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Knowledge in Numbers

From annual conference to national association, the distribution of Web-enabled knowledge for government is the catalyst for establishing the National Association of Government Webmasters.

This September, public-sector webmasters will descend on Denver for the third annual Government Webmaster Conference.

For the first time, however, the newly minted National Association of Government Webmasters (NAGW) is hosting the conference.


Starting Point
In 2003, Richard Lovett, Web manager of Kansas City, Mo., and a member of the NAGW's steering committee, attended a conference in Miami, Fla., involving a similar meeting of trade professionals.

"I felt it was a shame that local government webmasters didn't have more opportunities to meet and share ideas," Lovett explained. He decided to introduce the idea of a conference to the Kansas City Metro Area Government Webmasters (MAGWeb), of which he was a member.

After asking the group if they would like to sponsor a regional conference, the members instead asked, "Why limit it to the region?"

The first Government Webmasters Conference was held in October 2003 with 200 attendees from 29 states. The next year, the conference drew 250 people from 30 states.

After two successful years, MAGWeb realized that it would have to pass the torch if the conferences were to continue, which is why they turned it over to a group from Colorado.

"The Kansas City group was not able to host the conference for the third consecutive year because of the limited resources available to them and the time commitment involved in hosting the conference," said Kel Walz, IT manager for the South Suburban Parks and Recreation District in Centennial, Colo. "It was expecting too much of them."

After returning home to Colorado from the second annual Government Webmaster Conference in Kansas City, Walz set out to establish the National Association of Government Webmasters (NAGW).

"I attended the conference last year and thought so much of it that I believed it merited a national organization to host the conference from year to year," he said.


A Promising Future
"The attendee survey and feedback that the Kansas City group got from the conference was very positive," said Walz. "A vast majority of them said they would return again."

The 2005 conference will include -- but isn't limited to -- topics such as various open source software and their ability to provide high quality for low cost; options for software to compile council agendas; office automation; and code sharing and development efforts. The meeting will also cover content management systems, Walz said. "That's a pretty hot topic among the attendees."

Walz noted that 10 years ago, many local governments didn't have Web sites or webmasters. "This new association meets a new need for those local governments that now have a Web site and a professional onboard to better serve their communities."

Kansas City's Lovett said the association is still in its early stages.

"The planning group expects to ask for approval of bylaws at the Denver conference," he said.

There are several advantages to having a national association host the annual conferences.

Conferences hosted by a national association are more stable, an attribute that randomly hosted annual conferences don't have.

"We needed a national association to provide continuity to conference planning efforts as well as other economies of scale associated with a national conference," Walz said.

In addition, with a national association, nationwide uniformity can be achieved, increasing the base of knowledge and people to interact with and learn from.

"We decided that this meeting of webmasters needed to continue, and that it shouldn't be isolated to one specific region like Kansas City, Denver or anywhere else," Walz said.

Conferences hosted at a national level present new opportunities to government professionals seeking firsthand knowledge from their peers. Local and regional speakers will contribute unique and valuable perspectives to the conference, according to Walz.

"Presenters at the conferences are all screened by local government professionals, and most of the presentations are by local government employees. So we get the unedited, 'no spin' kind of truth from their experiences in local government as to what's working and what's not," Walz explained.

Other benefits of the association include a resource library of how-to documents, code samples, salary ranges and job descriptions; lower conference fees for members; annual awards recognizing achievement in the industry; and opportunities for leadership.

With the association in place, Walz said members can expect long-term advantages and new levels of success in their individual careers.

"The association provides a networking of local government professionals who can achieve what they would not have been able to achieve individually."