DigitalGov Weekly Update

Content published on DigitalGov, the government-wide, collaborative platform–bringing together thousands of government innovators to share solutions to issues.   Like what you read? Pass it along to a friend or colleague!    Monthly Theme Challenge App-titude: A Successful Newcomer Offers a Few Tips 12/15/2015 01:18 PM EST The Reference Data Challenge, launched this summer, was a call for innovative approaches to a long-standing role of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to make “critically evaluated reference data available to scientists, engineers, and the general public.” This challenge—our first-ever app contest and second prize competition as an agency—had the dual aims […] Mobile Trends on Tuesday: Holiday Shopping Sales Show a Move Towards Mobile-First 12/15/2015 11:00 AM EST U.S. shoppers are increasingly using their mobile devices to make purchases during the busiest shopping days: Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend. According to Custora, online Black Friday sales rose more than 16% compared to last year, and smartphone use rose to more than 36% (up from 30% last year), with iPhones accounting for the lion’s share of […] Managing Digital Government Customer Service Update—Webinar Recap 12/14/2015 01:00 PM EST OMB’s Lisa Danzig, who co-leads the Cross Agency Priority (CAP) Customer Service Goal with Carolyn Colvin, from the Social Security Administration, shared a status update on the CAP goal work they’ve done since we last spoke with her, earlier this year. Background When the public comes to the federal government for information and services, they […] Content The Content Corner: Is Pair Writing Right for You? 12/14/2015 10:00 AM EST Fresh from last week’s article about workflows and their importance in the content creation process, I stumbled upon a new twist in content production known as pair writing. Many of you familiar with agile methodologies or software programming in general should know the term pair programming. Pair writing hopes to take some of the same […] Content Getting Serious About Good Writing—EIA’s Write Right Curriculum 12/11/2015 11:10 AM EST Let’s see–you want to improve the skills of your agency’s writers. Here’s a to-do list: Enlist a high-level champion, ideally your agency head, to make statements saying writing skills are critical—check. Create a Writing Style Guide—check. Hold classes to introduce the Style Guide—check. Expand internal editing resources—check. But what’s next? If you really want to […] Monthly Theme All In: Partnering Across Sectors Can Boost Competition Results 12/11/2015 10:00 AM EST We’ve heard the phrase a million times: Nobody does it alone. Still, it rings true no matter what you’re trying to accomplish. When it comes to crowdsourcing competitions, government agencies are making breakthroughs in a variety of fields by partnering with companies, nonprofit organizations and others beyond the federal framework. The White House announced more […] Mobile Sixty Years of Tradition: Tracking Santa with NORAD 12/10/2015 11:46 AM EST ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds;… …wondering when Santa was coming? “Let’s check!” they all […] UX Best Practices for Remote User Experience Research 12/10/2015 10:00 AM EST Once simply an idea, remote data gathering is now a very important reality in UCD (user-centered design) work. However, there are some challenges, particularly when your agency serves the entire nation and all of the groups in it. Identifying and finding solutions for these issues will help you best use this important tool. One of […] Managing Digital Connecting with the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team 12/09/2015 01:40 PM EST The new Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST) aims to make government programs more effective and efficient. Amira Choueiki from the SBST joined us to explain what the SBST does, and to discuss some of the projects they’ve worked on. Amira also shared how agencies can propose projects for the SBST to tackle, and explained […] Code The Data Briefing: Help #HackSuicide This Weekend 12/09/2015 10:00 AM EST A month ago, I wrote about the White House’s call for data scientists and app developers to come together to help combat suicide. On December 12, 2015, there will be five hackathons around the U.S. to #HackSuicide. All the hackathons are free and open to the public. Even if you are not a data scientist, […] Flex your SharePoint skills to finalize the USGS's "Virtual Events" internal page The U.S. Geological Survey's Office of Communications and Publishing has been crafting a new USGS Virtual Events page that lives on the intranet. This page will serve 10,000 employees across 400 locations. We need a developer familiar with SharePoint to step in where our latest SharePoint specialist has left off to help us finalize the page.     December Events   December 17: 18F Check-In and Update   January 2016 Events    January 14: Module 7: Post-Prize Industry and the Post-Prize Impact   Like what you read? 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