White Paper Revisted: Is Obama Following Fed Web Managers' Counsel?
BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, October 27 2009
A year has passed since the Federal Web Managers Council passed a copy of its highly-regarded white paper "Putting Citizens First: Transforming Online Government" (pdf) to the Obama transition team. On the fourteen recommendations made in the report, veteran federal web manager Candi Harrison sees a mixed bag of progress. A handful of recommendations are hinged upon funding processes that haven't yet gotten a chance to play themselves out, like the building of multilingual websites. On the others, Harrison gives points to the development of data standards, the posting of public comments, the use of social media, and the crafting of standardized job descriptions for web content managers within government. Deductions are taken for multiplying the number of sometimes redundant government websites, the failure to do regular content reviews and user testing, and government sites that use prime online real estate to tout their own initiatives and projects rather than to help the public find what it needs from its government.
In short, says Harris, year one of the digital transformation of government can be summed up thusly: "Good progress in a few areas. Painful slippage in others. The jury’s still out where recommendations required funding." Worth a read.