Rock Creek Roundup (June 3 Edition)

Posted by: Meagen Ryan, Director of Strategy Jun 03, 2011 0 Comments

Utah launches an impressive user-friendly website, social media can encourage employee engagement, future cyber attacks may be considered an act of war, the General Services Administration releases its social media guide, and the Federal Trade Commission plans to update its 11-year-old advertising guide, all in this week’s version of the Rock Creek Roundup!

—Blazing the state government website overhaul trail, Utah launched its new official website Wednesday impressing visitors with its simple design, social media components, and prominent search feature. Having already received awards for its previous website in 2010, Utah wanted the redesign to take the site to the next level to serve tech-savvy citizens, visitors, and businesses. The website focuses on search making it easier for visitors to find exactly what they came looking for. To promote community participation, visitors can connect to Utah’s Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, widgets and blogs and develop and download mobile applications.

—How do you use social media at work? Blogger Keiran Harrop believes social media in the workplace can promote employee engagement and transcend traditional, hierarchical communication barriers. Social media offers a platform for users to interact and connect which allows employees to collaborate on a greater scale and across multiple circles and boundaries. In the public sector, employees can better solve problems and share knowledge across different sectors to reduce effort and prevent redundancy. Social media increases transparency and fosters communication across and within different branches, divisions, and sectors while bringing forth ideas and issues from every level of the hierarchy.

—With increasing interest and concern surrounding cyber attacks, the Pentagon will be issuing a new strategy that regards an attack on American computers as an act of war. While the strategy is deliberately ambiguous, Pentagon officials did note the attack must threaten American lives to be considered an act of aggression. In addition, the strategy only applies to foreign states, not terrorist or activist groups. War as a result of a cyber attack is still a last resort and will act as more of a deterrent to any countries considering hacking into American systems.

—What goes into creating and maintain federal social media pages? A whole lot of a guidelines, rules, and requirements. To guide federal agencies through the challenging process, the General Services Administration has published the latest edition of the Social Media Navigator, a 26-page book of social media insights and procedures. The Social Media Navigator (PDF) includes advice regarding Section 508 compliance, plain language use, political affiliation and lobbying rules, access for non-English speakers, and more. For those worried about getting it all covered, the appendix includes a requirements checklist and frequently asked questions.

—In order to adapt to the changing advertising market, the Federal Trade Commission will update its decade-old advertising guide to incorporate social media, mobile, and other new platforms. In the past, the FTC primarily dealt with online banner and print ads. Specific recommendations made for traditional mediums no longer can apply to advertising on Twitter or Facebook. While the outdated guide is still relevant in many contexts, the update will expand its reach. Through July 11, the FTC is soliciting comment from the public looking for input regarding the new technologies, which material is outdated, and where the agency should expand or limit content.

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Meagen Ryan

Director of Strategy

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