News and Updates

Key to Successful Prize Competitions: Define Your Problem Statement

In a prize competition, failing to properly define your problem up front can result in lower participation and submissions that don’t actually solve your issue. To create a challenge that produces viable results, start by doing your own homework. Vaguely defined problems invite less-than-desirable solutions or scare

Tim Lowden

Nov 13, 2013

5 Tips for Communicating Technical Information: iPad Pilot

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” — Mark Twain It’s simple—you’re the technical expert; you know the topic inside out, so of course you can easily explain it to a captive audience. Right? Not always. Communicators in every industry know that message

Alan Greilsamer

Nov 12, 2013

Trends on Tuesday: Would You Trade Your Latte For Your Mobile Device?

Recently, Mobile Marketing Watch published Sprint’s interesting infographic showing how executives use their mobile devices. “Would you trade your latte or morning cup of coffee for your mobile phone?” Sprint asked business professional executives. According to the results of their survey, turns out business professionals would

Lisa Wilcox

Nov 12, 2013

State Department Mobile Site Goes Responsive

The Department of State has updated their mobile website m.state.gov

Nov 07, 2013

Software and Apps Challenges

Challenge and prize competitions are one path that federal agencies take to drive innovation and solve mission-centric problems—whether technical, scientific, or creative. One type of competition is software and apps challenges, where solvers are asked to develop specific software or other code-based technical solutions, such as websites, mobile applications, or algorithms. Here you’ll find tips

Karen Trebon

Nov 06, 2013

NPS.gov Use of Digital Analytics Program: Beyond the Numbers

The National Park Service website, NPS.gov, is home to sites for the parks, programs, and subject-related content about the places and ideas that we preserve and protect for the American people.

Marina Fox

Nov 06, 2013

Best Practices for Open Source in Government (Using GitHub)

Working on getting your agency to release an open source policy? Awesome! But if you want an effective open source program, you have to tightly integrate open source into how your agency procures, builds, and distributes technology. You’re not alone! There’s a growing community of

Noah Kunin

Nov 06, 2013

More users are now accessing social media via mobile than on desktops. People are checking email or using social networks during their commute, in line at the grocery store, or waiting at the doctor’s

Lisa Wilcox

Nov 05, 2013

Are you involved in a collaborative project where you need to share information? Whether it is within an organization across units or external to an organization – across agencies, or levels of government – sharing of information can be fraught with challenges. The Center for Technology in Government, (CTG) University at Albany, New York has released

Donna Canestraro

Nov 04, 2013

Federal Government Challenges and Contests

What is a Challenge? In a challenge, a “seeker” challenges “solvers” to identify a solution to a particular problem, or rewards contestants for accomplishing a goal. The solutions may be: ideas, designs, logos, videos, finished products, digital games, or mobile applications. There are many challenge success stories in government: Challenges Conducted in 2011 Under America COMPETES Act

Karen Trebon

Nov 01, 2013

Creative Challenge Contests

Multimedia, Photo, Poster, Design Challenge and prize competitions are one path that federal agencies take to drive innovation and solve mission-centric problems—whether technical, scientific, or creative. Creative competitions include multimedia, photo, poster, and design competitions. Here you’ll find tips on running a creative challenge, resources, examples, and information about online platforms you can use to

Karen Trebon

Oct 31, 2013

Technology Demonstration and Market Stimulation Challenges

Challenge and prize competitions are one path that federal agencies take to drive innovation and solve mission-centric problems—whether technical, scientific, or creative. One type of competition is technology demonstration and market stimulation prizes, competitions that result in fully developed solutions to address market failures, solve significant problems facing society, or catalyze and demonstrate breakthrough technical

Karen Trebon

Oct 31, 2013

New Outbreaks (but No Zombies) on CDC’s Solve the Outbreak

The Centers for Disease Control recently added three new outbreaks to their Solve the Outbreak app. CDC released the app earlier this year to teach users how CDC’s disease detectives save lives everyday.

Jacob Parcell

Oct 31, 2013

Redesigning Commerce.gov

After having the same look and feel on our website since 2010, Commerce.gov is embarking on a fresh redesign to put the user in the driver seat. Drawing on anonymized user input, we have made some significant changes and are excited to announce the launch of our new site – Beta.Commerce.gov. First, you’ll notice

Mike Kruger

Oct 30, 2013

Content Management Systems Toolkit

Improving the federal government’s ability to deliver digital information anytime, anywhere, on any device via open content is a key goal of the Digital Government Strategy. A content management system (CMS) can help your agency move to an open content model, making it easier for people to find, share, use, and re-use your information.

Rachel Flagg

Oct 30, 2013

Which Devices Should I Test With?

Developing a test device selection plan that is updated on a regular basis will help your organization whittle down the list of devices to a manageable number.

MobileGov Team

Oct 29, 2013

Trends on Tuesday: Digital News Trends and Mobile

The Pew Research Center recently released a report on “12 Trends Shaping Digital News.” Some of these trends show that mobile devices continue to affect how the public consumes the news. The report found: 19% of Americans saw news on a social network “yesterday” in 2012, more than double the 9% who had done so

Jacob Parcell

Oct 29, 2013

Federal Contact Center Regulations & Directives

Contact centers operated and managed by federal agencies have to follow certain laws, regulations, policies, and other directives. Unless specifically noted, contact centers operated and managed by states or local governments do not have to comply with these same requirements. Access for People with Disabilities (Section 508) Federal contact centers must comply with Section 508

Tonya Beres

Oct 28, 2013

With Measurable Usability Goals – We All Score

Setting measurable usability goals will help your team to assess the performance of your site throughout development. Whether your assessment is at the beginning of the process, throughout iterative wireframe testing, after release, or all of the above,

Katie Messner

Oct 28, 2013

Always Future Ready: The Benefits of Open Content Models and Structured Data Webinar

“Future-ready content,” “responsive design,” “create once, publish everywhere” are all buzzwords you hear when talking about the present and future of Web publishing. But how do we get there? We all know that technology is only part of the answer. Open content models and structured data are a big part of

Oct 28, 2013