Local Government Webmasters Meetings

MRSC organizes local government Webmasters meetings twice a year. All Washington local government officials and staff are welcome to attend regardless of position or technical experience. If you would like your name added to the e-mail distribution list for notice of future meetings, please send a message to mrsc@mrsc.org. While there is no fee, you must register to attend the meetings.

March 22, 2012
Seattle City Hall (Room L280, Boards & Commissions Room)

• Directions to Seattle City Hall (Room L280, Boards & Commissions Room) - 2012 New Meeting Location
• Agenda
• Presentations
  • Jose Sosa, Software Engineer, Cypress Consulting - Why We Chose Sharepoint; also see Licensing for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites (); Tom Braman, Web Team Leader, King County, spoke on pros and cons of SharePoint Online
  • Julie O'Brien, IT PMO and Project Manager, City of Seattle - Project Management for IT Projects ()
  • Ben Stockinger, Webmaster, City of Lynnwood - Online Utility Bill Payment System ()

September 29, 2011
Chinook Building (King County), Seattle, Room 123

• Agenda
• Presentations
  • Margaret Clark, Principal Planner, City of Federal Way, Nathan Preheim, COO/Co-Founder, MindMixer - Engage Federal Way ()
  • Quinn Robinson, Web/Network Administrator, Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington - Creating and Embedding HTML5 Multimedia on Your Website (); see Adobe's HTML5 authoring tool Adobe Edge; also see Adobe HTML5 showcase; HTML5 audio, video and codec compatbility at CanIUse.com; also Google Swiffy to convert Flash SWF file to HTML5; Microsoft H.264 Player for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox; Video for Everybody a method to play HTML5 video intended for all browsers; Video JS and MediaElement.js support Video for Everybody method; and finally, a comparison table of HTML5 video embedded players
  • Peter Breen, Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington - Dokuwiki: A Procedures Documentation Tool ()

March 18, 2011
Chinook Building (King County), Seattle, Room 123

• Directions to Chinook Building (King County) in Seattle
• Agenda
• Presentations
  • Content Management Systems
    • CivicPlus (used by Burien) - Provided week of training on content management system
    • Vision Internet (used by Shoreline)
      • Pro - Able to custom code content. We also have customizable workflow so some pages can be published by contributors while others have to have approval by the content administrator.
      • Con - No versioning.
    • SharePoint (used by Everett) - Permission levels is a complex and important consideration; allows city to set up workflow for publication of web pages; also see King County Cloud-Based SharePoint
    • Adobe Dreamweaver/Adobe Contribute/Contribute Publishing Service (used by Clallam County) - IT Webmaster builds templates and pages in Dreamweaver, and users can update and build their departments' pages with Adobe Contribute.
      • Pros
        • Flexibility, in-house control, a good price, and lets departments maintain some of their own content.
        • Example Cost: $8,000 plus yearly maintenance/upgrades fees to set up 25 computers with Adobe Contribute, and more than 25 users can use those computers to Contribute content. One Webmaster gets Dreamweaver.
        • Adobe Contribute & Publishing Server can integrate with Active Directory for user login.
        • Nice CMS features, workflow, managing user roles and settings, and so on
        • Can be pushed out to user computers (with some configuring)
      • Cons
        • You don't get the help you might get from a third party service.
        • It's definitely a do-it-yourself thing, and you need the necessary technical staff in IT.
        • It was a bit of a bear to set up, but now works pretty smoothly.
        • You might not get as many benefits as you'd get from a more expensive solution.
    • SiteCore (used by King County Department of Natural Resource and Parks)
    • WordPress (used by Tom Braman in some volunteer work) - an easy tool for small websites
    • GovOffice - hosted, template-based system
  • Public Disclosure - Records management
    • CommVault - ediscovery tool - used by Lynnwood
    • Barracuda - email retention
  • SmartPhone Apps
    • Mobile Property Web App - Snohomish County Assessor's Office; set up by Matt Boespflug, Admin Manager, Snohomish County Assessor's Office
  • Online Transaction Systems
    • CLASS - can be used for online transactions other than parks and recreation registration such as pet licenses, utility billing; also see Active Network
    • CivicPlus - has a payment module
    • MerchantTransact (used by Duvall)
    • Official Payments (used by Clallam County)
    • LexisNexis Payment Solutions - for court payments
  • Rich Internet Applications/Cloud Computing
    • Neogov Government Jobs (used by Lynnwood) - job applications
    • King County Sheriff's CrimeReports System (used by Burien) - Crime Reporting system available to King County cities on a contract basis
    • Chronos (used by Lynnwood)
    • EntryThingy (used by Everett - digital call for entries, management and jury system
  • Keeping website content current
    • PIO sends out lists monthly of pages that need updating (done by Everett)
    • More content is not necessarily better
    • Show website usage statistics to staff to encourage updating of frequently-accessed pages
  • Emerging technologies
    • HTML 5 - Discussed multimedia plug-ins for browsers that don't support certain codecs
    • 311 apps - Open311 Wiki
    • Citizen Reports iPhone App (used by Portland, OR)
    • What are the liability issues if you do not follow through on a public works service request?
  • SharePoint (MOSS 2010)
    • King County discussed the ongoing King County Cloud-based Sharepoint project

September 20, 2010
Chinook Building (King County), Seattle, Room 123

• Directions to Chinook Building (King County) in Seattle
• Agenda
• Presentations
  • Terrill Thompson, Technology Accessibility Specialist, DO-IT, UW Accessible Technology - Accessibility of Local Government Websites (); original Microsoft PowerPoint may be downloaded at Accessibility of Local Government Websites (Microsoft PowerPoint) (); related accessibility presentations available at Terrill Thompson Staff Page, University of Washington; access University of Washington accessibility information at Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology (DO-IT) accessibility software (to test sites) includes the open source NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) and Job Access With Speech (JAWS); important projects include Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA); see discussion of accessibility versus usability; browse Section 508 information at Section508.gov; download code for an accessible website drop-down navigation menu; access information on creating tagged PDF files at Accessible Technology Initiative (California State University), Web Accessibility for All (University of Wisconsin) and WebAIM (Utah State University)
  • Cheryl Smith, Senior Policy Advisor, Department of Commerce; and Faith Lumsden, Director of Regulatory Assistance, Governor's Office of Regulatory Assistance - Efficient and Effective Regulation(); visit the Access Washington - Doing Business, the state business portal, at Business.WA.Gov; see Integrated Project Review & Mitigation Tool (iPRMT), eCityGov.net ePlan () and MRSC Shared Small Works Rosters;
  • John Spady, Executive Vice-President, Forum Foundation and Deputy Coordinator, Countywide Community Forums (King County) - Registration and meetups available on Countywide Community Forums and Countywide Community Forums of King County Facebook Page
  • Saf Rabah, Vice President of Marketing, Socrata - Communicating Through Data: Know Your Audience (); many open government data sites are coming online, some powered by Seattle-based Socrata. Examples include Washington State's Data Site, Data.Seattle.Gov, Datagov.Socrata.Gov and Data.Medicare.Gov; see also developer resources at Socrata Open Data API and Community-powered support for Socrata
  • Kyle Stannert, Public Records Manager, City of Bellevue - Electronic Records Management 101(); discusses issues and strategies for complying with website Management per WAC 434-662-140; an overview of public records in Washington State available in RCW 40.14; agency duties in WAC 434-662-040; important concepts include "Is it a record or a copy?" and "How long is the retention period?".

March 18, 2010
Chinook Building (King County), Seattle, Room 123

• Agenda
• Presentations
  • Quinn Robinson, Web/Network Administrator, Municipal Research & Services Center - Microsoft Free SEO Toolkit and Google Analytics; you can download Free SEO Toolkit and access Google Analytics
  • Nate Eckstine, Web Engineer and Bruce Blood, Web Manager, city of Seattle - Google Analytics and Google Urchin; see Seattle's Google Urchin statistics at http://stats.seattle.gov/; pros and cons and comparison between Google Urchin and Google Analytics; also see comparison chart. Other analysis tools include Webtrends (can as a hosted solution through providers such as Unilytics), Omniture, Sawmill and Unica NetTracker (also analyzes video logs)
  • Rob Mullin, Webmaster, city of Kirkland - DM/SharePoint Walkthrough; more information at HP TRIM site
  • Pascal Schuback, Emergency Management Program Manager, King County - SharePoint: Coordinating emergency management; see King County Emergency Management
  • Neil Berry, WEB/GIS Application Developer, city of Seattle - Open Data Websites; see the recently-launched Data.Seattle.gov, offering city data sets to citizen programmers who want to build citizen-facing applications. This site offers crime statistics, alternative schools, public toilets, public art and numerous other metrics on Seattle life. See Seattle Launches Open Data Website. See eight principles for open data sites. Policy issues on open data websites include http://blog.okfn.org/taxonomy/open-government-data/, http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/GovData and http://razor.occams.info/pubdocs/opendataciviccapital.html. Other jurisdictions with open data sites include San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and New York City.
  • Tony Perez, Director of Seattle's Office of Cable Communications, and Bruce Blood, Web Manager, city of Seattle - Seattle Fiber-Optic Network and New Applications; see the Seattle Broadband Initiative; also visit iGrid2005, a coordinated effort to accelerate the use of multi-10Gb international and national networks, to advance scientific research, and to educate decision makers, academicians and industry researchers on the benefits of these hybrid networks; also see FTTH Council, who offers a report, Municipal Fiber to the Home Deployments: Next Generation Broadband as a Municipal Utility, Updated-October 2009, and their FibreSpeed Tool, which shows download/upload speeds required for HDTV-quality movie streaming, file backup, telelearning, teleconferencing, and other broadband-enabled applications

September 24, 2009
Chinook Building (King County), Seattle, Room 123

• Agenda
• Presentations
  • Local government experiences with Social Networking Media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs, etc.)
    • Preeti Shridhar, Communications Director, city of Renton - City of Renton Social Networking Demonstration; also see City of Renton Facebook page, City of Renton YouTube Channel and Renton TV Ad
    • Steven Niedermeyer, Web Analyst, city of Bellingham - Social Media Marketing Tools in the Public Sector ()
    • Aaren Purcell, Electronic Records, Pierce County - Social Networking Presentation; also see Pierce County Library YouTube Channel
    • Miles-Kevin Baron, Business Process Analyst, Skagit County - Web 2.0 and Social Networking at Skagit County ()
  • Group Discussion - Web design, content management and online services were topics mentioned
  • Dan Murray, IT Consultant II, Thurston County - Implementation of SharePoint (MOSS 2007 Standard) at Thurston County ()
  • City of Everett, WA - Evertt, Washington SharePoint Governance Plan (); also see Everett SharePoint screenshots here, here, here and here

March 26, 2009
Chinook Building (King County), Seattle, Room 123

• Directions to Chinook Building (King County) in Seattle
• Agenda
• Presentations
  • Bruce Blood, Citywide Web Manager, city of Seattle, and Laurie Bullock, Web Manager, Seattle Channel - Flash-based Video - Streaming and On-demand; the city has posted information about its RealMedia to MPEG4 (H.264) Conversion
  • Group Discussion - Providing services online to cut costs; online payments; generating additional revenues to avoid cuts; and other topics
  • Russell Wood, Washington State Records Manager - Preservation of Electronic Public Records (Chapter 434-662 WAC); see the new rules at Chapter 434-662 WAC [compare to the original proposal]; also sign up for the Washington State Archives Local Listserv and the Washington State Archives State Listserv
  • Michael Hamilton, Chief Information Security Officer, city of Seattle - SQL Injection: Precautionary Measures

September 18, 2008
Chinook Building (King County), Seattle

• Agenda
• Presentations
  • Bruce Blood, Citywide Web Manager, city of Seattle - Local Government and Neighborhood Blogs (will post link after launch)
  • Quinn Robinson, Web/Network Administrator, MRSC - Improving Websites and Citizen Service through Web Log Analysis ()
  • Group Discussion - Discussed Washington States preservation of electronic public records efforts, SharePoint portal servers, third-party mapping and permitting applications and website redesign
  • Fred Ward, Manager, Library & Information Services, MRSC - Website Usability Testing; simulated videographed tests were performed on three local government sites; more usability resources are available below:
    • Human Usability International
    • UI Design Newsletter: Insights from Human Factors International
    • Usability, User Interface Design, and HCI Bibliography
    • Jakob Nielsen's useit.com Website
    • Don't Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Steve Krug, 2nd ed., 2006; available through MRSC's Library Loan

March 20, 2008
Chinook Building (King County), Seattle

• Agenda
• Presentations
  • Terry Wittman, MyNeighborhood Map Manager, Seattle - MyNeighborhood mapping system
  • Open Discussion - Discussed information about online mapping systems, simple and complex, employed in local jurisdictions
  • Steven Niedermeyer, Web Analyst, city of Bellingham - Bellingham Website Redesign (); also see Bellingham's City Public Website Style Guide and Standards () and Managing City Websites Policy ()
  • Group Discussion - Discussed Intranets, SharePoint Portal Servers, Online utility payments and account inquiry, Extranets and virtualization technology

September 20, 2007
King Street Center, Seattle

• Agenda
• Presentations
  • Jeremy Bertrand, Interactive Communications Specialist, Washington State Department of Transportation - WSDOT and its use of Social Media ()
  • Open Discussion - Electronic communication methods used by cities and counties to communicate with citizens and staff
  • Tom Braman, Web Team Leader, King County - Using RSS to Distribute and Receive Information ()
  • Open Discussion - Discussion of website analytic tools, press release distribution and local police department "most wanted" lists posted on the Web

March 22, 2007
King Street Center, Seattle

• Presentations
  • Ben Stockinger, Webmaster, city of Lynnwood - Maps on Your Municipal Website (); the major online mapping services are Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps Web Services and Microsoft Virtual Earth and Mapquest
  • Eric Browne, Vice President of Business Development, Smartsheet.com; and Leigh Ann Wolfe, GIS Technician, Pierce County - Overview of Web 2.0 and AJAX; demonstration of collaborative spreadsheets used by Pierce County GIS department; demo available at www.smartsheet.com
  • Group Discussion - Topics discussed included the pros and cons of using third-party Web services on government websites, Web performance metrics (creating a standard for statewide comparison), the calculation of unique visitors statistics with and without spiders and internal users; recording the number of successful transactions, optimizing websites for mobile users (PDAs and cell phones), and a demonstration of city/county/agency website features
  • Steven Niedermeyer, Web Analyst, city of Bellingham - Reverse Proxy Server Presentation ()

March 23, 2006
King Street Center, Seattle

• Presentations
  • Corey Smith, Application Services Manager; Kiran Gadepalli, Senior Programmer Analyst; Carole Stewart, Senior Systems Analyst - Online Permit Application System - City of Redmond ()
  • Jose Sosa, Web/Software Developer, city of Everett - City of Everett site redesign process; new site available at www.everettwa.org
  • Laurie Elder, Special Projects Coordinator, King County Metro Transit - Implementation of Metro's online payment system for bus passes ()
  • Chelo Picardal, Applications Services Supervisor, Online Payment Options, City of Bellevue - On Line Payment: eCityGov Alliance and City of Bellevue ()

September 22, 2005
King Street Center, Seattle

• Presentations
  • Dan Meeker, Senior Web Systems Analyst, city of Kent - Setting up Adobe Acrobat Fill and Print forms ( 63k)
  • Group Discussion - Maintaining websites and services in times of tight or decreasing budgets
  • Group Discussion - Topics related to website redesign and management
  • Don Edlin, MRSC - New MRSC site-related projects
  • Fred Ward, MRSC - Beyond Google - searching the Web - search engines, tools and methods ( 35k)

May 26, 2005
King Street Center, Seattle

• Presentations
  • Tom Spangler, Granicus, Inc.; and Rob Mullin, Webmaster, city of Kirkland - Audio and video streaming of council meetings; archiving and indexing of media files including links to minutes and other documents; you can view the Granicus System Diagram ( 389 K)
  • Dan Meeker, city of Kent - Adding digital photographs to your site; the Adding Digital Photos to your Website () PowerPoint presentation is available
  • Dan Meeker, city of Kent - Intranet-based self-help human resources systems; see the Employee Self Service () PowerPoint presentation (read-only)
  • Karen Friesen, Systems Administrator, city of Kirkland - Intranet-based self-help human resources systems; see the Employee Self Service () PowerPoint presentation; Life Event / Family Status Changes () contains optional and required human resource system changes resulting from specific life events
  • Kathy Sharp, King County, Regional Public Information Network - Using the Web for emergency management notices and information; see the Introducing RPIN: The Regional Public Information Network for Central Puget Sound () PowerPoint presentation; learn how to Become an RPIN Partner ( 20 K); site available at http://www.govlink.org/rpin/

January 27, 2005

• Presentations
  • Alexis Ortega, Seattle Public Utilities; and Ken Schell, Seattle Department of Planning and Development - A presentation on the Stellent CMS system that they jointly implemented; you can view the Content Management Systems ( 644 K) PowerPoint presentation
  • Deborah Knight, Assistant to the City Manager, city of Woodinville, eCityGov Alliance - Gave an overview of, and discussed the operational and fiscal structure and future plans of the eCityGov Alliance ()
  • Steven Denison, Application Support Supervisor, Renton - Presentation of a custom programmed timekeeping system being used by the cities of Renton and Longview

September 23, 2004

• Presentations
  • Don Edlin, Web Application Developer, Municipal Research & Services Center - Creating online forms for your website is a fairly straight forward process, but making sure the user fills out the form correctly and completely is another issue. Don Edlin's presentation, Form Validation Techniques ( 56 K), discusses a number of data validation techniques for online web forms.
  • Quinn Robinson, Web Services Specialist, Municipal Research & Services Center - Among the numerous methods of distributing news and information, both traditional and digital, governments need to use the most effective methods to communicate electronically with their citizens. Quinn Robinson's presentation, Electronic Distribution of Local Government News and Information () on of MRSC will talk about communication methods and a specific service used by MRSC for electronic distribution of its bi-weekly website update notice, and quarterly newsletter.
  • Steven Niedermeyer, Information Technology Services, City of Bellingham - Covering Web, print and video media types, Digital Asset Management ( 204 K) covers the business case for creating central media catalogs, legal and technical issues, and notes major vendors and products in this area.

May 20, 2004

• Presentations
  • Dan Meeker, Senior Web Systems Analyst, city of Kent - Web Standards: What Are They and Why Should You Follow Them? ()
  • Dan Meeker, Senior Web Systems Analyst, city of Kent; Larry Parker, Clark County; Mehdi Sadri, Information Systems Manager, city of Federal Way - Panel discussion on hiring Web design consultants ()
  • Quinn Robinson, Web Services Specialist, Municipal Research & Services Center - Reducing Spam and Combating Email Harvesters (); also see Three Methods for Protecting E-mail Addresses
  • Paul Henderson, Information Technology Consultant, Thurston County - Online Employee Directories

January 22, 2004

• Presentations
  • Francois Caen, Webmaster, city of Lakewood - Methods for combating spam and spambots (also includes articles on fighting Spyware and stopping email harvesters on your website)
  • Paul Henderson, Information Technology Consultant, Thurston County; and Lisa Corman, Senior IT Consultant/Project Manager, Thurston County - Intranet-based employee newsletters: Thurston County's online employee newsletter ("Spirit") recently received an award from the City, County Communications and Marketing Association for the best electronic newsletter in the country. It includes photos and articles of various types: employee profiles, historical archive information, current issues, etc. You can download the PowerPoint presentation ().
  • Quinn Robinson, Web Services Specialist, Municipal Research & Services Center - Integrating graphics into your website ()
    
  • Francois Caen, Webmaster, city of Lakewood - Setting up live Webcams

October 21, 2003

• Presentations
  • Jeff Witzel, University of Washington - Web Authoring for Accessibility ()

• Email Newsletter Policies
  • Bellevue's List Server Use and Content Policy ()
  • Seattle's mailing lists policies spolifi

May 21, 2003

• Presentations
  • Allyson Falkner, Spokane County - Using Cascading Style Sheets for Web Page Formatting
  • Lisa Rossiter, Information Technology Lead and Mark Ericks, Administrative Services Director, city of Bothell - Setting up paperless council packets ()
    • Sample Council Packet (.zip file, 38 MB)

January 23, 2003

• Presentations
  • Sharon Glein, King County - King County E-Commerce Pilots ()
  • Dan Meeker, Senior Web Systems Analyst, City of Kent - Create an Electronic Form with Acrobat ()
  • Dan Meeker, Senior Web Systems Analyst, City of Kent - Thinking About Your Website: Audience, Mission, and Design ()

September 18, 2002

• Presentations
  • Cammy Webster, Enterprise Business Solutions Manager, Washington State Department of Information Services - Interwoven Content Management master contract for state and local governments ()
  • David Read, IT Manager, Thurston Regional Planning Council - Microsoft Content Manager ()
  • Don Edlin, Web Application Developer, MRSC - Introduction to Microsoft .NET concepts and potential uses for local government service integration () (non-technical overview)
  • Dan Meeker - Setting up a Web-based job application system ()
  • JoanE O'Brien, Management Systems Analyst, City of Seattle and Jennifer Ramirez, Web Manager, Seattle City Council - Overview of progress and challenges of The Democracy Portal project, highlighting the live council stream project. Public response. ()

May 16, 2002

• Presentations
  • Don Edlin, Web Developer, MRSC - MRSC Website Re-design
  • Jim Reed, Web Content Manager, City of Vancouver - Developing an Intranet that works for your organization ()
  • Lyn Fowler, Manager - Education & Outreach, Pierce County Department of Communications - Pierce County Internet Site Re-design - Putting the Pieces Together

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