Public sector communicators and technologists from both federal and state and local organizations convened last week in Washington, D.C. to discuss government trends and how digital communications can drive greater mission impact. Hosted by GovDelivery, the leading provider of cloud-based public sector communication solutions, the 2014 Digital Communications Tour: The Power of Reach provided a platform for private sector thought leaders to share high-level trends in government technology and public sector experts to address their communication strategies. The thought leaders provided actionable insight and tactics to encourage more stakeholders to take action – online or offline – and drive mission value for government organizations. A post-event survey of attendees indicated that the ideas and insight exchanged at the event were very valuable. Nearly 94% of survey respondents re-emphasized the event’s main theme, stating that increasing outreach was a top priority for their organizations in the next year.
Attendees also received the newly released GovLoop report on communicating and promoting government programs to enhance outcomes, for which nearly 400 government employees were surveyed. The report, “Building Powerful Outreach,” looks at why outreach is often secondary in marketing strategy, how to create engaging communications that can drive stakeholder action and how to measure a program’s success. The GovLoop report revealed that although 75 percent of survey respondents said outreach should be considered when implementing programs, many said they themselves did not participate in any engagement or communications with the public.
“While the greater majority of government employees surveyed agree that effective citizen engagement is playing an increasingly important role in achieving mission results, these public sector communicators haven’t taken the next step in executing against this trend,” said Scott Burns, GovDelivery CEO and co-Founder. “We’re proud to host events like this that leverage our work with more than 1,000 public sector organizations to bring the collective experience of the industry to help government communicators address their challenges and remain focused on engaging more citizens, functioning more efficiently, and ultimately driving mission success. The real value of this type of event is illustrated in the fact that 91% of attendees surveyed indicated that the presentations and panel discussions were useful or very useful.”
For more insight into the conversations from the event, follow @GovDelivery or #GovD14 on Twitter. GovDelivery will host its final event on its 2014 Digital Communications Tour in St. Paul, Minn. To learn more about this event and to register, please visit http://bit.ly/GD2014Tour-pr. To review the GovLoop report, please visit http://direct.govdelivery.com/building-powerful-outreach-pr.
Attendees of the 2014 Digital Communications Tour are eligible for CPE (continuing professional education) credits. To apply to receive these credits, registrants must note their interest in the registration form, attend the full event and fill out the post-event survey. For more information on the learning objectives, prerequisites, and other policies for receiving CPE credits, visit the event’s registration page. A certificate of completion is issued to those who applied for CPE credits following attendance of the event and completion of the post-event survey.
