Great thoughts! Gwynne recently referenced a post from Dan Bevarly on 7 points that Jane and John Q. Public might want from Government web sites: http://www.aheadofideas.com/?p=598 and it got me thinking. I too have had my thoughts challenged by Gwynne (and I even drew even on some of our friendly discussions) but in this case I think we found some common ground.

Like Candi, I’ve been concerned (obsessed) about the absolute chaos I see in the USG’s web presence (which isn’t a correct reflection of the state of “online USG”…it’s more like web presencesssssssss).

Va.gov vs. Veterns.gov. Is the first the state of Virginia? No, it’s the Veterns Administration. Is the second the Veterns Administration? No, it’s OPM’s initiative to hire veterns. Huh? (sorry for the tangent!)

Dan raises 7 points that mostly address citizen engagement in the policy making function of government. Being a civil servant, something is missing from the discussion and that is “service delivery”.

The USG actually provides direct and indirect services to citizens. Upon reviewing many USG agency sites, I’m struck by the overwhelming “messaging” that is going on. Top tasks? What are they?

While messaging is important, I think we need to find a balance between messaging the citizen and serving the citizen. (To Gwynne’s credit, I think DHS.gov finds that balance.)

Dan’s point no. 6 led me to ask some questions to some of my web buddies.

“6. We are “Generation Now (and forever)”
Is there a realization in government like in the private sector that now and forever the public’s preference for communicating and sharing information has changed and that there are citizens of voting age who are also “cradle to grave” digital users? And the appropriate response from government (considering they want to connect with us and engage us) should be to make it a high priority to restructure (not reinvent) its engagement processes based on these new preferences and expectations?”

Does this imply that citizens want to have an account with the USG? Do they want a more seamless (think amazon) online environment to “shop for” and obtain the goods and services the USG offers? Does it mean that citizens can tweak their own privacy settings (think facebook sort of)? If yes to any of these questions, than how should the USG’s web presence be restructured? Is there a role for the FWMC to help in this restructuring?

A major challenge for the Federal Web Manager Council members to lend a hand is that we all work in our own silos (not a bad thing…it is what it is). The only group that lives above the smoke stacks is USA.gov. Could USA.gov begin to organize around “life events”? Could USA.gov begin to start the process of restructuring the USG’s engagement?

I’d challenge you to stretch a bit more in your vision of what USA.gov could become. Push past the next evolution of becoming a content site. How about USA.gov becoming the place where citizens interact with their government? Maybe I’m reaching for the stars but I don’t care which agency can give me a passport, I just want one. And while I’m there, why can’t I renew my driver’s license?

OH, but wait, that’s issued by my state. But to your point, as a citizen, I see it as “da gov’ment”. Let me do my business and get on with my life. Gwynne suggested that maybe “service” is the nexus that draws citizens to some sort of government online presence. Why not streamline that interaction in one place versus scattered over 45,000 USG web sites (24k is so yesterday).

Great thoughts and happy new decade!
Rand

I am by no means an analytics guy, but I enjoy reading Avinash Kaushik’s insights. He recently wrote a great (long) post about how to find gems of insight beyond the top 10.

Regardless, you’re right. It will take time to get content up to speed. Thanks for your comment!

A while ago I did some analysis of search terms for Mass.Gov. I took the top 500 search terms for a month. Jobs and taxes are always #1 or #2, so I went through and found all the various words and phrases in that list (jobs, employment, unemployment, etc. and tax, taxes, sales tax, income tax, etc.) and added them up. The jobs searches were 0.06% of all searches and taxes were 0.05%.

Yes, our top 2 tasks based on search analysis barely topped 1% of all searches. (So much for the 90-10 rule.) I suspect USA.gov would see a similar pattern in their data.

That doesn’t mean we throw our hand up in despair, but it does make it more difficult to be seen as a success. Even with lots of good writers, it will take time before there is enough rewritten content to be noticeable to most people. And it means that both Mass.Gov and USA.gov need to still have ways to easily and efficiently get to the rest of the content, which inevitably brings us back to you advice to embrace search.

No need to thank me for mentioning you, btw—your blog has been invaluable to me throughout the year.

I absolutely agree with your point on engaging actual citizens to get better feedback on content. Gwynne Kostin and I duked it out over the relative strengths of focus groups v. analytics on Andrew Krzmarzick’s blog earlier this year. Obviously, the two methods are not mutually exclusive and the value of simply talking to people is inestimable. We’re ramping up to use our Facebook and Twitter presences to get many more “ut-oh” moments from conversations in 2010.

That said, I long for a stronger culture of analytics, and blame the cookie policy for preventing this from happening across government sites. Giving citizens quick and easy opportunities to give feedback on our content certainly doesn’t hurt, and it’s an extremely low cost way to gather insights on an ongoing basis. Perhaps “survey” sounds too cumbersome, but I really like the way Google gathers feedback on their help pages.

Thanks again!

Yes yes yes. I guess I should have just came out and said it, but you’ve read between the lines: USA.gov can add value simply by rewriting content for Joe Smith.

USA.gov already has a staff of talented writers that are, as you suggest, experts at navigating government content. Additionally, they’re also well-positioned to gather help and feedback from subject matter experts across government in case they can’t find relevant information on agency websites.

Thank you for your suggestion to steal from Wikipedia. We think along the same lines (friends!). I’ve wondered for a while if we could adopt Wikipedia’s Manual of Style as our own. I’ve also been very inspired by this video explaining how Intellipedia uses Mediawiki.

However, that raises a question that you don’t explicitly answer in your post: who’s doing the work? Specifically, who’s writing this content? I had assumed that you expected the original agencies to rewrite content for USA.gov, but your response (and a quick re-read) suggests USA.gov would have its own writers. Is that what you mean?

If so, that makes perfect sense. USA.gov writers would be (or become) experts at navigating government content and summarizing it for Joe Smith. Their job would be to address topics of interest, not to promote any agency’s agenda. Agencies would continue to produce their own documents, based on their own goals and structure.

Given that, I have another suggestion: steal a few ideas from Wikipedia. Some of their content policies (NPOV, verifiability, no original research) might be worth adopting, especially if you eventually do open up USA.gov to outside writers.

Re: your question/statement: “Rather than moving content from individual sites to USA.gov, how about cross-posting it there? There’s plenty of precedent for doing that elsewhere on the web, usually in cases where the same content would reach parallel audiences in two locations.”

Thank you for this. This is a huge question, as I’m advocating that we recreate content that may already exist.

My primary concern is that there are literally countless .gov sites (no one seems to be able to find an absolute number of how many)—each with a unique interface and architecture. This is not a bad thing per se—I absolutely think that individual agencies and programs should have their own spaces to publish information.

That said, for usability reasons, I believe that the subset of citizen-facing government information used by the vast majority of people (we call this information related to top tasks) should be available in one spot, with a single interface, and written in the same citizen-facing voice and tone. The voice and tone part is the tricky thing that prevents (in my limited imagination) from sucking content from disparate sites with different editorial guidelines into USA.gov.

Conversely, there’s a lot of discussion about “widgetizing” USA.gov content. I’d love for USA.gov to use an XHTML schema that would allow people to parse its content and syndicate it elsewhere. Essentially the opposite of what you’re recommending.

Using surveys to help write content could be useful. But I’d rather see actual citizens sitting in the room as the writers think about what they need to say. Too often, government employees – especially at the fed level – distance themselves from citizens. They’d prefer to sit in their offices and collect data, hoping when they analyze it they’ll draw the right conclusions, rather than actually sitting down and talking to the audience. In my experience, there’s no substitute for pulling a few citizens together, showing them what you’re doing, and asking for – and listening to – what they tell you. I can’t tell you how many “ut-oh” moments I’ve had from those kinds of discussions. I’m not talking about formal fancy focus groups – I’m talking about just pulling together some friends of friends and listening to what they say.

As for what USA.gov should cover, the search terms do give some good hints. Stats on most used also will help. Web managers across government also can tell you what their top 2-3 “most requesteds” are. But this isn’t rocket science. If you just sit down and think about your own life – and the lives of the people you know – you can get this. I need a house over my head. I need a job. I need transportation to my job. I need to care for my children and my sick parents. I need to serve healthy, well-balanced meals to my family. Oh – and anything government can do to give me money, save me money, or help me make money is tops. I truly value common sense, in figuring out what citizens want and in writing for them.

The one point you make that is so important is that this doesn’t have to be hard or take a long time. It’s just a matter of doing it. The biggest hurdle I see is political will. If someone at a high enough level can just get behind this and say it will be done, it will be done. Yes – there will be some push-back from some agencies. But I think if prevail on people to put the needs of the public over their own wants, it’s pretty obvious what should happen. Most public servants DO want to serve.

Glad you’re part of the solution, Jed. You’ve got good instincts.