And the federal government saw some big changes with the introduction of the Digital Government Strategy in 2012, wrote Anthony Calabrese, a digital communications manager at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which he said also had a big year for innovation in 2012.
While 2012 was big, Calabrese notes that 2013 promises to be even bigger -- and he and his colleagues at both the HHS's Digital Communications Division and the Federal Web Managers Council teamed up to draft 12 big ideas and predictions for 2013. Though some of these predictions are federal-level focused, that doesn't mean state and local governments aren't seeing -- and won't see -- the same things.
1. Official titles for positions at the federal level will include: Community Manager, Social Media Manager, Social Media Strategist and Social Media Coordinator.
2. The ‘m-dot’ will die and responsive design for websites or mobile apps for targeted content will increase.
3. Citizen engagement and better customer service will lead to a "self-sustaining feedback loop that fuels constant iteration and constant site improvement."
4. Through Project MyUSA (formerly MyGov), citizens will continue receiving the level of customization and personalization they’ve gotten for years from private-sector services.
5. Rotating homepage billboards will continue regardless of their value or interest to the public.
6. This year, everyone will understand what an API is and what it does.
7. Analytics and sentiment analysis will largely impact social media strategy in 2013 and beyond.
8. Infographics will grow in importance as a light, sharable and printable alternative to video.
9. As key parts of the Affordable Care Act kick in later this year, health data will hit the mainstream, and HealthData.gov will exceed 500 open datasets.
10. As content management systems offer opportunities for collaboration across the federal government, open source platforms will continue to dominate.
11. GitHub, Twitter Bootstrap and LESS CSS just might change the way government "does web."
12. Gamification, incentivization and competition on social media platforms will help public-sector content to go viral.
Image courtesy of iStockPhoto
