Rock Creek Roundup (January 29 Edition)

Posted by: Meagen Ryan, Director of Strategy Jan 29, 2010 0 Comments

The EPA issues an interim social media policy, Code for America issues an exciting invitation to city governments, OhMyGov! rates government social networks, and eConsultancy provides compelling social media stats, all in this week’s version of the Rock Creek Roundup.

—Earlier this week, the Environmental Protection Agency issued an interim social media policy to guide employees in appropriate social media interaction. Among other guidelines, the interim policy urges workers to employ the same level of professionalism and decorum in the social media capacity that they would use when speaking at conference or representing the EPA at a public meeting. The policy also states that employees should request approval from their supervisor before jumping in as an official representative of the EPA in a social media environment. This policy is just another example of how the EPA is one of the federal agencies leading the social media pack—I would anticipate that other agencies and perhaps even some private sector businesses will be reading the policy memo looking for ideas to incorporate in their own organization’s policies.

—What if your city’s government had access to some of the brightest, most innovative developers to help create applications that would make citizens’ lives better, and interaction with city government easier and more productive? Thanks to Code for America, this dream will be coming true for five lucky cities across the nation. Recruitment begins immediately; Code for America is currently accepting nominations from city governments through February 1, 2010 and will begin recruiting developers later on this year, with a plan to have fully functional applications in place by the end of 2011.

—Not sure which federal government online hangout makes the most sense for you? Check out the “Top 6 Government Social Networks“ post over on OhMyGov!. In this insightful and sometimes humorous piece, author Amelia Hassani details the ins-and-outs of some of today’s most important Gov 2.0 social networks, including GovLoop, The Federal Contractor Network, and Military.com. If you’re interested in the real inside scoop, Hassani’s article points out her opinion of the good, bad and otherwise when it comes to government-focused social networks. Definitely worth a read.

—UK-based digital marketing research firm eConsultancy recently updated their popular “20+ Mind Blowing Social Media Stats” blog post by revisiting the original stats and providing the latest information on how things have changed. Among other insights are that “Mobile is even bigger than before for Facebook, with more than 65m users accessing the site through mobile-based devices. In six months, this is over 100% increase. (Previously 30m). As before, it’s no secret that users who access Facebook through mobile devices are almost 50% more active than those who don’t.” Read the whole list, and then forward the most relevant points to any remaining social media naysayers within your organization.

Meagen Ryan

Director of Strategy

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