Those are the words of Julie Brooks, PIO for the Arapahoe County, Colo., Sheriff, after attending the GovTech Social Unconference held Oct. 6-7 in Denver. And what a great way to describe an event.
To provide some context, Government Technology and ArchiveSocial partnered last year to convene the first ever GovTech Social Unconference in Austin, Texas, as a half-day session. The event was such a success that we decided to up the ante: We brought it back this year as a full day-and-a-half conference in Denver. The goal? Create an environment (read: meeting spaces, great food, coffee) that fosters high-quality conversations, learning opportunities and relationships among social media practitioners in government. To make this possible, we adopted an “unconference” format that allows attendees to pitch topics ideas and self-organize the conference agenda on the spot. That’s right: We basically let the attendees create the conference they wanted to attend.
The result was stunning. Our small group pitched several dozen topic ideas that ultimately created eight sessions chock-full of bold ideas and high-quality peer-to-peer knowledge sharing. Sessions ranged from “Managing Social in the Heat of a Crisis” to “Quitting Twitter.”
To give you a better sense at what attending the unconference was like, I sat down with two of our attendees to get their thoughts. Here were some of the takeaways from Brooks and Dionne Waugh, digital communications manager for the Jefferson County, Colo., Sheriff.
1. No one has all the answers for how to succeed with social media in government
And that’s exactly why attending events like the GovTech Social Unconference is important. Everybody has their share of successes and failures, and there’s so much to learn from each other. Outside of the occasional conference, there is an appetite for ongoing forums that enable practitioners to keep up with the rapid pace of change in social media. That’s exactly why Waugh created a Colorado Law Enforcement Group.2. New platforms are gaining traction with citizens and agencies alike
Emerging platforms Snapchat and Nextdoor were hot topics throughout the unconference. While the thought of an agency using Snapchat may have sounded silly two years ago, many of our attendees reported success with engaging and informing the 18- to 40-year-old age demographic. Similarly, agencies using Nextdoor explained how the platform can better ensure that safety and emergency information reaches the community. There are, of course, challenges around policy and records retention that must be addressed, but these platforms cannot be ignored.3. There’s a strong business case for going live
One of the most popular keynotes was session on Facebook Live, conducted by Timothy Martin with the city of Roanoke, Va. Martin explained how live video has not only helped the city share breaking news, but also has substantially increased engagement. Several of our attendees came to the unconference apprehensive of live video and unaware of its benefits, and left itching to give it a try.Based on the success of the GovTech Social Unconference in Denver, we at GovTech Social are now inspired more than ever to facilitate these types of interactions. Stay tuned for more as we enter 2017!
