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HHS Web Council Meeting Notes - June 4, 2009

Announcements
1. Transition
  1. The transition with the incoming administration has been long.
  2. Many still working without or have just recently had the leadership positions filled.
2. Excitement
  1. There are a lot of new things to do now! The incoming administration brings new ideas around new and social media and we're working to catch up with those ideas.
3. Survey
  1. Fill out one page survey (handout)
  2. more in-depth survey coming later
  3. non-board members filling out as well
  4. hand in at end of meeting or email to Prudence
4. New Administration wants to connect people to CIOs and Public Affairs
5. September Web workshop
  1. asking for volunteer sub-committee (3 different opdivs) to help build agenda and speakers
  2. Workshop comes out of HHS (not any OPDIV's) budget
  3. 2 speakers coming thus far
    1. Web analytics expert – "foremost expert in the nation"
    2. NYT new media person
EPA Radon Contest - Presentation by Jeremy Ames (USEPA): Putting your Audience to Work
Jeremy Ames
Indoor Environments Division
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
ames.jeremy@epa.gov
(202) 343-9615
Slides are available here (PDF – 712 KB).
The Rules and Evaluations of the video contest are available upon request.
1. The EPA organized a video contest that gave a cash prize to those who submitted the best 30- to 60-second Radon Awareness PSA. Contestants could add to their YouTube group or mail in the submission.
2. The contest took advantage of limited resources, the creativity and stories of others, and the YouTube platform.
3. They were hoping for 10 video entries and ended up getting 30.
4. Lessons Learned
  1. Think about issues with minors
  2. Give clear direction on where to find information on the topic
  3. Be precise in giving rules, but don't use legalese
  4. Choose a simple theme – Radon: Test, Fix, Save a Life
  5. 6 week submission period – literature backed
  6. Waiting is the hardest part (over 50% submitted in the last 48hrs of the contest)
  7. Once the system is in place, the months of planning become weeks
5. Approval process was more complicated than originally thought. This was largely due to the fact that they were offering a cash prize and there was no precedent for government doing this.
  1. $2,500 prize awarded to winner, but financial incentive not necessary. It depends on the issue: Radon was not a hot topic and thus the EPA felt it needed an extra push.
6. Campaign was marketed in four target areas:
  1. to film makers
  2. to environmentalists and the socially conscience
  3. through social networks
  4. through media sharing tools
7. A year after the contest ended, the number of views for the videos is growing exponentially as higher number of hits increase the search rank on YouTube.
Recognitions:
1. Linda Adams (WCD) and Lisa Kruppa (WCD) recognized for their work on HHS.gov/Recovery.
2. Lauren Breitenother (FDA) recognized for decision to leave WCD and join the FDA in order to enter graduate school at Johns Hopkins University.
YouTube licensing, HHS Channels, and Guidance
1. HHS has signed a terms of service agreement (TOS) with Google, Inc. at the department level and thus applying to all agencies and offices of HHS.
2. Guidance on YouTube can be found at http://www.newmedia.hhs.gov/resources/youtube_guidance.html
3. Please read the guidance and provide feedback through the mechanism that you see best.
  1. For items calling attention to spelling and grammatical-type issues, please email to read.holman@hhs.gov
  2. For larger discussion-oriented issues, feel free to comment at http://www.newmedia.hhs.gov/standards/youtube/comment.html
4. Branding
  1. Channel banners should use the banner template to maintain consistency across HHS
5. Channels
  1. An agency/office can have their own channel if they meet the given threshold. The magic number is currently placed at 20 videos: If a communication plan put forward calls for at least 20 videos to be uploaded in a reasonable time frame, you can have a channel.
  2. If you have at least 20 videos within another channel (say, in a group), you can have a channel.
6. Groups will be utilized to organize content within the HHS channel.
7. Playlists will be created to be topic based.
8. Other Requirements
  1. All videos on YouTube must be captioned.
  2. All videos on YouTube must be embedded on a .gov Web site.
  3. The YouTube video description must include a link to that .gov Web site.
  4. Comments are allowed per approval process only.
  5. For videos on which comments are allowed, a link to the comment policy must be included in the video description.
  6. All Channels under the TOS must link to other HHS Channels.
9. Timeline
  1. Open for comments for one week. After which the comments will be brought together and the guidance revised as needed
10. Out of the QnA, it was brought up that guidance should be created on tagging and metrics.
Other licences agreements with GSA that we're working on:
- AddThis
- blip.tv
- Facebook
- flickr
- MySpace
- Blist – has now changed their product and their name; this may require a new TOS
- SlideShare
- Vimeo
- Twitter – does not require a signed TOS. Ana Tellez (OS/OPHS/ODPHP) recognized for work on Twitter guidance. Guidance should be out next week.
Supersite Content Management – Jon Booth
1. The administration is emphasizing topic-focused sites that cut across offices.
2. Supersites happen at different levels
3. Management options for these cross-cutting sites:
  1. manual – the status quo; necessitates a lot of communication!
  2. framing - Use frames or iframes to embed content from "master" site into related sites
  3. widgets
  4. syndication  most promising
4. Syndication is Recommended
  1. Pros:
    1. Used/recommended by OMB & WhiteHouse.gov
    2. Modern technology
    3. Best solution for "publish/subscribe" with no manual intervention
  2. Cons:
    1. Legacy platforms at OPDIVs may have limited or no support for syndication technologies
    2. Syndication formats poorly suited for sharing small sections of text, e.g., program overviews at hhs.gov/recovery
  3. Goal is to post once but publish twice.
5. Other points brought up:
  1. Taxonomy structure for HHS content should be created.
  2. Possibility of using Web services in addition to or instead of syndication.
  3. Over next two weeks, we'll be bringing people together to talk about how to move forward with this.
6. Thanks to those that volunteered.
7. Others interested in joining in should contact Jon Booth at jon.booth@cms.hhs.gov.
The ARRA Highway System
1. The System:
  1. Federally - Recovery.gov
  2. Department – HHS.gov/recovery
  3. OPDIV
  4. and further down the line...
2. HHS.gov/Recovery architecture is largely dictated. This provides for similar structure across federal departments
3. Widgets
  1. HHS ARRA widget was modified by AOA who shared the coding
  2. HRSA then took this and added their piece of content
Press is watching the Lobbyist Contacts
http://lobby.intranet.hhs.gov/
Closing Remarks and Next Meeting
1. WCD budget is lower this year than last, and so we're asking for support as WCD goes to SSF in July.
2. Need three (3) people from different Agencies to work on the September workshop. These persons do not have to be on the Council.
3. 508 support contact will be out next week.
4. Two job openings have been posted. Hopefully more coming following SSF meeting.
5. Upcoming Meetings
  1. Next Web Council meeting is in July. Specific date not set, but looking at any of the last three Tuesdays and Wednesdays of next month.
    1. Would like to have Op/StaffDiv volunteer to help build the July meeting agenda and organize presenters!
  2. Phone meetings to occur in July and August.
  3. No in-person Web Council meeting in August