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Justin Herman To Be A Social Media Lead At General Services Administration

BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Tuesday, March 13 2012

Managers at federal agencies in charge of developing those agencies' social media presence are getting a new coach.

Justin Herman, 31, who's currently an open government consultant at the Phase One Consulting Group in Alexandria, Virginia, is joining the U.S. General Services Administration as its social media lead for the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies Center for Excellence in Digital Government. He starts March 26.

"I'll work with all federal agencies to develop and evangelize best practices, performance metrics and improved outcomes through social media and citizen engagement," he told techPresident in an e-mail.

That involves working with federal agencies to develop strategies for large-scale citizen engagement initiatives, and helping them to find the right tools with which to engage us citizens.

Though it's a relatively new field, Herman has been among its pioneers. He's spent the past year and a half working at Phase One consulting for various federal agencies, the last of which was the Environmental Protection Agency, where he helped staffers there design and implement the agency's Apps for the Environment challenge.

At Phase One, he's also consulted for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Forest Service, and he's been an instructor for the GSA's Web Manager University.

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