-person.”

Seeing that this rarely happens when you go from one person to the next…we’ll see how this goes.

Aaron McCall January 8, 2009 at 8:41 am

Great article! What I as a long time web app programmer and sometimes consumer of government info would like to see is: XML, JSON, etc. If government information was available in ways that the public could consume in ways that serve them best that would be ideal.

Jeffrey Levy January 11, 2009 at 10:09 pm

Hi Alexandra. Thanks for mentioning our paper!

Did you know we have two others that focus more specifically on social media?

You can find them here: http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/about/documents.shtml

(the one on barriers to using social media in gov’t is already there; tomorrow, you’ll see a list of example of social media already in use).

Jeffrey Levy
Dir. of Web Communications
US EPA

Member, Federal Web Managers Council
Co-Chair, Social Media Subcouncil

admin Post authorJanuary 18, 2009 at 8:56 pm

@Jeffrey Thank you for providing more resources. I have read the other documents as well, and do my best to follow webcontent.gov. I think it’s a very valuable resource that I hope more and more start to utilize both inside and outside of government. Thank you for all your leadership and work on the Council! =)

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SocialButterfly

Exploring the Art + Science of Social Change.

6 thoughts on “Federal Web Council Reveals New Study: Putting Citizens First, Transforming Online Government”