Class Notes: Government Speaker
Jeremy Bertrand, Wa State DOT, @jbertrand or @wsdot
- WA State DOT started web2.0 on their website after heavy snowstorm for people to vent –> allowing user feedback on the agency performance
- Eventually the blog became too busy; expansion to several other online platforms (Flickr, Twitter)
- Traffic and weather updates became community effort: “Now, before I go internal and post an update, I check with the community”
- By now, you can text WSDOT a certain code and they send you back road conditions for
- “Social Media Policy”? There is no official policy. It is much more than just a rule book! Most of it is common sense
- –> Organic growth of the community while the agency was opening up generally
Q&A:
If wrong: corrections will beposted, but it is very hard to correct after retweets!
- Identity/Transperancy: Currently only two people tweeting trying to have a singular voice. Poll shows: users don’t care to know who is behind the scenes. Information vs. conversation?
- time: about 2-3 hours a day – time is lost on looking for the external and internal websites. So the eyes are not on the bigger picture.
- Business continuity is important: if the site can’t handle the traffic for some reason, redirect to other free services who are able to handle it.
