Government Customer Support Update
for December 2006

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• This free eletter serves the Government customer support community of practice (www.fedhelpdesk.osf.noaa.gov)
• It was formerly "Government Customer Support News"
• News and comments are always welcome at Daryl.L.Covey@noaa.gov.

-- COMMUNITY NEWS --

GCSC '07 Program
Nominations for this year’s Government Customer Support Excellence Awards close on the 15th of this month. See http://www.fedhelpdesk.osf.noaa.gov/Awards.asp.

GCSC ’07
Our sixth annual program features customer support case studies from NASA, District of Columbia, Department of Agriculture, IRS, FEMA, NEXRAD, Miami-Dade, and the Navy, as well as sessions from industry experts on the following aspects of public sector customer support: increasing productivity, rewards and motivation, outsourcing, voice over IP, IT infrastructure library, leading a multigenerational workforce, work-at-home agents, managing people in change, agent e-learning, and staffing/scheduling. In addition, we have a winner spotlight session from last year's overall excellence award winner, Government case studies from RightNow and Oracle, the sixth annual Government Customer Support Awards ceremony, a panel discussion on making the business case for customer support initiatives, and a special bonus tour of the District of Columbia's new consolidated center for citizen information and emergency services. See http://www.hthts.com/gcs.htm and join me in DC in early May!

-- CLICK & LEARN! --

Networking by Type of Operation
If you’re a Government employee or Government contract employee, CLICK HERE and respond to the following:

1. What type of operation do you work in (help desk, call center, web portal, other [please specify])?
2. Do you want to network by email with others in Government in the same type of customer support operation?
3. What is the biggest challenge today in your customer support operation?

-- INFORMATION --

Web Design
-- http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html

Federal Contact Centers
-- http://www.usaservices.gov/pdfs/FedContactCtrs.pdf

Captioned Telephone Service
-- http://www.govtech.net/news/news.php

Podcasting
-- http://www.govtech.net/news/news.php?id=102128

Motivating Agents
-- http://www.callcentermagazine.com/shared/article/showArticle.jhtml
-- http://www.thinkservice.com/industry-insider/articles/article488.htm

Service-Oriented Architecture
-- http://searchcio.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1160142797_250.html

eGov Collaboration
-- http://www.businessofgovernment.org/pdfs/FedorowiczReport.pdf

State Health IT
-- http://www.nascio.org/publications/documents/NASCIO-ProfilesOfProgress.pdf
-- http://www.govtech.net/news/news.php

Mobile Mass Notification
-- http://www.fcw.com/article96777-11-13-06-Print&slnewsletter=yes

Critical IT Infrastructure
-- http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0739.pdf

Digital Exclusion
-- http://www.govtech.net/digitalcommunities/story.php

-- RESOURCES --

Skills of the Future
-- http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/42452-1.html

Information Security Handbook
-- http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-100/sp800-100.pdf

On Line Health Searches
-- http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Online_Health_2006.pdf

On Line Voting
-- http://electionline.org/

-- OPPORTUNITIES --

ITIL Panelist
We have room for one more Government help desk panelist on implementing ITIL at Government Customer Support Conference 2007 in early May. Email me if you're interested and have experience to share.

Excellence.gov Award Nominations - CLOSE 12/8
-- http://www.actgov.org/portal/server.pt

PISTA Speaker Call
-- http://www.cyber-inf.org/imsci2007/website/default.asp?vc=4

-- WEBCASTS --

Web Self-Service
-- https://foresee.webex.com/mw0302l/mywebex/default.do -- http://realmarket.com/live/110306-00358/

-- EVENTS --

Digital Cities, Philadelphia, December 5-6
-- http://www.w2idigitalcitiesconvention.com/12062006/agenda.html

Employment of Persons with Disabilities, Washington, December 6-8
-- http://www.grad.usda.gov/perspectives

Customer Satisfaction Annual Results, Washington, December 15
-- Brendan.Jinnohara@bpd.treas.gov

CES Government, Las Vegas, January 10-11
-- http://www.cesweb.org/government/registration.asp

Call Center Summit, Atlanta, January 22-25
-- http://www.iqpc.com/callcenterIQ

Internet Telephony, Ft. Lauderdale, January 23-26
-- http://www.itexpo.com

-- PARTING THOUGHT --

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of old ones.”
-- John Cage

Happy Holidays!

-- Last Month's "Click and Learn" Responses --

Customer Relationship Management
Responses represent Federal and local levels, and indicate that use of automated CRM is still pretty scarce in our sector. My favorite definition of CRM from those shared was, "comprehensive customer contact coordination." Those who responded and asked to network on this topic will be put in touch. Thanks to those of you who responded!