8:00 a.m.
Registration & Continental Breakfast

8:30 a.m.
Chairperson's Welcome and Opening Remarks

Steve Ressler, President and Founder
GOVLOOP

8:40 a.m.

Utilizing The Tricks Of The Trade: How To Foster Community And Build Your Network Through Social Media

In only a few months, GovLoop.com has connected nearly 15,000 federal, state, and local government employees. A social network for government, the site incorporates a range of Web 2.0 technologies including blogs, YouTube videos, social profiles, Twitter, and discussion threads.

• Fostering conversation
• Building trust
• Viral marketing
• Adding value to others
• Dealing with troublemakers
• Turning skeptics into members
• Turning members into leaders

Steve Ressler, President and Founder
GOVLOOP

9:30 a.m.

Break-Out Blitz!
Network And Discuss Social Media Challenges With Your Fellow Conference Attendees

This session will open the conversation by connecting you with other conference participants and gain greater understanding into many similar issues, concerns, and challenges that your peers are also facing. Become acquainted with your fellow conference attendees in this fun and fast-paced forum!

10:30 a.m.

Validating, Monitoring, And Utilizing New Media For Education And Crisis Communication

Social media is the newest burgeoning medium in which more and more citizens conduct everyday communications. In January 2009, the City of Plano's Department of Emergency Management (DEM) became one of the first municipal agencies in the State of Texas to employ its "Prepared in Plano" campaign. Prepared in Plano facilitates all-hazard communications and preparedness information to its citizens, faith-based organizations, businesses, and non-profit agencies.

New media and social media applications are becoming increasingly innovative in today's fast-paced world. Traditional forms of communication such as mailers, attending community events, website-only postings, and separate RSS and email signups can become a drain on time and fiscal resources in a budget-strapped economy. To better facilitate communication and community interaction with Plano citizens (while minimizing costs and man hours) the DEM decided to meet its citizen and stakeholders where they were at, rather than relying solely on the more common avenues listed above.

• How to identify the strategic vision of local uses (Blues Skies versus Emergencies)
• Validating and promoting your brand to users (Authority by Online Associations)
• Pro-Active Trend Monitoring of your jurisdiction
• The future of disaster communications and new media
• Actual uses in and around Plano, TX (H1N1 monitoring, Wide-Spread Power Outage, Dallas Morning News Blogs)

Hal R. Grieb, Senior Emergency Management Specialist
Department of Emergency Management
CITY OF PLANO, TEXAS

11:20 a.m.

How To Blend Traditional Media With Social Media To Educate And Engage Your Audience

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), an agency best known for its rocket science, has taken social media to new heights … literally into space. Astronauts and representatives for lunar satellites and a Mars lander have all used Twitter and other web communications tools to help the public better understand complex concepts.

• Vodcasting, YouTube, Twitter, USTREAM, blogs, RSS feeds,"Second Life,"
  digital learning
• "Old-fashioned" tools, such as print and video, that can be "re-purposed" to help supplement social media and your web presence
• Which tools have been most successful and which ones don't seem to have as high a return on investment

Kathy Barnstorff, Media Relations Specialist
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION,
LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER

12:10 p.m.
Lunch On Your Own -- But Not Alone!

Join a group of your colleagues for lunch with an informal discussion facilitated by one of our expert speakers. Take this opportunity to join others in a small, interactive group setting to network and brainstorm solutions to your most pressing social media concerns.

1:40 p.m.

Avoiding Social Media Turbulence: A Step-By-Step Process For Launching Your Pilot Program

Recognizing that the use of social media in government agencies has become more mainstream and even desired by the public, the City Manager of Sugar Land, Texas established a strategic management project in their 2010 fiscal year, to evaluate the policy needs before establishing social media as another official communication tool.

The tasks outlined by the project were to research how other local government groups were using social media tools, identify possible pilot programs, draft a policy, develop design parameters and content guidelines, and provide an overall recommendation for a pilot project to the City Manager for review and approval. A committee made up of employees from different departments all over the city was created to handle the tasks assigned.

At the end of the project, the chosen committee recommended Twitter as the tool for Sugar Land’s initial pilot because it could be used to push information to the public through tweets that would in turn bring people back to the website for more detailed info. The goal was to use Twitter as an additional way of getting their messages out, not as a means of creating a dialogue with followers.

In October 2009, Sugar Land, TX launched their Twitter pilot program and has been closely monitoring the results of this three-month trial run. Attend this session, to learn the up-to-date lessons learned, successes and setbacks, and overall strategy for implementing a pilot program in the first place.

Chad Ostroff, Website Coordinator
CITY OF SUGAR LAND, TEXAS

2:30 p.m.

Southwest Airlines: Nuts About Online Communication - - How To Leverage Social Media Tools To Successfully Support Your Organization's Efforts

A blogger once wrote that Southwest Airlines was riding the blogosphere "like a wild horse." Ask anyone on the Southwest Communication Team, and they'll agree that it has been a wild ride.

For more than three years, Southwest Airlines has navigated the uncharted territory of Social Media – first, with its award-winning corporate blog, Nuts About Southwest, later with tools such as Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook, and, most recently, with the launch of a series of employee blogs. Along the way, Southwest has experienced both highs and lows, but they keep saddling up for more. From virtual riots to an industry crisis, Southwest has learned how to leverage today's social media tools to successfully support company efforts and meet customer expectations. Through real-life case studies and examples, you will hear how Southwest has effectively made, managed, and maintained successful online communities and the lessons they've learned along the way.

• Create content and drive traffic
• Manage employee engagement
• Build online relationships
• Leverage the Virtual Focus Group
• Manage social media in a crisis
• Measure ROI
• Achieve social media success in your organization by
  implementing Southwest's top 10 tips

Monica Whalin, Coordinator
SOUTHWEST AIRLINES

3:35 p.m.

If They Can Do It, You Can Too: How The U.S. Army Reserve Leveraged Social Media While Faced With Resistance And Strong Government Rules

The U.S. Army Reserve recognizes that social media has become a critical source of information for their support base, soldiers, and their families. Security, privacy, and protecting vital information systems require network restrictions that make using social media by military public affairs officers difficult at best. So, how is the military using social media?

• Leverage technology to meet communication goals
• Use social media to put a face on your organization
• Create a sustained level of engagement with your constituents
• Measure success and ROI

LTC Gerald Ostlund, Webmaster and Chief, Social and New Media
U.S. ARMY RESERVE

4:25 p.m.

How Social Media Can Help You Work More Efficiently, Connect With The Right People, And Stay Engaged: A Dual Case Study

Social computing is a fundamental shift in communication modes for the government sector. It is not something to justify, but something to navigate through, embrace and leverage as a new capability and manage as a new risk.

Attend this presentation and hear how enterprise social computing technology has helped government agencies work more efficiently, connect with the right people, and stay engaged. This session will address how two of Microsoft U.S. Public Sector's government clients have begun the transition to social media. You'll hear how the Miami-Dade School District is building a social computing infrastructure where parents, teachers, students, and the community can interact, collaborate, and learn. Additionally, you'll learn how the City of Anchorage is leveraging social media both internally and externally to capture and share knowledge while enhancing innovation and teamwork.

This cutting-edge presentation will teach you about some of the many valuable tools available today that can help facilitate your agency's transition to social media and provide a means for you to monitor the voice of the public appropriately while strategically extracting emergent value.

Kent Cunningham, Business Development Manager, US Public Sector Applied Innovation
MICROSOFT U.S. PUBLIC SECTOR

5:15 p.m.

End Of Day One

5:30 p.m.

Networking Reception: Please Join Us!

We invite you to join us for a drink as you relax with your peers. All conference attendees and speakers are welcome to join us for this special opportunity to continue networking. Don't miss this chance to benchmark new ideas over complimentary drinks!

Sign up during the day for dinner with a group. Take advantage of Dallas' fine dining while you continue to network with your colleagues.