Potomac Forum, Ltd. – The Forum of Choice for Government & Industry Since 1982 ^TM

Building Better Government Websites Workshop

October 30, 2009 – Willard InterContinental Hotel

On-Site Registration Only as of 3:30 pm Oct 29th
On-Line and FAX Registration is Now Closed
Seats are Available - Please Register from 7:30 AM  on site
at the Willard InterContinental Hotel

Workshop Description

Learn from the leaders responsible for Best and Award Winning Government Web Projects as they present how they used the web to help them accomplish their mission.

 

Government websites must be more useable, comprehensible, searchable, navigable and architected with the citizen in mind in order to achieve the President's goals of transparency and participation. We bring together 11 experts on web technology from industry, government and citizen advocacy backgrounds to help you achieve an understanding of the latest techniques to create a more usable and informative government website with content which is relevant and highly discoverable through internal and external search tools. 

 

Specifically, they'll address how to create a web strategy in a transparent and participatory fashion,  improve usability through information architecture, how to accomplish transparency goals, making your website more searchable and discoverable  and how creating cool and award winning websites serve their agencies missions. Also learn from accessibility experts how to go Web 2.0 and still be sensitive and compliant with accessibility rules.

 

Our keynote, Susan Thares, Director of Social Media Strategy for Federal Student Aid will explain how she went to her audience of college students to determine what would make for an educational and engaging website at College.gov . Learn what she found out and how it helps acheive FSA's goals of assisting young Americans.

 

Web 2.0 is providing challenges to comply with accessibility requirements.  Terry Weaver, Director of the Center for Information Technology Accommodation, at GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy will address this along with accessibility experts from TecAccess how to provide transparency through data feeds and visualization and engage your audience through social media methods, while still being sensitive and compliant with accessibility requirements.

 

DISA's websites have won the Web Marketing Association's 2009 WebAwards for "Best Military Web Site" and "Best Government Web Site" as well as Gold Screen Awards from the National Association of Government Communicators (NAGC). Jason will discuss how these sites support DISA's mission and the critical elements that lead to their success.

 

Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian, has been heralded as a visionary for the future of government websites. He will talk about the Smithsonian's radically transparent strategy process and how they used social media tools to consider new ways of thinking about audience, authority, and mission. Michael is combining the President's goal of improving collaboration and participation with the public while creating an improved website strategy for the Smithsonian.

 

Transparency and participation go hand in hand when the audience can customize government data to suit its needs. Learn from the Winner of the Sunlight Foundation's Apps for America Competition why their applicaton, DataMasher , won and what the value of data and transparency is to your audience and how putting data in the hands of your audience can help acheive your agency's goals and objectives.

 

Christine Pierpoint of WelchmanPierpoint will talk on how to go about selecting a your web team.Other experts from Navigation Arts will  explain what Information Architecture is and its connection to improved website usability, how to improve delivering timely and relevant content to a .Gov website as well as the influences that contribute to improved customer satisfaction ratings.

Major Topics

• Reaching out to the audience to understand how to create interest and engagement to create College.gov.
• Understanding what elements make for an award government winning website and why they are important to the overall mission. 
• What are the challenges Web 2.0 poses for accessibility concerns when it comes to data feeds, visualizations and social media.
• How to select your web 2.0 team.
• Achieving transparency and engagement while building a website Strategy for the Smithsonian.
• Basics of Applying Information Architecture to make websites more usable and informative
• How website usability leads to improved transparency.
• The importance of discoverability in website architecture both external internal searches.
• How to improve content discoverability from both search engines and external search. s
• Making content in a government website more current, relevant and clear for the public.
• How to improve the process of content creation to better inform the public and create higher satisfaction levels.

What You Will Learn

• How College.gov’s intended audience participated in the creation of the website and how they learned from audience participants how to better reach the college audience.
• How the Smithsonian is transparently creating a better strategy to become more accessible to the public.
• How DISA builds award winning websites!
• The fundamentals of information architecture and how they can be successfully applied to improve .Gov sites
• Tactics for improving website usability on .Gov websites.
• How content and usability influence the performance scoring of websites.
• How to improve the content creation process for your website.
• Increasing the effectiveness of your site's internal search.
• Online tools which can help you understand your audience, your website and your competition.

Why You Should Attend

• To improve your understanding of the latest trends and methods in using information architecture and Web 2.0 to make government websites more useable, comprehensible, searchable, navigatable and architected with the citizen and your specific audience in mind.

Who Should Attend

• Communications Directors
• Web managers
• Public Affairs Managers
• Program Managers
• Policy Analysts
• Web Programmers and Developers
• Communications and Web Staff
  

Format

• Presentations, panel discussion, and collaboration with attendees and speakers
  
  New Feature: Based on Previous Workshop Student Comments - Engagement Time with Speaker
  Ask Your Questions: Engagement Time: Discussion with Speaker
  We now reserve 15 minutes after each presentation solely for audience questions in web and social media architecture, design, metrics or implementation! Many attendees at Potomac Forum and other events have requested increased time to ask questions and collaborate with the speakers. Potomac Forum has initiated a new feature for this Workshop: Engagement Time: Discussion with Speaker - A 15 minute dedicated block after each presentation to insure your questions is answered or your topic discussed..

Agenda

7:30 AM	Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:30	Welcome Art Chankter,President, Potomac Forum
8:45	Keynote: College.gov: Government Websites can be cool! Learning from audience participation Susan Thares, Director of Social Media Strategy, Federal Student Aid, Department of Education
9:15	Engagement Time: Discussion with Speaker
9:30	How to Create more Usable Government Websites by Applying the Fundamentals of Information Architecture Kelley McDonald, Director of User Experience, NavigationArts
10:00	Engagement Time: Discussion with Speaker
10:15	Refreshment Break
10:30	Defining the Web Team for Gov 2.0 Christine Pierpoint, WelchmanPierpoint
11:00	Engagement Time: Discussion with Speaker
11:15	Successful Strategy for a More Transparaent and Usable Smithsonian Website Michael Edson, Director, Web and New Media Strategy
11:45	Engagement Time: Discussion with Speaker
12:00 PM	Hosted Luncheon
1:00	Creating Award Winning Government Websites: DISA's "Best Military Web Site" and "Best Government Web Site." Jason Schiavoni, Web Team Lead DISA
1:30	Engagement Time: Discussion with Speaker
1:45	Effective Site Search: Taking a look at the topic from an Information Architecture and Development perspective Dustin Collis, Development Director, NavigationArts Erica Milkovich-Padilla  Vice President Technology, NavigationArts Shivani Aneja  Senior Information Architect, NavigationArts
2:15	Engagement Time: Discussion with Speaker
2:30	Refreshment Break
2:45	Panel: Accessibility in Web 2.0: Data feeds, Visualization, and Social Media Terry Weaver, Director of the Center for Information Technology Accommodation (CITA), GSA Office of Governmentwide Policy  Deb Ruh, Founder and CEO and Eduardo Meza-Etienne TecAccess
3:35	Engagement Time: Discussion with Speaker
3:45	Open data - why is it important, what does it mean, and how do you do it. Joe Pringle, Managing Director Forum One Communications
4:15	Engagement Time: Discussion with Speaker
4:30	External Search: An overview of online tools which can help you improve search engine ranking and determine what your audience is searching for. Ken Fischer, ClickforHelp.com Inc.
5:00	Workshop Adjourns

Keynote

Keynote Speaker:

Susan Thares
Director of Social Media Strategy for Federal Student Aid,  U.S. Department of Education.    

In FY 2008, Federal Student Aid delivered or supported the delivery of approximately $96 billion in grant, work-study and loan assistance to almost 11 million postsecondary students and their families.  In this newly created role Susan is responsible for developing the enterprise-wide strategy for use of social media tools for effective engagement, information delivery and communication with its various constituent groups.  This includes policies, procedures, governance, training, measurement analysis, and risk mitigation. 

Most recently, Susan was the project manager on a new Dept. of Education initiative (college.gov) launched in May 2008.  College.gov is geared toward 9th-12th graders and was built in collaboration with students as the go-to source for information and resources about planning, preparing and paying for postsecondary education.  In addition to inspiring students that college is possible, the goal was to create an interactive site with a non-governmental look and feel where students could easily identify with other students on the site.  The site plans to incorporate more social networking technologies that our target audience regularly uses (e.g. Facebook, YouTube).  This project sparked her interest in Web 2.0 and its use in collaboration and improved delivery of information and services to our customers.

Before joining the Dept. of Education in 2000, Susan worked for many years in the financial aid industry including National Computer Systems (NCS), American College Testing (ACT) and the University of South Dakota.

Speakers

Guest Speakers:

Terry Weaver
Director of the Center for Information Technology Accommodation (CITA)
General Services Administration's (GSA) Office of Governmentwide Policy.

Terry supports activities that provide technical assistance to Federal agencies in the areas of accessible technologies and accommodations for people with disabilities. Ms. Weaver is leading a GSA effort, as mandated by Congress, to provide technical assistance to agencies in the implementation of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended in 1998. Section 508 requires the Federal government to provide equal access to Federal information for people with disabilities. CITA strives to develop and maintain "agency partnerships promoting accessibility". The CITA mission is to educate Federal agencies on the importance of accessible technologies; to build the infrastructure to support Section 508 governmentwide; and to collaborate with industry and representatives from the disability community in developing solutions to create a more accessible technological environment.
Ms. Weaver has over 25 years experience in the acquisition, management and utilization of Federal information technology resources - first at the Internal Revenue Service and now with GSA. She is an active member of several of interagency committees, is a past chair of the Trail Boss Interagency Committee (TBIC) and is a Senior Fellow in the Excellence in Government’s leadership program. Ms. Weaver is a graduate of St. John's University in New York.

Michael Edson
Director, Web and New Media Strategy
Smithsonian Institution

Michael Edson is the Smithsonian Institution’s Director of Web and New Media Strategy. Michael has worked on numerous award-winning projects and has been involved in practically every aspect of technology and New Media for museums, including content development, digitization, blogging, gaming, public access to collections, information architecture, networking, place-of-business applications, programming, project management, graphic design, animation, audio and video production, mobile platforms, and citizen-created content. helped create the Smithsonian’s first blog, Eye Level, and the first Alternate Reality Game to take place in a museum, Ghost of a Chance. Michael has a BA from Wesleyan University.

Jason Schiavoni
Web Team Lead, Corporate Communications Division Agency
Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)

Jason's  team is responsible for the management of DISA's public, controlled access, and classified web sites as well as internal Web communication products. DISA's primary public Web site, DISA.MIL, and the BRAC Information Portal were recent recipients of the "Best Military Web Site" and "Best Government Web Site" by the Web Marketing Association's WebAwards. In addition, both Web sites received top honors from the National Association of Government Communicators (NAGC) through their Gold Screen Awards program. Jason has over 10 years of experience designing, developing, and leading web sites and development projects within the DoD. He was recently selected as an E-gov fellow for the federal Excellence in Government program.

Industry Experts:

Kelley McDonald
Director of User Experience, NavigationArts

Kelley has more than 12 years of experience helping clients solve complex business problems with web technologies. Since joining NavigationArts in 2004, Kelley has served as a lead consultant on projects for a wide range of corporations, nonprofit associations, and government organizations. Kelley previously served as NavigationArts’ Director of Content Strategy.

Kelley has led engagements for NavigationArts including NASDAQ, U.S. Department of State, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Sallie Mae, American Psychological Association, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Veterans Health Administration, Chemonics International, Newspaper Association of America, Hanley Wood Publishing, and Goodwill Industries.

Kelley is an active voice in the Washington, DC user experience community and a frequent speaker and panel participant at user experience and usability-related events and symposia. He also team taught a class at Georgetown University that focused on the effect of organizational culture on product development. Kelley is a member of the IA Institute and the DC Usability Professionals Association.

Joe Pringle
Managing Director, Forum One

Joe works with a wide range of public sector clients on internet strategy, knowledge management, online collaboration and community building.  Most recently, Joe has led projects on behalf of the US Department of Agriculture, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the US Agency for International Development, and the World Bank.  Joe led the Forum One team that developed DataMasher (www.datamasher.org ), which finished first in the Apps for America II Contest.

Joe has over 12 years of experience in leading projects that focus on communications strategy, organizational effectiveness, knowledge management, international development, and environmental policy. He has consulted for a wide range of organizations including foundations, nonprofits, government agencies, and the private sector, and has work experience in 10 countries throughout Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.

Christine Pierpoint
Partner, WelchmanPierpoint

Christine Pierpoint is a partner and senior consultant at WelchmanPierpoint. Throughout her career, Pierpoint has worked with organizations to develop and manage a strategic Web presence. In the past fifteen years she’s gained practical insights into all things Web and has first-hand experience implementing strategies in both the private and public sector. These days she can be found breaking down organizational silos and tackling governance and change management issues in the pursuit of aligning Web operations with business objectives.

Christine’s client work focuses on maturing Web operations in organizations with sites that span upwards of 100 thousand files including The World Bank, U.S. Environmental Protection and American Society of Civil Engineers. She is also a frequent blogger and speaker on topics related to Web strategy, governance and Web team management.

Christine holds a BS in Mass Communications from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MBA in Business Management from Loyola College in Maryland.

Randall Davis

Senior Engineer and Technical Architect., Navigation Arts

Randall Davis has extensive experience in site search technology. In this role, Randall works closely with clients to devise a comprehensive technology strategy at the start of an engagement. While at NavigationArts, Randall has worked closely with clients including the Remington Outdoor Foundation and Tandberg.

Prior to joining NavigationArts, Randall was CTO of Radius Innovations, a company specializing in internet advertising and targeting. Randall has experience at both large companies and start up organizations coming up with cost effective integration solutions.  These solutions facilitate the practical implementation details surrounding user experience projects.

Before co-founding Radius Innovations, Randall worked as a department head at The Bank of New York Mellon.  There he worked as a technical architect, project manager, and development team supervisor.

 

Debra Ruh
TecAccess – Founder and CEO

Debra Ruh is the founder and CEO of TecAccess, the leading provider of accessible Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) for the world’s largest and fastest growing minority group – People with Disabilities, Baby Boomers, and Veterans with Disabilities.  

Debra created TecAccess in 2001. She has grown the organization into a profitable multi-million dollar company and it is the most awarded provider of professional accessibility and usability testing, training, and remediation. Known for creating targeted and cost effective solutions that impact an organization’s bottom line, TecAccess has proven a measurable business value of reaching this untapped demographic.  By making your business vehicles fully accessible and usable to all (including websites, social media, telecommucitons, hardware, software, eLearning, and other technology), TecAccess effectively turns what could potentially be a legal pitfall into a marketplace advantage.   

As a unique differentiator, Debra utilizes a one-of-a-kind telecommuting model that allows the world’s highest skilled technologists, many of whom happen to also have disabilities, to work from their homes, rehab facilities, and hospital rooms.  TecAccess has over 60 associates with disabilities, and is also a leading employer of veterans with disabilities and baby boomers.  This award-winning team of technology experts is known worldwide for using their firsthand experience of having a disability to in turn help large corporations around the world better understand this population and therefore reach a new and growing audience that includes people of various ability levels and age-related challenges.

Since the company’s inception in 2001, TecAccess’ suite of services have ensured that clients in government, education and industry meet their accessibility, while simultaneously maximizing their ROI and becoming socially responsible corporate leaders.  As a result, TecAccess’ partners continuously realize the business advantage of reaching and better serving people with disabilities.  Debra Ruh and TecAccess do this by leading by example, as demonstrated by TecAccess’ own international success and growing corporate client list that is driven by the world’s best Information and Communication Technology (ICT) leaders, with and without disabilities.

To further promote accessibility and universal design worldwide, Debra Ruh serves on the steering committee, and is chair the Employability and Technology Group, at G3ict, the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies, a flagship advocacy initiative of UN-GAID, the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development.  Additionally, Debra is an active member of Rehab International (RI), a global network of people with disabilities, service providers, researchers, government agencies and advocates promoting and implementing the rights and inclusion of people with disabilities. 

Eduardo Meza-Etienne
TecAccess

Eduardo Meza-Etienne has been involved in the accessibility and disabilities field for the last 10 years working for numerous government agencies and contractors in support of people with disabilities. In particular, he has helped these organizations develop business relationships with assistive technology manufacturers and has established their assistive technology training division.  He has also helped organizations get and manage their own Government contract vehicles including the GSA schedule, including the setup of teaming and subcontracting agreements with prime contract holders. This translated into a considerable increase in productivity and revenue for the companies. Eduardo has extensive experience in assistive technology software/hardware training, marketing, and sales.  Additionally, Eduardo is a skilled technologist, specializing in international accessibility trends and legal mandates, emerging media, and Web 2.0.
He holds a BSc in Economics from the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Monterrey, Mexico, a MSc in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a MA in International Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, AZ. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Brunswick, MD.

 

Ken Fischer
Founder GovCollab.org and CIO for ClickforHelp.com Inc .

Ken Fischer is Founder of Govcollab and Director of Gov 2.0 Events for Potomac Forum.  He has been involved in the Gov 2.0 movement creating continuing education workshops or as a or sponsor and solutions provider for the third year now.  Ken’s interest is in how technology can enable Government to be more effective, efficient and accountable through transparency, participation and collaboration. Ken also actively blogs on Open Government.

Ken also is the CIO for ClickforHelp.com Inc, a web-based software and social media strategy company.  At CFH, Ken has led over 100 software and web projects including creating online communities for Doctors, political constituents and office holders, tools to measure the effectiveness of public service announcements and web based messaging as well as online collaboration tools with unique search capabilities.  Ken has also led software development projects as diverse as finding news way to delivery reliability centered-maintenance, project management and onsite visual inspection.

Ken Fischer creates training programs for the planning and implementing of Open Government but does not speak here for any federal, state or local governments.  Ken also blogs about the commercial side of web 2.0 at web20blog.

Registration

 

 On-Site Registration Only as of 3:30 am Oct 29th
On-Line and FAX Registration is Now Closed
Seats are Available - Please Register from 7:30 AM  on site
at the Willard InterContinental Hotel

Special Reduced Workshop Fee in Support of the Administration's Goal of Improving Citizen Engagement
Government: $895   Special Government Registration : $595
Industty: $1,295        Industry Registration:  $795
Includes presentations, Workshop Notebook, Refreshment Breaks, and Luncheon

Please Note:
Potomac Forum Workshops are 100% Educational Events. The Training is NOT supported to Advertisers or Sponsors.Other "events" tell you what Sponsors or Advertisers Want you to Hear - Potomac Forum Workshops inform you on what you need to know to do your job!  We have over 27 years of providing high quality training to the Government

Cancellation Policy

Confirmed registrations who cancel within 3 business days of the program will be subject to a $250 cancellation fee. Registrations cancelled after the program starts are subject to the full registration fee. Substitutions can be made at any time. In the event a particular training workshop is cancelled, the liability of Potomac Forum, Ltd is limited to refund of any prepaid registration fee.

Meeting Location

Willard InterContinental Hotel
1401 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington D.C. 20004
202-628-9100