Citizen engagement guide by Tommy Bowen

Changing Engaging the Way Government Does Business the Digital Citizen

Citizen Engagement Solutions for Government The Citizen Engagement portfolio at Carahsoft brings together a variety of industry leading solutions that analyze and disseminate information to citizens, the public and the community. These solutions provide a means for the Government to uphold responsibilities to share and report information to the public in a secure manner. Within this portfolio, Carahsoft is pleased to carry solutions that fall under public outreach, social media and website enhancement.

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Online Resource for Government Events

Government Recruitment Tool

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Case Management System for Child Welfare

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3PlayMedia INTELLIGENT TRANSCRIPTION

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Online Video Cloud-Based Platform Solution

Knowledge Network for Government

Video Captioning Software

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Social Media Monitoring & Integration

Social Business Software for Secure Online Communities

Online Text-to-Speech Solutions

Website Analytic & Measurement Solution

Cloud-Based Resolution Center

Solutions available through Carahsoft and its partners on GSA Schedule GS-35F-0119Y.

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Join us to discuss how government is utilizing these strategic technologies to provide twenty-first century services to citizens at our Citizen Engagement Seminar. Scan to learn more or register!

Or visit: http://carah.st/ctznes2014

FOREWORD: Today, when we talk about citizen engagement, we’re no longer just referencing public forums or printed flyers. Digital is where everything is heading. New digital platforms and technology now enable us to connect with our communities in meaningful and innovative ways to:

CONTENTS Executive Summary:

"Navigating Each Step of the Journey"

An Interview with Adobe

GovLoop Survey Results: Challenges

• encourage participation and collaboration;

Citizen Engagement in Action

• broaden knowledge transfer through secure communications platforms;

Where Engagement is Going: A Focus on Technology

• create channels for public connection and input; and • streamline processes for communicating new information to the public and other agencies. In this new digital landscape, government agencies should be aware of all of the possibilities, and be able to conduct digital citizen engagement easily and quickly. We believe that this foray into digital citizen engagement is not just possible; it’s imperative. And we’re committed to helping government agencies approach the future with bold confidence. Craig P. Abod President, Carahsoft Technology Corp.

At a Glance: Trends across Sectors

"Define & Agree on Outcomes"

An Interview with GovDelivery

NEW PLAYERS IN CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT

GitHub: Open Sourcing Citizen Feedback Case Study: A GitHub-first Campaign Mobile: Apps on the Move A National Directory of State Mobile Apps Social Media: Beyond Facebook – Hangouts, Crowdsourcing & More Social Media Crowdsourcing: Asking Anyone Anything Hanging Out for Citizen Engagement Human-Centered Design: The Importance of Behavioral Insights

"You have to Embrace Agility"

An Interview with Salesforce

Your Citizen Engagement Cheat Sheet

Acknowledgements 23 About GovLoop Sponsor Acknowledgements

CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Citizen Engagement, New Technology and the Future

Citizen engagement is not a new concept. In fact, in the United States, you can trace it back to the first town hall meeting, which took place in Dorchester, Mass., in 1633.

Of course, in the nearly four centuries since that first gathering, the concept of citizen engagement has greatly evolved. E-mail, websites, smartphones and other technology have transformed citizen engagement initiatives and empowered citizens in ways Dorchester residents never could have imagined. As it turns out, we’ve been debating the role and definition of citizen engagement for hundreds of years. So what exactly is citizen engagement? It depends on whom you ask. GovLoop surveyed 255 government employees about new trends in citizen engagement, asking them about topics such as budgets and new initiatives for citizen engagement. We also asked how they define citizen engagement – and got 255 different answers. Here are some of them:

• “Collaboration between government agencies and citizens to better serve the public.”

• “Maintaining contact with agency consumers.” • “Outreach.” • “Getting feedback from citizens and then ACTUALLY using it to form policy and procedures.”

Though the answers varied, they shared several themes: openness, outreach, involvement and communication. And they all involve engaging the public through a variety of platforms – and keeping up with changing technology.

We at GovLoop define citizen engagement as the exchange of ideas, information and feedback between citizens and public organizations. It represents interactions that can travel in both directions, making the agency both the sender and recipient of ideas and information via a number of mediums and technological platforms. As we make our way through the 21st century, citizen engagement is continuing to evolve. New platforms and concepts such as geographic information systems (GIS), GitHub, open data, human-centered design and novel uses of social media have challenged the traditional notions of citizen engagement and pushed government into uncharted territories. As citizens grow more tech-savvy, this growth will only continue. As one GovLoop survey respondent noted: “In citizen engagement there needs to be more focus on technology because the future generations are becoming more dependent on it – and they also want more of a say in how government meets their needs than ever before.” This guide will walk you through the new trends and technologies reshaping citizen engagement. We also explore how agencies and departments nationwide are experimenting with them. Technology provides the opportunity for creating a two-way dialogue between citizens and government, but all levels of government must be ready to use it in ways that improve awareness, accountability and act on citizen needs.

CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT

Adobe & Digital Government Experience the Power of Digital Government For many agencies, the explosion of communication methods over the last few years has significantly complicated their mission. Today, citizens and employees engage with agencies through mobile devices, applications, websites, and social media. How do agencies ensure that these next generation tools are effectively meeting their needs?

Adobe delivers solutions that help government agencies: • Organize, create, and manage the delivery of creative assets and other content across web and mobile. • Streamline creation, publishing, and management of web, paper, and mobile forms. • Measure and monitor online experiences with analytics tools that provide insight into online service channels. • Manage, listen to, and analyze their social efforts.

Join a growing list of innovative Government agencies that trust Adobe to deliver engaging solutions for measurable results. Email us today to learn more: PublicSector@Adobe.com www.adobe.com/government Adobe and the Adobe logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2014 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. 2/14

INNOVATIONS THAT MATTER

/AdobeGov

@AdobeGov

“Navigating Each Step of the Journey” An interview with Michael Jackson, Digital Experience Solutions at Adobe Systems How can agencies cost effectively engage citizens? First, you have to take a step back and understand how citizens interact with an agency and then develop solutions that mold to the steps along that journey. The low-hanging fruit is to start with the point of interaction. In government, that point is often the form. Whether you’re requesting information or you’re applying for services, it almost always starts with a form. So start by digitizing the form and then look at the workflow behind it. Often, you’ll find that once the workflows are optimized and citizens are not required to enter information over and over, that’s the beginning of efficiency – and transparency.

How can agencies measure engagement results? This speaks to the capabilities of a broad range of analytics. Whether it’s web analytics to understand more about who’s visiting a site or abandoning the process halfway through, you can personalize content so people are less likely to drop off. Unlike in the private sector, for government there’s often no direct competitor for services when things go wrong. So when people give up in frustration, they simply move to a more costly way of interacting with the same agency, like a phone call. If they could have self-served online, where it is much more convenient for the citizen and much more cost effective for the agency, everyone would have been happier.

How can agencies get people involved in citizen engagement? You have to be relevant in order to give people what they want. The only way to do that is to understand the people you serve. A perfect example is the innovative way agencies are using social media. To really leverage social media, agencies first need to come up with a consistent brand identity and deliver it effectively across various social media channels. The next step is to respond whenever people speak back to the agency, and even more important is to actively listen when citizens are speaking to one another about the agency or service. The agency can then prioritize its internal strategy accordingly.

How can Adobe Systems help agencies develop an effective citizen engagement strategy? There are five steps that most of us go through when making decisions: learn, validate, decide, use and commit. Those steps are not very different from when you’re soliciting services from the government. Through the Adobe Marketing Cloud, we empower agencies to help customers navigate each step of that journey. The package is made up of integrated solutions that match up directly to the five steps of the customer journey. The most prominent component is Adobe Experience Manager, which is a platform that allows digital experiences to be created and personalized, and then delivered and measured across any platform or device.

What are effective strategies for this new era of citizen engagement? Mobile solutions used to be a category by themselves. But I’d argue now you couldn’t possibly come up with a citizen engagement strategy without starting from the mobile device. In many cases, the fastest-growing segment of that growth is among lower-income families and individuals. They’re using smart devices at a faster rate than anybody because they often can’t afford computers and high-speed Internet at home. If you come up with a solution that doesn’t address the way people are coming into your portal or website, or you only consider mobile as an afterthought, you’re shooting yourself in the foot before you even get started.

CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT

GOVLOOP SURVEY RESULTS: Citizen Engagement Trends and Challenges

“BUILDING COMMUNITY AND CREATING CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT MUST BE A PRIORITY FOR ALL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. ” – GOVLOOP SURVEY RESPONDENT

Citizen engagement is on the minds of many government workers. From soliciting citizens’ opinions on policies to reaching out via e-mail and crafting social media strategies, public-sector leaders are thinking about how to capture, implement and foster citizens’ ideas. That fact was reflected in our GovLoop survey of 255 federal, state and local government workers: 72 percent of respondents said that they believe citizen engagement must be a priority in governance.

That disconnect shows there’s room for agencies to get creative with technology to meet the growing demand for citizen engagement efficiently and cost effectively.

Challenges

Why? Many survey respondents echoed this comment from a retired employee of the state of Maryland: “Citizen participation must be a key part of every culture’s success. It is so important for government to engage its employees and its citizens to work cohesively for better communities.”

Although 72 percent of respondents said they consider citizen engagement a top priority, only 50 percent said it was a top priority at their workplace – and only 24 percent of all respondents said their agency has a dedicated budget for it.

At a Glance: Trends across Sectors

“I would love to see more money budgeted for citizen engagement,” said one respondent. “Staff time needs to be dedicated to this.”

The term “citizen engagement” has different meanings for different agencies, whether they’re federal, state or local. But some across-the-board trends emerged in our survey.

Citizen Engagement in Action

What’s the Same The belief that citizen engagement should be a top priority was nearly universal:

• Local: 97 percent responded yes. • State: 100 percent responded yes. • Federal: 93 percent responded yes.

Responses from workers at all levels of government were also similar in their choice of engagement tools, with these three besting other options such as paper, e-mail and text messaging (See Figure 1.)

INNOVATIONS THAT MATTER

Despite the challenges and constraints, many of our survey respondents are still doing innovative things in the realm of citizen engagement. “Our Maryland Prepares App was released about 9 months ago and provides geo-based weather, emergency and traffic alerts; interactive preparedness information; the ability to let family and friends know you are safe in an emergency; and

FIGURE 1.

Social Media

Local State Federal

Web Services

Local State Federal

Mobile

Local State Federal

Has a budget for citizen engagement

Local State Federal

a link to news and events related to disasters and emergencies. We plan to update the app with other functions, including links to the state Osprey public-facing mapping system, in the coming months.”

It’s no wonder then that government, though often behind the curve of the private sector in technology, is focusing efforts on new technology to ensure that interactions with citizens are modern and as wide-reaching as possible.

“We have an app allowing Arkansas citizens to search for unclaimed property and file to claim it with a mobile phone. We are working on a notification system that will make searches easier, delivering results straight to email or text.”

We also asked our GovLoop survey takers to tell us their thoughts on the future of technology and how it will affect citizens’ government interactions. Their answers reflect the idea that technology will play an incredibly important role in the future of this field:

“Collin County [Texas] IT collaborated with our Elections Office to provide a solution to address long line waits during popular elections. The Elections Office needed an answer to alleviate long voter line waits without giving the impression that voters were being sent away from a polling site. The IT staff learned that it is a violation of voter laws to send people from a polling location – even if it is to help out the voter. How do you inform voters that they can vote at another location with a shorter line without explicitly telling them? The solution – strategically placed QR Codes that show the closest polling location and the approximate line wait time on the voter’s mobile device. The voter can then choose for themselves to leave their place in a long line to seek out shorter one.” “We presently have an application where problems such as potholes can be reported. Our GIS division is also discussing what applications might best suit citizens.”

Where Engagement is Going: A Focus on Technology

• “Mobile phones and apps are the way of the future. [We need] more ability for the public to weigh in on key decisions without having to sit through a public meeting or having their three minutes at the microphone at a council meeting.”

• “We have to become better at using technology to reach and involve people. There are a lot of opportunities here, but most agencies don’t have the expertise or money to realize true benefits.”

• “My dream is for citizens to experience their opinions and experiences being valued, respected and included. As a result we’d see greater involvement, accountability, and perhaps even government divisions talking to each other and streamlining our processes.” Taking a cue from our survey respondents, we’ll now delve into some of the new trends and platforms that will shape the future of citizen engagement across government.

According to a 2014 Pew Research Center report, 63 percent of adult cell phone owners use their phones to go online, and 34 percent of cell Internet users go online mostly using their phones rather than a desktop or laptop computer. Pew predicts that by 2025, “information sharing over the internet will be so effortlessly interwoven into daily life that it will become invisible, flowing like electricity, often through machine intermediaries.”

CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT

The question shouldn’t be “What’s our digital strategy?”

It should be “What’s our people strategy?”

In the public sector, people matter most — not tweets, posts, websites, emails or text messages. Your agency’s mission is centered on its stakeholders, and being able to reach them when you need to is critical to any engagement effort. GovDelivery can help transform your communications into a mission-critical activity, with a people strategy that connects your organization with more stakeholders, getting them to take action and meet mission goals. More than 1,000 organizations, from the Small Business Administration to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Department of Defense, are using GovDelivery to connect with over 65 million people worldwide. Do you want to connect with more people? Do you need them to take action? What’s your people strategy? For more information visit govdelivery.com.

reachthepublic.com

facebook.com/govdelivery

@govdelivery

youtube.com/govdelivery

govloop.com

"Define & Agree on Outcomes" An interview with Scott Burns, CEO, and Bobbie Browning, Senior VP of Enterprise Strategy, GovDelivery How can agencies and companies conduct citizen engagement cost-effectively and measure results?

How can government encourage participation and collaboration with the community?

Bobbie Browning, Senior VP of Enterprise Strategy with GovDelivery: Successful organizations with citizen engagement efforts do two things well. First, they know what they are trying to achieve. Citizen engagement can take many forms: from commenting on a blog to getting a flu shot to becoming a foster parent. Second, successful agencies take advantage of agile technology that can be deployed quickly and scaled over time. Today, the most agile solutions are cloud-based. Once an organization has defined its target outcomes, modern tools and technology allow organizations to measure results easily. The strongest organizations will then use metrics to create a continuous improvement mentality so outcomes can get better over time.

Bobbie: Government organizations need to be clear on how collaboration with the public can help them meet mission goals and on the outcomes needed for success. They then need to consider stakeholder feedback to support overall program impact.

What are some practical tips for agencies that are just starting to get their citizen engagement strategy off the ground? Scott Burns, GovDelivery CEO: You need to start with a clear framework by asking strategic questions. Who do you need to reach? What channels will reach those people? Do you have specific metrics to gauge success? These questions frame strategy and set clear goals for any agency starting a citizen engagement initiative. Once you have a better idea of your goals and your audience, craft communications to be engaging. Here are some tips: 1. Keep your message clear, brief and interesting. Readers shouldn’t need a dictionary to understand you. 2. Don’t ignore the analytics. Check your analytics often. Measure which messages work best and then adjust! 3. Optimize for multiple platforms. There’s no easier way to make stakeholders engage with your messages than to make sure they can read it on their device.

A great example is Ready.gov, under FEMA, and what they’ve accomplished with the National Preparedness Community, which has grown into a strong 42,000-member online community. Ready.gov accomplished this by working with GovDelivery in 2011 to pilot an online community where people registered their National Preparedness Month participation. Ready. gov implemented digital communication best practices to transform one-time Web visitors into community members. In 2012, the program set a goal of driving ongoing engagement, so we developed and executed a strategy for gaining stakeholder feedback, which Ready.gov wove into the community to strengthen its overall engagement.

What are some specific tools you offer that could help agencies conduct citizen engagement? Scott: Our cloud-based communications platform enables public sector organizations to connect with more people and to get those people to take action. In any effort to engage stakeholders, these two pieces are critical. Agencies need to reach their audience and get them to act – either online or offline –to demonstrate value and meet mission goals. A great example is the Office of Disaster Assistance (ODA) within the U.S. Small Business Administration, which provides loans for small businesses affected by disasters. ODA’s database of disaster-affected business owners connects with GovDelivery through APIs, allowing the office to send out emails encouraging affected owners to apply for assistance online. ODA originally set a goal of 39% electronic loan completions but quickly surpassed this goal, eventually hitting over 70% during the 2013 Colorado floods. That’s engagement that’s clear, measurable and impactful for both the organization and the public.

CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT

NEW PLAYERS IN CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT Citizen Engagement Trends and Challenges

GitHub: Open Sourcing Citizen Feedback

code with one another, we can do more with less. Right now with technology it is easier to work together than in silos.”

GitHub is often described as a code-sharing and -pub-

lishing service that also serves as a social networking site for developers, but that doesn’t get at the heart of why GitHub is special.

Today, hundreds of agencies are on GitHub, encouraging citizens to collaborate, edit, comment on and engage with their code and documents. And in an exciting development last fall, GitHub launched a portal illustrating how governments and citizens have worked together to deliver better outcomes.

The real superpower of GitHub is openness and the opportunity to learn from one another. Code and other documents can be placed on GitHub for anyone to download, share and explore, and –and in some cases change.

Case Study: A GitHub-first Campaign

“Think of GitHub as Facebook but instead of sharing pictures of your kids or what you had for lunch, you share software code,” said Ben Balter in a recent DorobekINSIDER interview. Balter is a Government Evangelist at GitHub, tasked with working with agencies about the best ways to use the service.

So why does GitHub matter for government? You can trace it back to 2012. That was when someone with the GitHub user handle “Iceeey” proposed a change to a document that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had uploaded to GitHub. It was a minor document and the suggested change was just a proposed typo fix. But it was actually quite a big deal. For the first time, a government agency accepted an edit to an internal document from a regular, average – not to mention anonymous – citizen. Balter also pointed out that the benefits of GitHub aren’t just about technology. Its use helps reduce silos and cost as well. “Think about the typical challenges an agency faces,” Balter said. “They usually are not unique to one agency in particular. Learning how to blog is a challenge for each agency. Yet all too often across government we keep re-inventing the wheel time and time again. “If one agency makes a system to process travel benefits right now, another agency is going to come along and remake that same system,” he added. “So if we can share

We’re all familiar with the traditional ways politicians announce and publicize their campaigns for office: stump speeches, TV ads and op-eds in newspapers. Some of the more innovative ones may even use Instagram or other social media platforms. But what happens when a 28-year-old self-declared hacker running for Congress announces his political platform on GitHub? That’s exactly what David Cole did this year. He’s a software developer who spent two years working at the White House as a deputy director for new media. He’s now a candidate for Congress in New Jersey’s 2nd District – and he recently released his entire political platform on GitHub. So what does that mean for citizen engagement and the future of campaigns? Perhaps Cole said it best himself. “What we wanted to do was release our positions on all the key issues out there,” he explained in a recent interview with GovLoop. “As we started to do that, and started to do the research to put together these platforms, I was thinking there was no reason not to just make this an open-source product.” “I think too much in politics depends on trying to pretend

CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT

Who’s Using GitHub & How to Get Started Government agencies at the national, state and local levels are using GitHub to collaborate and engage their constituents. To see what agencies are doing with it, click here. Then follow these steps from GitHub.com to make sure you can register yourself and your agency. 1. If you don't already have one, sign up for a GitHub account. GitHub accounts should be personal to you. Human-sounding names like @ benbalter are preferred over organization-specific names like @benbalter_abc_agency. 2. Ensure that your government e-mail address is associated with your account. If you've already got a GitHub account, you can simply add your government e-mail address to it. 3. Next, confirm your government e-mail address. 4. Go to governmentcommunity.githubapp.com in your web browser. 5. You should be automatically added and redirected to the GitHub government community. You now have access to and can participate in the discussions at github.com/government. that conviction comes from having all the answers,” he added. “Well, nobody has all the answers, and I think voters understand that. And one thing that I’ve learned as a software developer is that the best ideas come from collaboration. So, we released our statement, we also put it on GitHub and we invited anybody to make edits to those, and we’ll have a debate and a discussion about the merits of the edits. But it’s really available for anybody to take a shot at improving it for us.” As we noted earlier, citizens have long had myriad outlets for engaging with public officials in the form of town hall meetings, e-mail and social media. But GitHub provides unique opportunities for transparency, feedback and a bottom-up approach to innovation on a platform designed specifically for this type of exchange.

INNOVATIONS THAT MATTER

engagement plays out in the next decade. But government still trails the commercial sector in its adoption of mobile solutions.

In addition to making changes to Cole’s platform, users can discuss them, much like you comment on a Facebook status update. Cole can sift through suggestions, discussions and edits from citizens, incorporating any change he and his staff think are good. Essentially, he is crowdsourcing – relying on the power of the crowd to help grow his platform and ideas.

In GovLoop’s citizen engagement survey, nearly 80 percent of respondents said their agencies or departments have not experimented with mobile or with mobile apps to increase citizen engagement.

Cole’s use of GitHub marks another new era of citizen engagement, and he hopes that all political processes — from campaigns to proposed bills — will be done in the same way in the near future.

As mobile adoption continues to grow in consumer markets, it is imperative that governments continue to embrace and optimize mobile to stay relevant and improve citizen engagement programs.

Mobile: Apps on the Move

So where can we find examples of innovative mobile apps geared toward citizens? The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) has some ideas.

“We have read a great deal recently about the importance of mobile devices and the applications that they could offer for citizen engagement. We are working to become more ‘mobile centric,’” said a GovLoop survey respondent from Pueblo, Colo. The use of mobile in citizen engagement isn’t exactly new. For several years now, government has been texting or using mobile sites to interact with citizens. But some agencies and local governments are going beyond the basics of mobile citizen engagement in order to have a deeper involvement with their citizens and take advantage of new technologies. And it’s critical that they do. Take a look at these stats from the Pew Internet and American Life Project:

Percentage of Americans own a

Cell Phone SmartPhone Tablet What’s more, people of all ages use mobile devices, and low-income populations are more likely to have a smartphone than a home computer. Mobile apps and responsive design will have a huge effect on the way citizen

A National Directory of State Mobile Apps State governments have been churning out new apps. For instance, you can now download California’s state office locator app, Florida’s State Parks Outdoor Guide and West Virginia’s Suspicious Activity Reporting app. All states have many similar citizen interaction points, such as employment assistance and traffic information, but there are also areas that are unique to each, such as Maryland’s Civil War landmarks or tsunami evacuation routes in Oregon. In either case, mobile apps provide a new opportunity for states to better provide information and services to their constituents. But state agencies didn’t readily have a forum to compare notes and learn from one another. Without such a resource, developers were stuck having to reinvent the wheel or go through the time-consuming process of searching for apps one state at a time. In response to this need, NASCIO developed the State Mobile App Catalog to maintain a central list of state mobile apps – and dozens join the list each month. As of right now, the database has more than 250 apps.

app development, so it’s really become a way for states to gather guidance, resources and contact information. It’s been really helpful for a lot of agencies.” The NASCIO catalog – and portals like USA.gov – provides an excellent example of the way public-sector agencies can work together and learn from one another in a tech development ecosystem. Although there are some exceptions, public agencies have a distinct benefit over the private sector in that they aren’t direct competitors for users, which allows greater freedom to borrow ideas and transfer solutions. The key takeaway is that agencies do not have to master the next generation of citizen engagement strategies by themselves. They have potential partners in other agencies, citizens and industry partners to solve their most challenging engagement issues. NASCIO created this catalog in part for states to learn from one another about mobile development and best practices for apps. It is also open to the public, so citizens have a single repository to find apps organized by state and topic area. “The idea originated from one of NASCIO’s members,” said Samantha Wenger, a NASCIO research coordinator. “The USA.gov portal of apps that was created by federal agencies was the inspiration for our NASCIO members. They felt that we should develop some sort of catalog where we could collect all of the apps created by state agencies.”

apps because state agencies can now see what others have created – and try to outshine them with other newer, better apps, Wenger said. However, the overarching goal is to help states better interact with citizens, regardless of the app’s origin. “More recently, we’ve been contacted by states who are just now looking to develop their mobile space and mobile apps for contact information from states that we have used as resources,” Wenger said. “They are requesting examples of [requests for proposals] for

Social Media: Beyond Facebook, Hangouts, Crowdsourcing & More You’d be hard-pressed to find a city government or federal agency that’s not using social media in some way in its engagement efforts. From the Inte-

Wenger and the NASCIO team worked to do the initial research and collecting of state apps, and then added a capability that lets developers submit their own apps. “We didn’t want to leave anything out, so we came up with the idea to have developers add their own apps,” Wenger said. “States are constantly creating new apps. Mobile apps is actually ranked No. 7 on NASCIO’s survey of top 10 priorities for CIOs in 2014. Most states are still developing apps and some are just now getting into the mobile space. So we knew that state agencies would be constantly developing apps and we figured this would be a much easier way for them to upload an app on their own.” Another benefit? Friendly competition. The open mobile application catalog has accelerated development of new

CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT

rior Department’s excellent Instagram account (with more than 220,000 followers) to the Seattle Police Department’s informative and entertaining Twitter account (with nearly 60,000 followers), social media is a stronghold of citizen engagement.

AskThem.io allows you to directly ask your representatives and senators any question via Twitter. “AskThem.io is a free question-andanswer platform with every U.S. elected official and anyone who has a verified Twitter account,” said Moore.

And for good reason: Facebook has 1 billion users, 5,700 tweets happen every second and Instagram has 150 million people posting photos. To ignore social media would be a decision that could render your agency moot.

David Moore, executive director of the nonprofit Participatory Politics Foundation, thinks he has an answer to the next step of social media: a crowdsourcing Twitter platform called AskThem.io.

INNOVATIONS THAT MATTER

“We have profile pages for over 142,000 U.S. elected officials,” Moore said. “That covers everyone in Congress and everyone in state government, all the way down to counties and city-level municipal governments.” “As of the launch, there are 66 elected officials nationwide at various levels of government who have signed on to just agree to respond to popular questions about once a month,” Moore added.

And so most departments and agencies have long been effectively using Facebook and Twitter to directly engage with and respond to citizens. But what’s next beyond those platforms?

Social Media Crowdsourcing: Asking Anyone Anything

politician or representative and encourages a public response.

Here’s how it works: Anyone can ask any question to any elected official or verified Twitter account.

“But we also have pages for every elected official,” he said. “For these 66, we have an informal agreement in place. Anyone can join; there is no cost and no contract. Our data is open. We are a nonprofit platform and especially our code is open so this is a free and open sourced platform.”

People add their signatures on to questions on AskThem.io that they support, voting them up and passing them around online.

Moore highlighted other benefits of AskThem.io in a recent blog post for the Sunlight Foundation:

When a question reaches a certain threshold, AskThem.io delivers it to the

Here are some of the unique public-benefit features of AskThem for continual,

structured dialogue with the people who represent you:

•

AskThem has access to official government data for the most U.S. elected officials of any open-source website: federal, state, county, and municipal levels of government. For the first time in an opensource website, visitors can simply enter their street address to see

everyone who represents them, down to the city council level. Incredibly, this has never existed before – now it does, thanks to our data partners, the outstanding Google Civic Information API and the Democracy Map community #opendata project, as well as

Google Glass and Google Plus: The next steps in citizen engagement?

decide to get started on Google Plus? We started out on Google Plus the day it became available for “businesses,” but it didn’t really start taking off until December 2012. We had 3,000 followers at that time and have been adding about 10,000 a month or so. Personally, I like the platform. There are no ads, which works out well for government, and it has an impact on our search engine ratings (Google) so it is part of our [search engine optimization] strategy to increase engagement with citizens and increase the use of services on Utah.gov. Since 2012, we have grown from an average monthly unique visitor count to the domain of 1.2 million to more than 1.6 million in 2014 and our SEO strategy has played a role in that.

An interview with David Fletcher, Utah’s chief technology officer. Utah’s state website recently launched a transit-tracking application for Google Glass, the first state government wearable technology app intended to enable citizens using public transportation to track vehicle location and route. Tell us more about this app, what you hope to accomplish with it and where the idea for it came from. As part of Utah’s mobile strategy, the state provides services to platforms that are most used by our citizens. We view wearables as a component in our mobile services strategy and wanted to get some experience developing for wearables. Our developers had several Google Glass developer kits so it became an opportunity for us to try out a real-life application that could be used by Google Glass users in Utah’s developer community. The application provides alerts and real-time information about Utah’s transit service. Although there are not a lot of Glass users yet, we gained some insight and understanding of the wearables interface and what works as well as how much effort it takes to develop for it. In this case, we were able to work with the existing back end and adapt the application for Glass.

Do you see other applications for Google Glass for government technology and citizen engagement? Certainly, but we will probably not focus on more development for the platform until its user base grows and it becomes publicly available.

The state of Utah’s Google Plus page has nearly 200,000 followers. How and why did you

What tips or best practices would you offer for other agencies or departments looking to start on Google Plus? Just do it. It's a good platform and an opportunity to create additional communities that you might not find elsewhere. our own custom-gathered data. For example, see our page for Philadelphia city government, with more cities rolling out continually.

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For the first time in an opensource civic engagement website, AskThem integrates open government data, to inform good questions with context. For example, AskThem brings in city council agendas and key vote information, to make it easier to ask timely & productive questions of any elected official. In this way, AskThem can be used for crowdsourced ongoing Q&A.

“This new tool creates an amazing opportunity for citizens to connect and showcase their needs to their political leaders in a new way,” added Moore.

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Hanging Out for Citizen Engagement Google Plus has often been derided since its launch in 2011 as a sort of social media ghost land – at least compared to Facebook. (Google Plus’ sharing rate by users is just 10 percent that of Facebook’s.) And during the beginning of Google Plus’ rollout, government agencies had a difficult time getting it approved for social media use because of its terms of service were not government-friendly. It might be fair to say that, so far, Google Plus has failed to capture the government’s imagination in the same way Facebook and Twitter did.

Google Plus is that Google Plus users tend to be more tech-savvy and technology-oriented, which align well with NASA’s target audience. It’s a great lesson for those looking to expand their citizen engagement efforts: Make sure you’re where your audience is. “Our goal is to reach as many people as possible with most of what we do,”

But that hasn’t stopped NASA from using it to launch one of its most successful citizen engagement efforts. NASA is known for its successful outreach efforts on a variety of social media platforms. It has nearly 500 individual social media accounts spread over numerous social networks, covering the agency’s many projects and field offices. NASA’s main Twitter account has more than 6 million followers, and the agency made a big splash when it launched @MarsCuriosity, a personable account detailing NASA's latest mission to explore the surface of Mars that’s gained 1.6 million followers. But one of its biggest engagement successes thus far has been on Google Plus using the Hangouts On Air feature to connect with new audiences. The feature lets users broadcast live discussions and performances through their Google Plus homepage and YouTube channel. To date, NASA has hosted nearly 40 hangouts, taking questions from the public, schools, media and more about its programs. One reason why NASA has been so successful on

INNOVATIONS THAT MATTER

explained Jason Townsend, NASA’s deputy social media manager. “Members of the public are getting their news and information from social media sites like Google Plus – so we want NASA to be there.” Hangouts also allow NASA a chance to humanize its programs. “Hangouts allow you to show a human side of your government organization,” said Townsend. “One of NASA's best resources are our people. They are subject matter experts on so many topics.” Townsend also noted that Hangouts is a citizen engagement effort that has almost no overhead, allowing you to broadcast to a large audience and solicit citizen questions without investing in travel or expensive platforms. “We’re able to get folks on camera who

NYC.gov: HumanCentered Design in Action Need inspiration for making your government website better at interacting with citizens via humancentered design? Visit NYC.gov. Prior to the redesign in 2012, NYC. gov was a labyrinth of pages and subpages, mimicking the city’s complex bureaucratic structure. Even when citizens found the content they were looking for, they were still unclear as to what to do with it. “At every step of the way there was some kind of ‘barrier of confusion,’” said Michal Pasternak, chief experience officer at Huge, the digital design firm that revamped the city’s website. Pasternak’s team discovered that the website’s content was unbalanced. The site was heavy on press release materials and media-friendly photos and articles and light on information useful to citizens. “Absolutely no one was going to the city to learn about the last thing Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg did, but that is what the city needed to communicate,” Pasternak said. Through a human- and behaviorcentered site redesign, Huge refocused NYC.gov to put citizens first. Post-redesign comparative user studies found it was easier for people to accomplish tasks and find information they needed through the new site. And the day after the site launched, many hailed it as setting the standard for government websites.

otherwise wouldn’t have been able to participate,” he said. “Hangouts allow us to execute events quickly, which is often what we need as an operational organization that frequently breaks news.”

Human-Centered Design: The Importance of Behavioral Insights In this guide we’ve covered some of the newer platforms that government is using to engage citizens: mobile, GitHub and social media. But we can’t forget one of the most important ways that citizen engagement is conducted – and how it’s changing. It’s one of the most basic interactions: the government website. Today, websites (and their mobile versions) are often the first and only direct link that federal agencies have to their constituents, many of whom are scattered nationwide. And yet, most government websites are difficult to use. It’s not always for lack of trying, though. Government faces many challenges in designing a great website. Agencies are required to comply with a variety of laws, requirements, policies and directives that can often make innovative design and usability difficult to achieve. Still, government websites remain one of the most important ways that constituents interact with their representatives and local, state and federal agencies. That’s why human-centered design, which focuses on the user rather than the agency, is more important than ever. Here are some how-to’s for implementing human-centered design, adapted from digital firm Huge, which was responsible for the successful redesign of NYC.gov.

Step #1: Focus on a user-centric approach to design. Government agencies too often think of their needs first when designing or releasing content on their websites. But it’s essential that you instead take a user-centered design approach. This is a process in which the needs, wants and limitations of end users get extensive attention at each stage of the design process.

Step #2: Conduct thorough research and discovery. In order to take a user-centric approach to your website design, you must perform a thorough research and discovery process to find out what your audience wants and needs. Speak with users and agency employees, perform a content audit, and investigate analytics on site usage and navigation.

Step #3: Put citizens first. We’re all aware that government work is anything but simple. With oftenchanging organizational structures, complex regulations and the political machine working behind the scenes, even the most qualified and seasoned public servants find achieving these first two tasks complicated and difficult. Navigating the complex world of government is how you might end up with a website that is virtually unusable.

Step #4: Keep your navigation easy. Your site shouldn’t read like a manual. It should be intuitive. Divide your content into separate buckets that reflect the way your citizens view government services. Rather than having citizens navigate agency subpages, agency services fit into citizen-centric objectives.

Step #5: Make sure you’re using effective communication. The need to get information out to the media is a reality that can’t be avoided. But make sure you’re creating your information in a way it can easily reach your user archetypes – not just the press. And make the information enticing and interesting enough that somebody who comes to your site to pay a parking ticket might stick around to read it, too.

Step #6: Run your government site like a business. Even after you’ve refreshed your site and put human-centered design at the core, you can’t stop there. Your site must be constantly updated with new information and new considerations about your user profiles and why people are using your site. By taking this user-centric approach and implementing good design, you too can improve how you communicate with citizens.

The solution? Put citizens first, so that they can get what they need without getting tangled in the complexities of government. Consider mapping out two users to serve as archetypes for the type of people who most frequently visit the site: the person looking for information and the person looking to accomplish a task. Government essentially boils down to those two functions.

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CONSTITUENTS

DESERVE GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE

“By 2015, organizations that have not embraced the concept of the customer engagement center will lose customers to competitors that have.” —2013 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Centers, Michael Maoz, May 13, 2012

Learn more at salesforce.com/industries/public-sector

INNOVATIONS THAT MATTER

"You Have to Embrace Agility" An interview with Mike Milburn, Community & Solution Advisor at Salesforce What are the benefits of citizen engagement? Government at all levels has the opportunity to use the latest technology, like customer relationship management (CRM), to connect with citizens in brand new ways. In places like Elgin, a city outside of Chicago, they are using CRM for citizen outreach so that they can connect to citizens on a whole new level. Citizens, on the other hand, get real-time access to all of the services that they need, which then provides government a 360-degree look into what their citizens and constituents are doing. So that customer transformation is something that I think has been going on in the commercial world from some years now – we’re just starting to see it happen in the public sector.

How can we encourage participation and collaboration between the government and the greater community? It’s going to be an organic process. Once citizens see that governments are putting up engagement centers where they can go and interact, citizens are going to participate. When citizen have a place to interact, they respond.

What role does technology play in the development of a sound citizen engagement strategy? Here at Salesforce.com, we often quote studies predicting that there will be 5 billion smartphones by the end of 2017. The smartphone is rapidly becoming single device that most people use to communicate. For governments that are providing apps allowing citizens to easily access information – from snowplow routes to animal care to public schools – that is critical because this is where citizens are going for information. And that’s what the Salesforce 1 platform is designed to do: connect all of the backend data collected by governments and give citizens an easy access portal to those resources.

a whole organization called Customers for Life (CFL), dedicated to making our customers successful. More specifically, on customer engagement, my recommendation would be: embrace agility; make sure you have executive sponsorship; and establish metrics for your projects.

How can Salesforce.com specifically help agencies improve their citizen engagement efforts? The first solution is on the mobile side. The Salesforce 1 app was designed to give citizens access to government in order to quickly gain access to the information they’re looking for. Second, our Salesforce.com Community product allows citizens to engagement with each other – in a townhall-type format – and with government folks in an easily scalable manner. Third, our Service Cloud product acts as the system of record for the engagement centers used by governments to inform their citizen engagement efforts. The bottom line is that we have multiple products designed for both citizen engagement and citizen transformation. At Salesforce.com, the public sector space is incredibly important. I believe we’re at an inflection point with cloud technologies transforming the nature of government work. Salesforce.com looks forward to engaging with governments at all levels and across the country.

More broadly, what are some best practices for agencies look started to jumpstart their citizen engagement efforts? First of all, we have a series of best practices and customer success stories, from the GSA to the state of Colorado, on the Salesforce.com website. In fact, we have

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Think of yourself as a citizen first, government

Develop a comprehensive outreach strate-

employee second. While brainstorming and designing citizen engagement efforts, don’t think about what your agency needs to be putting out there. Think about what the citizens’ priorities are. Put yourself in the citizens’ shoes – after all, you are one! If you were engaging with your agency as a constituent, what is the very first thing you’d want? Address that first.

gy for your efforts. Nobody’s going to know you’ve put together an awesome GitHub account or a great social media contest if you don’t publicize it. Make sure outreach is baked into your engagement plans for maximum effect. (For help, see our latest research brief on great outreach plans.)

Dedicate enough resources to your ef-

forts. Bad citizen engagement can be worse than no engagement at all. If you don’t have the time staff for citizen engagement, reconsider your efforts. If you get citizens excited about potential engagement and a two-way interaction but don’t properly follow through on it, citizens’ trust and participation will erode. For example, if you launch an app that would let constituents record and submit potholes for repair and the functionality of the app was broken or the data was unmonitored, the potholes would go unfixed. Citizens would quickly learn not to trust your efforts or intentions.

“Plan well to overcome typical barriers to participation; allow enough time to raise awareness about an activity or initiative; utilize a broad range of advertising channels; and when possible involve the public in providing input into the planning.” – Local employee, Chapel Hill, N.C.

Give citizens feedback and recognition on

how engagement makes a difference. Stats such as “number of ideas submitted” and even “dollars saved” are meaningless without context and examples to show how citizen engagement is making a difference. For instance, many local agencies use interactive websites with data visualizations for citizens. Some also offer citizens the ability to comment on their findings. Chicago launched a new movement called participatory budgeting, in which a Chicago district allots an amount of money and the public decides how to use it. Citizens are literally in charge of city money. Giving ownership and recognition like that guarantees your engagement efforts will go the distance.

“Answer when asked. Don’t shy away from criticism and don’t hesitate to defend and combat misinformation. Communicate that where there is a will, there is a way, a promise that we will work to resolve issues and then keep the public posted on our progress.” – State employee, Little Rock, Ark.

“Create a comprehensive strategic plan for engagement before doing anything. And conduct audience research to inform planning to ensure engagement efforts are on target and yield results and desired impact.” – Federal employee, Washington, D.C. “Be honest, be loud, be focused and you can impact change. From a gov side, I would say be open to new ideas, which seems to be more common now than in the past.” – State employee, Fairfax County, Va.

Provide metrics for success – and have a way to measure them. What are your goals with your citizen engagement effort? Estimate some hard numbers and outcomes at the start, then measure against them after your effort has launched. Find some success stories, talk to your peers and get a sense of what constitutes a successful program. Then adjust these figures to your own organization and provide some desired outcome metrics before you launch. If you don’t hit your targets, that’s still OK – it only gives you room to improve and ideas for tweaking in the next round.

INNOVATIONS THAT MATTER

“Set specific, measurable goals for citizen engagement projects; make concerted efforts to understand the constituency and focus on outreach to underserved communities; develop interesting, engaging, and mission-focused content for communication/ marketing channels; be extremely responsive to citizen requests; incorporate citizen feedback into decision-making; and continually measure success and improving efforts.” – Local employee, Joliet, Ill.

“A good (balanced) mix of outreach materials to reach a diversified audience. One segment of our population still relies on newspaper ads and print stories. Other segments want to see the information streaming through a News Feed on Facebook on their smart phone. You have to hit all the various avenues for engagement.” – Local employee, Los Alamos, N.M.

“Set appropriate expectations (i.e., when we do and don't monitor our social media accounts), responds as swiftly as possible to questions from our residents (and visitors) and coordinate appropriate safety messaging with you office and other state/local/federal agencies.” – State employee, Baltimore

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS About GovLoop

Sponsor Acknowledgements

GovLoop’s mission is to “connect government to improve government.” We aim to inspire public sector professionals by serving as the knowledge network for government. GovLoop connects more than 100,000 members, fostering cross-government collaboration, solving common problems and advancing government careers. GovLoop is headquartered in Washington D.C. with a team of dedicated professionals who share a commitment to connect and improve government.

Thank you to Carahsoft Technology for its support of this valuable resource for publicsector professionals. Authors: Catherine Andrews, director of content; Emily Jarvis, online editor; Adrian Pavia, research fellow. Designers: Jeff Ribeira, senior interactive designer, and Tommy Bowen, junior designer. Editors: Steve Ressler, president and founder, GovLoop.

For more information about this report, please reach out to Catherine Andrews, Director of Content, GovLoop, at: catherine@govloop.com, or follow her on Twitter: @candrews GovLoop 1101 15th St NW, Suite 900 Washington, DC 20005 Phone: (202) 407-7421 Fax: (202) 407-7501 www.govloop.com Twitter: @GovLoop

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1101 15th St NW, Suite 900 Washington, DC 20005 Phone: (202) 407-7421 Fax: (202) 407-7501

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