CRTC B2G Tech Focus Seminar

We're signed up and ready to attend the next Chesapeake Regional Tech Council Tech Focus Seminar on November 13^th and wanted to help spread the word. This Tech Focus seminar is being put on by the Business to Government Committee and is entitled "Adapting to the Cloud: Industry's Evolution and  Government's view from the Inside." Here's what you'll learn:

• What is the government's view of "the Cloud" from the inside and the inherent challenges associated with it?
• What can industry do to potentially solve these challenges within the public sector by helping it adapt these technologies/ trends?

The event will feature several CIO panelists who will focus on:

• Emerging technologies/ trends (VMWARE, SaaS, VDI, etc)
• Challenges (Security/ DIACAP)
• Opportunities (Apps.gov.) or what opportunities may exist within this FY(10) within the agency.

The event will be held from 7:30 to 9:30am at L-3 Communications - 2720 Technology Drive, Conference Center, Annapolis Jct., MD 20701. You can sign up here. If any of you would like to go and aren't a member, I'd love to get you in for free. Just send me a note and ask me how!

by Garret Ohm

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Social Media 101, Step 1: Evaluate the Landscape

Chances are this isn't the first time you've heard about how important social media and word-of-mouth marketing are for today's brands. It's a topic that's been covered from every conceivable angle, and there are many organizations that are feverishly trying to figure out how to inject their brands into the conversation. You are not alone.

Rather than preach to you about why you should be engaging, I figured I'd take a moment to get you started. A logical first step is to evaluate the landscape to identify opportunities to forge a presence. While there are many tools and methodologies that can be used to assess the situation there are a few in particular that will give you a broad overview of where your brand, product/service or industry is being discussed. We'd recommend starting with Google Blog Search, Twitter Search, as well as a new tool, Scoopler.

Google Blog Search and Twitter Search provide real-time search results for their respective services, allowing you to find out a multitude of things including where your brand is being talked about, whether your competitors' brands are being talked about, the quantity of conversation around your industry, opportunities for you to address problems that your company may be able to solve, and more. Scoopler, currently in beta, is another tool that we like for evaluating the social media landscape because it allows for real-time searches that include blogs and Twitter as well as other social media outlets like Flickr, YouTube and Digg. It even shows popular links that contain your search term.

Once you've used these tools to search for keywords relevant to your industry and/or business, you'll have a much better sense of the quantity and quality of the opportunities you'll have to engage in a fruitful social media campaign. While the resources above aren't nearly a comprehensive list, hopefully they've given you a few ideas on where to begin. Please feel free to contact us if you're interested in learning more about how you can harness the power of consumer conversation for your brand.

by Garret Ohm

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The potential of apps for local/state govts

Add this one to the "cool idea" file. I was doing some Internet browsing recently and came across a mobile application that I think has a lot of potential for local and state governments. Frankly, I hope my neighboring governments in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia are reading this.

The app is called "iBurgh" and it is billed as the first mobile application for city government. It allows iPhone users to snap a picture of an eyesore, nuisance, crime, etc in the City of Pittsburgh, attach a quick note and send the geotagged information to the city's 311 operators. No muss, no fuss, and this will undoubtedly get citizens to engage with their city much more than in the past. iBurgh is available for the iPhone through this LINK.

The article got us thinking about the possibilities for an application like this. While it's currently pretty simple, the iBurgh application could easily be expanded to include other cool and useful features like city maps, weather reports, restaurant locators, parking garage locators, traffic reports, bus schedules, etc, etc. The possibilities are limitless, and with reasonable development costs, not out of the question for a city like Pittsburgh (or DC, or Baltimore, or Annapolis...).

If you're a local or state official that happens to be reading this and the idea is appealing to you, but you're not sure how to make it happen (or how much it might cost), we can help. Yep, we do that too!

Via engadget.

by Garret Ohm

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Central Penn site up in an instant (almost)

Our friends at Central Penn Health & Fitness came to us recently with a challenge: Launch a website for the newly remodeled club in a week or less. Oh, and can you develop a new visual brand identity for us while you're at it?

Our team accepted the challenge and recently launched a great temporary landing page for the 40,000 square foot Harrisburg, Pennsylvania club. The site establishes a fresh, new visual brand identity reflective of the personality of the club and includes a revamped logo that preserves some of the existing equity the brand had accumulated throughout the years. While the site is simple and will be fully developed into a robust, dynamic and information-rich site in time, this temporary landing page succinctly makes the case for Central Penn as one of the area's premiere health and aquatic centers, and invites interested visitors to sign up for a free 3-day "wellness pass" by completing a form that further qualifies prospects for Central Penn membership staff.

Visit the site HERE, and stay tuned for more great work from The Sutter Group on behalf of Central Penn Health & Fitness.

by Garret Ohm

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