GovZine

• Invite speakers – there are savvy web experts everywhere or you can do it as a group webinar
• Create a seminar series or brown bag lunches on specific topics.  Share expertise and figure out ways to work together.
• Do “show and tell,” allowing web managers to showcase things that are working well or things they have in the works.  But don’t just talk at each other.  Work together.  Could you adopt common methods for organizing content or helping customers who get stuck on a task that crosses agencies?  The more we do things alike, the easier it is for customers to use all our sites.  Could you work together to come up with better sequences of related content, so customers can move between agencies seamlessly? 
• Do usability testing – pick two or three sites from your meeting group, come up with some typical (top task) problems, and use 3 members of your group as guinea pigs (Steve Krug says you can use just about anyone to test your site, and you’ll still get worthy results). Work together to fix the problems.  Or watch a First Fridays session together.  Learn how GSA does usability testing and then do some yourselves.  
• Include managers of other delivery channels – call centers, correspondence units, publications, in-person customer support.  Figure out how you can work together to make customer service seamless and effective, no matter how customers interact with the agencies.

Welcome to
 GovLoop Insights 

Issue of the Week with Chris Dorobek… where each week, our goal is to find an issue — a person — an idea — then helped define the past 7-days… and we work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

This week has been
 Public Service Recognition Week and it comes on the heels of a lot of public service that probably that probably should not be recognized. Earlier this week, we unveiled the Partnership for Public Service Service to America Medal finalists — the
 SAMMIES… and we spoke to
 Tom Fox of the Partnership for Public Service about how YOU can help recognize good work… and a programming note: Starting on Thursday, we will be introducing you to the SAMMIES finalists.


There were a number of stories competing for the big issue this week.



• One was the budget. The House late in the week approved a bill that would adjust sequestration. The New York Times reports that the house approved the legislation that would cut $310 billion from the deficit over the next decade — and it shifted the cuts away from defense spending and toward domestic programs. The Times notes the bill has no chance of passing the Senate and the White House issued a veto threat saying the bill fails the test of fairness and shared responsibility.
• Meanwhile the 
House passed the first appropriations bill of the year — a measure that would spend $51 billion on the departments of Commerce, Justice, NASA and other related agencies. The Hill notes that the bill is the least controversial of the 12 annual appropriations bill and — are you sensing a theme here — it has no chance of making it through the Senate and the White House issued a veto threat. The White House has said President Obama will veto any and all of the 12 bills until the House renounces the top-line spending level in the overall budget written by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). The legislation cuts spending by about 3 percent compared to current levels, which Republicans said shows their ongoing commitment to trim spending. The GOP said spending by agencies covered by the bill has been cut by 20 percent over the last three budget cycles.
• The
 House also voted for a plan that would increase the percentage of salary that federal employees must pay toward their retirement benefits. But — ready for it — the plan is unlikely to make it through the Senate.
• The gay marriage discussion. This is mostly a policy issue and we’ll leave that for others, but it does indicate the ongoing battle between the White House and Capitol Hill. The
 Washington Post notes that on the same day President Obama became the first president to fully embrace same-sex marriage, House Republicans once again approved measures that limit Obama administration policy decisions and federal policies favorable to gays and lesbians… they voted to bar the Justice Department from using any federal funds to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act. And the House Armed Services Committee voted to bar gay and lesbian service members from getting married or holding “marriage-like” ceremonies at military facilities.

Our Issue of the Week:
 It’s public service recognition week. The time when managers and the public are supposed to take a step back and really highlight the amazing work government workers do on a daily basis. But this year has been rough for many feds — especially those in the Secret Service — who are facing a public service nightmare with the prostitution scandals in Colombia and El Salvador. So for our issue of the week we wanted to harken back to a time when the Secret Service was held in really high esteem. A new book Rawhide Down draws on exclusive new interviews and never-before-seen documents, photos, and videos about the near assassination of President Ronald Reagan. The book’s author Del Quentin Wilber told me what he thinks of the current scandals hitting the Secret Service.

Weekend Reads:




• What impact will cloud computing have on CIOs?
 Keith Engelbert
is CIO of 

Student Transportation Inc., an operator of school buses, writes in
 Fortune about a recent report about, “The Changing Role of the CFO,” and it found that 17 percent of corporate financial decision-makers believe the position of the chief information officer will disappear from the business landscape in the next five years. Why? The cloud. Technology has dramatically changed the way organizations invest in and consume technology — and CIOs who do not value the cloud in today’s current IT environment are putting an expiration date on their usefulness in the enterprise. CIOs need to fundamentally shift their strategic thinking as it relates to technology because cloud services all but guarantee uptime and data’s availability. CIOs can now use cloud services to focus on how data is accessed, shared and used within the organization which is the next evolution of the title.
• Why Do Our Best and Brightest End Up in Silicon Valley and Not D.C.?
The Atlantic says that the country’s most thoughtful used to look to politics to make a difference on issues like healthcare reform. But now they come to Google Ventures. And David Ewing Duncan sat down with Bill Maris, who leads Google Ventures. Maris says that government is really successful when it’s willing to make big bold objectives like: We’re going to get to the moon. And they’re willing to invest in those things to get there. He says there never was a bold statement like — we’re going to invent the Internet. Instead it was government investing in these technologies and things will develop from them… and that flows out to universities, which flows out to companies. Maris says that this system has given us a lot, and he says he hope will continue to give us in the future. But without leaders with big ideas we get stuck.
• How do you create a culture that embraces innovation?
 Scott Anthony of Innosight says it requires a highly engaged leadership and the right motivating factors — guess what? It isn’t only money… and, in fact, he mentions a
 DorobekINSIDER Book Club book – Daniel Pink’s
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
• Why does it seem that CEOs don’t get innovation?
 Stephan Lindegard writes that top executives are risk adverse, and too often they aren’t taught how to be innovative. We have his post of five reasons why CEOs don’t get innovation…
• Finally, are you addicted to Facebook? Well, have you tried to cut down your Facebook time, but you haven’t… or can’t… Or is Facebook impacting your ability to do your job? 
Mashable writes this is becoming a problem, apparently. Meanwhile in
 Fast Company, Martin Lindstrom writes about how he managed to put down his iPhone… and even not jump to Google to answer every trivial question that arises.

Recently I’ve written about the move of publishing companies into content marketing consulting. It makes a lot of sense — who better to teach a company to think like a publisher, than a publisher? Who better (presumably) to generate quality content than former journalists?

This week I got an email announcing that another publishing company was jumping into consultancy, with a different focus. Crain, publisher of iconic titles like Advertising Age, B-to-B and AutoWeek, wants to teach companies how to engage in social media.

Image courtesy of Crain email

The person they identify as leading the effort is a former journalist with the Chicago Tribune, Tracy Schmidt. But there is no talk of content marketing, at least not in the email or the blog post it drives you to. The focus of the services offered seem more tutorial and professional training in nature.

I certainly agree with the list of benefits they provide for B2B companies to get engaged with social media. SEO — absolutely, a no-brainer. Internal communication can be important and is sometimes overlooked by my clients. Monitoring social mentions is obvious, and deepening relationships with clients makes sense.

Two important items are missing from Tracy’s post. One is what Crain will actually help companies actually do. Starting a LinkedIn group is the only tactic mentioned. Most companies don’t just need consulting, they need support executing.

The biggest missing piece is how these strategies contribute to the company’s bottom line. All the other benefits are nice, but in my view are natural byproducts of a content marketing strategy targeted towards prospect identification, lead generation and deal capture. If you can’t show how social media can contribute in this way, B2B companies will not fund programs.

Of course, Crain may not be telling the whole story in one email and one post. The point of a marketing piece is to make the audience want to know more. To me though, the value proposition is a bit off.

I get it that a publishing company can create good content. They may trouble with the sales ROI part, but the content I get.

But teaching other companies about social media? That’s far less intuitive, especially considering how the trade press has been decimated by the rise of the Internet and social media. No replacement has been found for the print advertising model that fueled these magazines in the past.

There are literally thousands of companies educating clients on how to leverage social media. Some (like my firm) come from a PR background, others marketing, others advertising and every variation in between. It’s a crowded market, and in my opinion B2B social media is a very different animal than consumer.

I wish Crain well — there sure are lots of companies that need help with social media strategy. But they better bring their A game.

On today’s program for Thursday May 10th, 2012



• How to
succeed in government leadership – and yes, that includes political leadership. We’ll talk to Paul Lawrence, one of the authors of the new book, Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government.
• Big data – it’s the latest buzz word floating around government. But how do you harness its powers. We’ve got your how to guide.

• How
 does your city rank when it comes to social media? And what can you learn from those that are doing it well. We’ll talk to the person behind that assessment.


The SEVEN stories that impact your life for Thursday the 10th of Ma…


1. The Pentagon is changing its definition of an insider threats in hopes of rooting out threats earlier and easier.
Secrecy News reports, the new definition calls an insider a someone who engages in unauthorized disclosures of information or other activities deemed harmful to national security. The new Instruction comes in the wake of WikiLeaks and complies with a congressional mandate in the 2012 defense authorization act.

2. The Postal Service has a new strategy that could keep small office open for business.  The plan would keep the existing Post Office in place, but with modified retail window hours. The plan would also keep access to retail lobbies  and to PO Boxes unchanged.
Postmaster General and CEO Patrick Donahoe says the new strategy would be implemented over a two-year multi-phased approach. Once implementation is completed, the Postal Service estimates they could save half a billion dollars annually.

3. The White House could be in hot water after a special counsel report found the Federal Aviation Administration was slow to respond to problems that could put airline passengers at risk. The
Washington Post says Air traffic controllers in New York sleeping, playing video games and going home early we among seven main safety concerns Special Counsel Carolyn N. Lerner cited in her letter. Lerner says the Transportation Department needs more oversight of air safety. The Washington Posts says the criticism comes during the safest period in U.S. aviation history.

4. The large number of inspector general vacancies could be filling up. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa has scheduled a hearing to fill the 10 vacancies. The
Washington Posts says in the wake of an inspector general report that exposed wasteful spending in the
 General Services Administration, lawmakers are pressing the Obama administration about similar positions being vacant in several other agencies.

5. A new bill is calling for the end of duplicate spending.
Federal News Radio says Congressman James Lankford has introduced a new bill that would require the Congressional Research Service to provide a “duplication score” for every piece of legislation. The score is similar to the cost scores that the Congressional Budget Office already gives each bill.

6. The missile defense agency is looking for new ways to weed out fake electronic parts in the supply chain. And they want your help.
 NextGov reports, the incidence of counterfeit parts appearing in military supply chains has risen in recent years. It happens when authorized dealers or original makers run out of parts to replace the military’s aging equipment and turn to unaccredited middlemen for supplies. The Pentagon is looking for solicitations through the end of May.

7. And over on
 GovLoop, we asking are the best employees overworked? GovLoop’s Steve Ressler says sometimes the best and most creative/ innovative people often get overburdened with too much to do (day jobs plus all the special projects). Do you agree? Sound off on GovLoop right now. You can join the conversation on our homepage.


On today’s program for Wednesday May 9th, 2012

• The nominee to be the government’s new procurement chief is on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearing. Joe Jordan isn’t well known — and doesn’t have extensive procurement experience. What should be on his agenda? Insights from the former deputy at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy — Rob Burton.
• It’s Public Service Recognition Week – and Tom Fox from the Partnership for Public Service has some simple ideas to make your employees feel appreciated.
• What’s missing in your open data policy — John Wonderlich from the Sunlight Foundation fills in the gaps.

The Postal Service has just announced that it is stepping back from its plan to close up to 3,700 mostly rural post offices, citing a customer outcry. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Postal Service will, instead, seek to cut costs by shortening window hours and offering early retirement to 21,000 rural postmasters.Budget in the news this week: It’s an election year so we know that lawmakers just aren’t spending that much time on Capitol Hill this year. The Washington Post has noted that  members will have been working in Washington on just 41 of the first 127 days of 2012 — and they are planning being away for 17 of the year’s remaining 34 weeks. So there is not much time to work through the budgets, although that has not been a big priority for years.

One possible solution to getting those bills passed? Bundling them all together. Roll Call reports that House Republican leaders are considering bundling appropriations bills. They have also looked at the legislative calendar and the challenges of getting the spending bills passed. So they are considering bundling must-pass spending bills as a way of speeding up the the lengthy process of debating them on the floor. Roll Call notes that if they do that, they risk angering conservatives, who note that leadership has long promised an open process so they can offer hundreds of amendments aimed at cutting spending that they can tout on the campaign trail. Roll calls says, “All of this underscores the quandary Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers faces in trying to pass his dozen bills before the House adjourns this presidential election year: Short workweeks and pushback from Members of both parties will make it a difficult task to complete.”

The House has rejected several proposals to cut spending. The Hill reports that the votes seemed to pit younger Republicans against more senior members — with people who have been around for awhile arguing against further spending cuts. The seven ammendements would have cut $1.4 billion — an additional $1.4 billion from the fiscal 2013 spending bill for the departments of Commerce and Justice. Members approved one of them — a proposal to cut funding for a climate Web site at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration saving $542,000, but the rest of the amendments were rejected. The most aggressive proposal, The Hill says, came from Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) that would have cut 3 percent of all salaries and overhead at the organizations covered by the Commerce and Justice spending bill. That was rejected 137-270.

It seems the GSA conference scandal has another victim – GSA’s 2012 Government Web and New Media Conference. The gov 2.0 conference was scheduled for May 16-17, but it has been postponed. No details on when. While GSA doesn’t say WHY the event was postponed, it isn’t hard to guess.

On Today’s Show for Tuesday May 8th, 2012

• GTSI – the company has been a staple of government IT contracting… and it has now been bought. Insights and analysis about what happened and what it means from Nick Wakeman of Washington Technology.
• Could Video be the key to telework success? Maybe yes. Find out why.
• The technology behind the Newseum’s new Media Gallery…could be used for government. You’ll learn how with HP.

Some big GovLoop news – Steve Ressler — Mr. GovLoop himself — is going to be a daddy. Of course, there are some great comments on Facebook… Ressler 2.0… many people saying how AWESOME it is. We are looking forward to the arrival in September. Congratulations to Team Ressler… and the player to be named later.

Remember the bailouts? It appears that the government could actually turn a profit — $15 billion in profit — from the bailout of American International Group — AID. The Washington Post sites a report by the Government Accountability Office. GAO says the the Federal Reserve and the Treasury made available more than $180 billion in aid to the struggling financial giant in 2008 through a variety of mechanisms, including cash infusions. Since then, the Fed and Treasury have recouped all but $46.3 billion.

On today’s program for Monday May 7th, 2012:

• The nominees are in for the Oscars for Federal Employees – The Service to America Medals award.
• Turning garbage into energy at the EPA — just one of the amazing SAMMIES nominees.
• Taking an inside virtual tour of the Newseum’s new media gallery here in Washington… and what it means for government.

My Wine and Dine column on WashingtonExec has been taking up the majority of my wine posts lately. So it’s time for a post on some good wines I’ve enjoyed this spring.

As readers of the blog know, I look for a balance of value and experience in a wine. With more earth under cultivation using better technology than at any time in history, the market power should be in the hands of the consumer. You shouldn’t have to pay more than $20-25 retail for a quality wine experience.

That said, sometimes you don’t mind paying more for a wine that will deliver an even better experience. The challenge can be choosing the more expensive wine that still delivers a good Quality to Price Ratio (QPR). (See this post by Robert Dwyer of the Wellesley Wine Press on QPR and how it can be tweaked to better balance quality and price).

In that spirit here are two flat out bargains that outperform their price tags, and three wines with higher costs of entry that really soar.

Osel Ruche 2009 – Ruche is a varietal in northern Italy I had not had before, and it was recommended by Lee in the Unwined shop in Belle Haven. The wine is light in color and body, with a smooth texture. Raspberry and cherry lead the fruit, and there’s some tartness on the finish. It gets a bit spicier with food, and all this happens for $13 a bottle.

Daglia 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley – This was a nice recommendation from Vince at Total Wine in Alexandria. Deep purple in color, rich aroma, lots of black cherry fruit. Soft tannins for a Cabernet, smooth with a medium weight texture. This is another $13 wine that delivers exactly what most would suggest from a good Napa Cabernet.

Conn Creek 2006 Anthology – A fantastic wine we enjoyed thanks to Daniel, the wine manager at Columbia Firehouse. Daniel has started a reserve wine list, which I didn’t see advertised anywhere on the menu. His enthusiasm made the evening more enjoyable, and when he found he’s run out of his initial recommendation (the Sinnean Abondante) he brought us the Anthology.

This wine is a Californian left bank Bordeaux blend, led by a majority of Cabernet Sauvignon along with Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot. It’s incredibly smooth and delicious, restrained with a bit of spice. This wine costs around $45 retail and really delivers. Definitely ask for Daniel and the reserve list the next time you visit Columbia Firehouse.

Elderton Ashmead 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon – I’ve previously reviewed this wine, and it continues to be our standout Australian Cab. This is a huge, delicious wine in which the fruit, the wood and the leather all work together. This wine is an example of why the Barossa valley in Australia has become known as one of the world’s premier wine regions. It can be had for $40 at Total Wine.

Paul Autard 2009 Chateauneuf-du-Pape – Gabriele and I had enjoyed the 2006 Autard CNP at Ray’s the Steaks, so I figured the 2009 was a good bet at $45. It was a delicious wine with a lot of spice and fruit balanced with earth and pepper. 2009 was a great year for Rhones in general and this is a nice CNP to spend a bit more on.

Whatever your budget, you can’t go wrong with the above wines. If you try any of them out, let me know what you think.

Welcome to GovLoop Insights Issue of the Week with Chris Dorobek… where each week, our goal is to find an issue — a person — an idea — then helped define the past 7-days… and we work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

Happy Star Wars Day — yes, Star Wars Day… it’s May 4th, so May the 4th Be With You! 

There has been much going on this week.

• There was more skirmishing about budgets on Capitol Hill, although it seems very unlikely that agency budgets will get passed on time. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank notes that by the time the Republican-led House returns next week, members will have been working in Washington on just 41 of the first 127 days of 2012 — and that was the busy part of the year. They are planning out of session for 17 of the year’s remaining 34 weeks, and even when they are in town the typical workweek is three days.
• The federal CIO, Steven VanRoekel, has released the Federal IT Shared Services Strategy. Speaking at InformationWeek’s Government IT Leadership Forum, VanRoekel said that agency CIOs should look first to IT spending within their agencies for commodities such as e-mail and storage — and after that, they should look to consolidate HR and financial management with other agencies, NextGov reports.
• With all the bad press public servants have seen in recent weeks, it’s good to see people making a difference… and saving the government money. The nation’s highest civil service awards — the Presidential Ranks of Distinguished Executive and Distinguished Professional — were announced last week at the Senior Executive Association’s 27th annual awards banquet. The Senior Executive Association notes that  the 2011 award winners’ nominations show that they saved the federal government more than $36 billion. 

But our issue of the week, HR… Yes, human relations… chief people officer… chief human capital officer… they’re all terrible names for a job that SHOULD be so important, but too often at agencies — and many organizations, it is a role that is mostly regulatory, not strategic.

Liz Ryan is a strategist on the people relationships — her company, Ask Liz Ryan, focuses on the new-millennium workplace — yes, the new world workplace. She is also a former Fortune 500 HR executive.

She says that HR — human capital — is still not fully understood or appreciated.

Your Weekend Reads

• It’s graduation season — and I love commencement speeches. It really is an opportunity to step back and ponder what makes a successful life… offer advice. Of course, the best of the best was Steve Jobs commencement speech to Stanford University in 2005. If you haven’t seen it or heard it, it’s 15-minutes long and well worth a few hours. Watch it a few times.

• That being said, there were two pieces looking at commencement speeches that I saw this week. Charles Wheelan, author of the book 10 1/2 Things No Commencement Speaker Has Ever Said writes in The Wall Street Journal about what they don’t tell you at graduation. Things like… yes, some of your worst days lie ahead. Wheelan says that graduation is a happy day. But he says that his job is to tell you that if you are going to do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding self-doubt and failure. Be prepared to work through them. He also says the goal should be to not make the world worse…
• The other piece by Steve DeVaughn about the commencement speech that he says he’s never been invited to give, and he offers advice like: Reserve the right to be smarter tomorrow than you are today.
• Facebook this week announced that you can now post if you are an organ donor. SmartMoney says this move experts say could prompt social-media companies to take on roles once reserved for government agencies. And they post others — having people posting when they vote to encourage voting… or when they pay their taxes.
• With the approaching end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, changes are coming to the military services — a transition. The Christian Science Monitor writes that the military is working on plans to retain the best and the brightest so they can be better prepared for whatever lies ahead. 
• Meanwhile, the Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno writes in Foreign Affairs about the U.S. Army in a time of transition.
• How would you fix washington? The Washington Post asked the chamber’s referees, Alan Frumin, the Senate parliamentarian, who is retiring after 35 years. One of his recommendations: Speed up the confirmation process by putting key positions on a fast track.

I’m a long-time reader of the PR Meets Marketing blog, by Cece Salomon-Lee. As the title suggests, she has talked for years about how PR and Marketing intersect.

Her latest post lists some essential skills she has picked up as her career progressed. It a good list and to some extent it mirrors the transition of my firm from a traditional tech PR shop to a content marketing and social media consultancy. Increased awareness and visibility are now positive byproducts of campaigns designed to increase revenue.

Cece’s list:

1. Search Engine Optimization

2. Content Marketing

3. Public Relations

4. Social Media

5. Pay-Per-Click Programs

Based on my I’d add two more to the list. The first is deep market knowledge of your client’s vertical. If you want to be a true counselor and not an order taker, you need to have an understanding not just of your client’s product or service, but the competitors and trends in the space.

The second is an understanding of sales automation, how your client uses CRM and/or marketing automation tools to track prospects and contacts. Some of my clients use Eloqua and I’ve become familiar with that system. Every client wants demonstrable ROI, so it’s critical to understand how they are scoring the data being provided by a social media engagement.

If you’re in the communications field, how has your role changed in the past five years? Drop a comment and let me know.