Webmaster Conference
Last week, Twelve Horses sponsored the National Association of Government Webmasters Annual Conference held at the Harrah’s Reno Convention Center. The conference consisted of three days of learning and knowledge-sharing, as well as some networking.
There were a variety of different sessions, including:
- CSS
- Coldfusion
- Streaming Video & Podcasting
- Intranet Design
- AJAX & XML
- Promoting your Website
- RSS
- Webstats, and the list goes on….
Josh Kenzer, our Director of Business Development gave an informative presentation on email marketing, and our director of professional services, TJ Crawford presented a multichannel communication case study on one of our clients, which is responsible for the Amber Alerts.
As an Award Sponsor, we also were responsible for reviewing 53 different government sites to choose the winner; although, we did rule out any sites that we had personally designed. We approached the task systematically by breaking down the grading into 5 categories. We looked at design, navigation, content, innovation and interactivity, and applied a score between 1 and 5 for each.
The winner was Charlottesville, VA. We felt they did a good job of keeping their constituency in mind. Many of the other sites felt impenetrable; lacked compelling copy; linked to other affiliated government sites with hardly any indication that would be the case; did not offer the ability to start a dialogue with anyone that could be helpful; and generally projected a very Web 1.0 sort of look.
With that being said, many county, city and state webmasters are faced with a multitude of challenges. Everything from a lack of funding, to uncooperative and differing departments get in the way. These webmasters are charged with the difficult task of effectively organizing overwhelming amounts of information for a variety of different users. Meanwhile, they must do their best to stay on top of the latest technology.
Because webmasters are charged with a host of different responsibilities, and because they can often be fairly non-technical, Content Management Systems were a big topic. Making web updates simple and easy for those government entities devoid of creative or technical staff has great appeal.
The keynote presentation given by Cathilea Robinett, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Government and Center for Digital Education was very informative. It gave an individual like me, who work in the private sector, a good perspective on what the government is focused on.
The major theme was most definitely oriented around providing better service to the public through the use of technology. She talked of email, blogs, podcasting, RSS, and mobile, and she cited some interesting examples of how some cities like Tuscon and Atlanta were engaging in online dialogues with citizens through forums to get their input on budgets and policies. One might imagine that something like this could be quite risky but, in fact, they ended up self-regulating themselves. Those that were there to cause trouble were ousted by the online community and negated.
While most of the conference was held in downtown Reno in the vicinity of the casinos, we did get out for a BBQ Thursday night at Bartley Ranch and the Hawkins Amphitheater. I was glad that many of these visitors got a different perspective of what else Reno is and can offer. Bartley Ranch is situated just a little bit south of town, and it is set down in a fertile valley surrounded by beautiful mountain views.
I met a lot of great people from all over the country and had a great time. The attendees all impressed upon me a genuine motivation to provide their collective constituencies with better tools and better services through the use of the Web. It will only get better.
I look forward to next year!
tags: nagw, national association of government webmasters, reno, center for digital government, cathilea robinett, rss, blogs, podcasting, email, website design
