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SUBJECTS › Information Services › Local Government Webmasters Meetings

Local Government Webmasters Meetings

MRSC organizes local government Webmasters meetings twice a year. All Washington local government officials and staff are welcome; you do not need to be a "techie" in order to attend and benefit from the meetings. 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 18, 2010
Chinook Building (King County), Seattle, Room 123

  • Register for this Meeting
  • Directions to Chinook Building (King County) in Seattle
  • Agenda
    • 10:00 Welcome and introductions
    • 10:05 Website Search Engine Optimization and Analytics
      • Quinn Robinson, MRSC Web/Network Administrator
        Improving citizen access to information and analyzing site traffic can be greatly improved by using specialized search engine optimization (SEO) and Web site analytics tools. We will discuss a new SEO tool from Microsoft, which analyzes how search engines index your site, and also shows problems with your site and how to fix them. We'll also discuss Google Analytics, a search engine-focused tool to analyze site traffic.
      • Nate Eckstine, Web Engineer and Bruce Blood, Web Manager, city of Seattle
        Google Urchin: Urchin Software from Google analyzes traffic for one or more websites and provides reports on your visitors. Pros/cons of fee-based Urchin vs. free Google Analytics. Also, Google Search Appliance: search optimization strategies.
    • 11:15 SharePoint Add-ons
      • Rob Mullin, Webmaster, city of Kirkland
        Demo of Kirkland's SharePoint /Trim (now HP) document management web parts integration in SharePoint.
      • Pascal Schuback, Emergency Management Program Manager, King County
        King County's use of SharePoint to coordinate emergency management amongst a variety of cities and agencies.
    • 12:00 Lunch
    • 1:00 Open Data Web Sites; Neil Berry, WEB/GIS Application Developer, city of Seattle
      "Following the open data trend popularized by San Francisco, New York City, the District of Columbia and other local governments, Seattle recently announced the deployment of Data.Seattle.gov, a Web site offering city data sets to citizen programmers who want to build citizen-facing applications. The data sets include information on crime statistics, alternative schools, public toilets, public art and numerous other metrics on Seattle life." See http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/747646?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=link.
    • 2:00 Seattle Fiber-Optic Network and New Applications; Tony Perez, Director of Seattle's Office of Cable Communications, and Bruce Blood, Web Manager, city of Seattle
      Seattle's plans for a state-of-the-art fiber-optic network. Also, group brainstorm on new applications made possible via high capacity symmetrical communications
    • 3:00 Adjourn

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

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

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

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

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 ( 931 KB)
    • 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 ( 879 KB)
    • Open Discussion - Discussion of Web site 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 Web Site ( 51 KB); 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 web sites, 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 Web site features
    • Steven Niedermeyer, Web Analyst, city of Bellingham - Reverse Proxy Server Presentation ( 781 KB)

March 23, 2006
King Street Center, Seattle

September 22, 2005
King Street Center, Seattle

May 26, 2005
King Street Center, Seattle

      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 ( 5.26 MB)
        • 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 web site 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 ( 1.20 MB) on of MRSC will talk about communication methods and a specific service used by MRSC for electronic distribution of its bi-weekly Web site update notice, and quarterly newsletter.
          • Don Edlin, Web Application Developer, Municipal Research & Services Center - A brief update on the Web-based City Help Desk he has developed for several cities (this page contains links to a demo help desk, as well as the Bothell City Help Desk)
          • 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

        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 Web site)
          • 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 (Adobe Acrobat Document306 KB).
          • Don Edlin, Web Application Developer, Municipal Research & Services Center; Lisa Rossiter, Information Technology Lead, city of Bothell; and Michele Woodhouse, Information Services Technician, city of Bothell - Web-based City Help Desk
          • Quinn Robinson, Web Services Specialist, Municipal Research & Services Center - Integrating graphics into your Web site (2.86 MB)
          • Francois Caen, Webmaster, city of Lakewood - Setting up live Webcams

        October 21, 2003

        May 21, 2003

        January 23, 2003

        September 18, 2002

        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 (Adobe Acrobat Document36 KB)
          • Lyn Fowler, Manager - Education & Outreach, Pierce County Department of Communications - Pierce County Internet Site Re-design - Putting the Pieces Together