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Videos
March 27, 2013 By Kristy Fifelski
YouTube is rolling out a brand new channel design, and it requires a little work on your part in making your channel look good. I put together this quick video tutorial as I upgraded my own GovGirl channel design, to walk you through what to expect.
The biggest change in branding is that there’s no longer a background image. Your profile picture is carried over, but now you have a large graphic banner that YouTube calls “channel art.” It adapts for any device your visitors are on, but it takes some effort to design for the optimal dimensions.
Make sure to add your website and social networks, which can be displayed on top of your channel art. They’ve made it simple to add featured channels and have their avatars appear on your channel.
One feature I really like is "sections." You’re basically making a playlist. You can use all the tags you’ve attached to videos, so I easily created a section for all of my videos on social media. Finally, create a welcome video encouraging people to subscribe, and tell them what your channel is all about. It just took a couple of minutes to record my welcome video. Good luck designing your own channel!
March 20, 2013 By Kristy Fifelski
Bill Schrier knows a lot about some of the trending topics I wanted to cover this week, so I asked him to be in my video. Formerly the CTO of Seattle, Bill has had a long career in government, and currently serves as the Deputy Director of the Center for Digital Government.
In this GovGirl video, Bill told me about popular annual awards programs that are opening soon – the Digital Counties Survey, Best of the Web and Digital Government Achievement Awards. Because Bill is the former CTO of the City of Seattle, Washington, we chatted about the announcement of Erin Devoto as his successor. As a special treat, Bill shared the advice that he would tell past self if his present self had a time machine. Finally, we announced the new Web & New Media Group that we just launched for government technology types!
March 13, 2013 By Kristy Fifelski
If your government agency is on Pinterest, you’ll want to start checking out how popular your pins are with a free analytics tool just released by the company. You need to have a business account, so go to business.pinterest.com to set it up, or convert your existing personal account to a business account.
Other trending topics in this GovGirl video include the state of New York’s launch of their new open data site, Open.NY.gov; and Albuquerque's Miguel Navrot, from the city's Web team, told me about their first-ever apps contest. Big bucks went to the winners – they split a $30,000 pot!
Finally, I chat in this video about the “GovGirl Roadshow” and encourage you to sign up for a digital government event near you.
March 6, 2013 By Kristy Fifelski
My trending topics video starts off showing government with a sense of humor. The Seattle Police Department was mentioned on Twitter questioning if it was overkill to have a mounted patrol monitoring the Emerald City Comicon event on March 1.
Here's the exchange:
@drlari they're just just there to keep an eye on things. But you can just pretend they're centaur cosplayers, if you'd prefer.
— Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) March 1, 2013
This half officer, half horse vision tickled hundreds of Comicon-goers, known for gearing up in costumes to celebrate the convention.
Other hot topics covered in this video include the city of Palo Alto’s use of Salesforce’s Chatter as a social tool for staff, and Maryland.gov’s slick mobile menus. Finally, enjoy my simple water cup explanation of APIs as I cover the White House Open Data Day Hackathon.
February 27, 2013 By Kristy Fifelski
If you’re like most public-sector employees, you don’t have much time for watching videos. I took that into consideration and tried out a new format for this video – “GovGirl’s Trending Topics” – quickly covering top stories in government innovation.
We start off talking about the tiny city in Texas that entered a sweepstakes and won a new tech center full of tablets, voting technology and more. If that story gets you motivated, I mention a contest where you can win part of $5 MILLION – the Knight Foundation’s OpenGov News Challenge!
Other hot topics include the City of Bell’s awesome transparency turnaround, and Gavin Newsom’s new book, Citizenville.
Let me know if this quick rundown style resonates with you, and I’ll work more of these videos into the regular lineup. Watch the YouTube channel every Wednesday for a new episode.
Kristy is known as "GovGirl" in the government technology industry. She is a former city government web manager who has a passion for social media, technology and the lighter side of government life.
Catch weekly GovGirl videos here on GovTech and follow hashtag #GovGirl on Twitter for more conversation.
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