The future is journalism is made today. Let's talk about it.

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.