The Public Technology Institute recently announced Utah.Gov as a winner of its 2014 Web 2.0 State & Local Government Award.
The Web 2.0 award recognizes best practices and excellence in the field of Web 2.0 and civic/social networking, and citizen engagement in local and state government. Only two states were chosen as winners this year by PTI. Utah was awarded for integration with Google Apps, Google Plus and Google Hangouts.
“We use social media to reach a broad audience including potential visitors to the state, Utah businesses, and the public,” said Mark VanOrden, Utah State Chief Information Officer. “In addition we use many of the same social media tools available online to support group collaboration and live video interaction.”
PTI’s panel of judges selected these award-winning applications based on their exceptional accomplishments in citizen engagement, innovative technology utilization, accountability, mobile application development and usage, economic development and training, and education. The judges highlighted Utah.Gov’s use of social media and especially Google+ to drive more use and engagement with its services by adding over 10,000 new followers each month.
“All of Utah’s social media tools are integrated into Utah.Gov,” said VanOrden. “Content from 1500 social media accounts is leveraged to improve results and search capabilities on millions of pages and services at Utah.gov.”
The PTI established the award in order to recognize government agencies that create dynamic tools for informing and interacting with the public about issues affecting the community, encouraging collaboration for improved communications and service delivery, and engaging the public in government decision-making.
