2007 Government Web Managers
One-Day Workshop
SPEAKER BIOS
Drew Diskin, M.S., is the Director of Strategic Web Development for Inova Health System. He is charged with leading Inova’s strategic Internet marketing and Web development initiatives in a partnership between Marketing and IT—with regard to the various constituencies that comprise the external and client relationships. His team’s latest project is the redesign of the 5,000 page www.Inova.org Web site, which is scheduled to launch in May 2007.
Drew has lead multimedia initiatives with reputable organizations, such as: Stevens Institute of Technology, Dolce International Conference Centers & Resorts, AOL, Universal Studios, Genentech, Jeep- as well as small and mid-sized companies. Drew has received national awards from: the American Marketing Association, AT&T, Telly Awards along with various leadership accolades and speaking engagements on Internet marketing. Drew holds a Bachelors Degree in Marketing from Bryant University and Masters Degree in Technology Management from Stevens Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Northern Virginia Technology Council, the Web Marketing Association, and The Web Executive Roundtable, in DC.
Martha Dorris is the Deputy Associate Administrator of the Office of Citizen Services (OCS) at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). In this role, she has developed the vision and implementation strategy for the award-winning office that is the largest single federal resource for federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government information and services. The Office of Citizen Services successfully delivers information and services to citizens through www.USA.gov, via phone (1 800 FED INFO), and numerous print publications. USA.gov, alone, logs 84 million touch points per year. The office is also responsible for implementing USA Services, a major President’s Management Agenda initiative to use electronic government to make government more citizen-centric. USA Services has provided critical assistance to the public during times of crisis, such as after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma as well as the numerous data losses in the federal government.
Martha also plays a major, government-wide information technology (IT) leadership role. She has built the Intergovernmental Solutions Division (ISD) within GSA, which creates forums for representatives of federal, state, local, tribal and territorial governments to share best practices and learn from other governments, including e-government representatives from other countries.
Martha is a 2004 and 2006 winner of the Federal Computer Week “Federal 100 Award,” which recognizes individuals for their risk-taking, vision, and pioneering spirit in the federal information technology (IT) community. She serves as vice-chair of the International Council for Information Technology in Government Administration. Prior to her appointment as GSA Deputy Associate Administrator, Martha was responsible for approvals of major government-wide IT expenditures at GSA. Her 30-year career includes private sector consulting at Booz Allen & Hamilton.
Brian Dunbar has been the NASA Internet Services Manager since 1995,
overseeing the development of the NASA home page and the NASAWeb Portal
(http://www.nasa.gov). In that time, NASA's main Web presence has
grown from a static site of several hundred pages to a dynamic,
customizable Web portal comprising 120,000 Web pages, interactive media,
and live television webcasts. In addition to covering major missions
like the Hubble Space Telescope and space shuttle flights to the
International Space Station, the portal has brought together many of
NASA's decentralized Web efforts into one location, making it easier for
the public to find information.
Tim Evans is a Program Analyst in the Social Security Administration’s Office of Electronic Services. He was involved in Internet activities at SSA in the early 1990s, implementing SSA’s first Internet link. In 1992, Tim went to the DuPont Company in Wilmington, DE, where in 1993 he created the Company’s corporate intranet; later, he worked at T.Rowe Price in Baltimore, where he supported Internet applications for investors and intranet applications for employees. He returned to SSA in 2003, and has been heavily involved in SSA’s emerging web analytics program. Tim has spoken on analytics matters at a number of conferences, including the 2004 American Customer Satisfaction Index Customer Summit and the 2005 Federal Web Managers University Conference. Tim is the author of several books about Internet technologies, including Teach Yourself HTML 4.0 in Ten Minutes and Building an Intranet.
Bev Godwin serves as Director of USA.gov and Web Best Practices, within the Office of Citizen Services and Communications at GSA. Bev is responsible for the content, look and feel, and day-to-day operations for USA.gov
—the official Web portal of the U.S. Government— and for working across federal agencies on issues related to government websites. One of her proudest moments in government came in May 2003, when USA.gov was awarded the prestigious Harvard Innovations in American Government award. In addition to her role at USA.gov, she serves as executive sponsor of the Web Managers Advisory Council, helping to improve all U.S. Government websites. Prior to joining the USA.gov team in December 2000, Bev served as Deputy Director at the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR). Joining NPR when it first began in 1993, she headed up many intergovernmental teams and 1400 staff over 8 years. Bev worked on issues ranging from managing and budgeting for results, improving intergovernmental service delivery, waivers and local flexibility, the U.S. State and Local Gateway, family and community issues, and electronic government. She joined the federal government in 1982 at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. There she managed analyses of budgets, policy, legislation, regulations and staffing for the $40 billion social services and income maintenance programs for children, families, and senior citizens. Bev previously worked as a lobbyist and consultant for state governments.
Bob Keating is Senior Consultant with SRA Touchstone Consulting Group where he helps public sector clients develop product marketing and content management strategies to achieve greater Web visibility. Prior to joining SRA, Bob worked for the General Services Administration where he launched the award-winning FirstGov Search service (now USASearch.gov), the U.S. Government’s official Web search engine. Bob has held management positions at AOL and Netscape in the areas of search and content publishing. Since 2000, Bob has held the position of Editor in Chief for Netscape's Open Directory Project, the largest and most widely used human-edited directory of the Web. Before becoming involved in the search industry, Bob held library management positions at Harvard University and OCLC, Inc. Bob received a BA in Economics and an MILS (Information & Library Studies) from the University of Michigan.
Alex Langshur is the President and co-founder of PublicInsite, and is co-chair of the Web Analytics Association Public Sector Metrics Committee. He is a recognized expert in the use of benchmarking and web analytics to create richly detailed profiles of customers and stakeholders. His expertise is used to assist clients improve user satisfaction, foster site loyalty, and generate desired outcomes. Mr. Langshur also is pioneering efforts to adapt private sector web channel performance measurement frameworks to the unique challenges of the public sector context.
Prior to PublicInsite, he was Vice-President and co-founder of Consilium 2K, a consulting group that provided strategic Internet consulting, organizational change, information architecture, and user interface design services for clients. Some of his major public sector clients include Transport Canada, Industry Canada, the Department of National Defense, Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
Mr. Langshur has broad public sector experience, having held positions with several Canadian federal government departments, including Natural Resources Canada, the Privy Council Office and the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada. He has been invited to present at conferences worldwide, has been called upon as an expert speaker for radio and print media, and has been frequently published in journals and magazines. Mr. Langshur has lectured often on the subject of e-government and has been cited for the exceptional quality of his seminars and training programs.
Janice R. Nall, Director of the Division of eHealth Marketing at the National Center for Health Marketing, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is responsible for leading CDC’s communication technology efforts. Janice manages www.cdc.gov and CDC’s other e-health and new media initiatives.
Formerly Manager of the Usability Solutions Group at the General Services Administration, Janice was responsible for increasing the usability of U.S. Government Websites and other communication technologies by providing policy, guidance, tools, resources, and training to federal Web developers and communicators. Janice led the development of a cross-agency usability program that included the Usability University program (now known as Web Manager University) and the U-Group E-newsletter. While at GSA, Janice was honored as one of Federal Computer Week’s Federal 100—the top executives from government, industry, and academia who had the greatest impact on the government information systems community in 2002.
Prior to working with GSA, Janice served as Chief of the Communication Technologies Branch for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the National Institutes of Health. She was responsible for usability, accessibility, emerging technologies, graphic design, and other user interface issues for NCI’s communication technology products and services. During her 8 years at NCI, Janice led the development of several new usability initiatives including the Usability.gov Web site, the Research-based Web Design and Usability Guidelines, the Communication Technologies Research Center (CTRC), and the Usability Seminar Series and Training Program.
Janet Stevens is the Director of the Web Services Staff and Director of the Management Controls Technology Staff for the Food Safety & Inspection Service, USDA. She has overseen deployments of several web-based tools, public and intranet sites (including content management system deployments) and performance-based web applications. She regularly speaks on customer-centered design, web communications, managing your boss, performance measures and best practices. She has worked for USDA for over 15 years and has been involved in Web communications for 10 years. Janet has worked in E-government at USDA for 4 years, leading Web Content Management and Portals initiatives. She currently is a member of the interagency Web Managers Advisory Council .
Kathryn Summers, Ph.D., co-author of Creating Websites That Work
Dr. Summers teaches human/computer interaction, user research, usability testing, and information architecture for the University of Baltimore, where she is the program director for the master's and doctoral programs in Interaction Design and Information Architecture. She also directs the School of Information Arts and Technologies' User Research Lab.
Dr. Summers has done extensive research about navigation, on-line reading comprehension, and information design. Her current research focuses on making information and online interactions easier for people with lower literacy skills. She uses eye tracking, careful observation, iterative prototyping, and contextual interviews to study how users with lower literacy skills find, navigate, read information, and fill out forms on the Web. Results of this research have been presented at a variety of international conferences and published in academic and industry journals. She also participated in a 3-year grant from NSF working with children ages 10-13 to design interfaces for the University of Maryland’s International Children’s Digital Library.
Dr. Summers’s consulting work integrates the theoretical and the concrete through usability testing and usability design reviews. Her clients have included REUTERS, Pfizer, General Electric, GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca, TreasuryDirect.gov, and MCI.
Pierre Guillaume Wielezynski is a member of the World Bank's Central Web Team and has been actively involved in Web marketing and publishing for seven years. He joined the Bank in 2001 to manage the marketing/advertising of the newly launched Development Gateway, turning the site into one of the most active development portals on the Web. At the Bank, he focuses on audience measurement, marketing strategy and is an evangelist for social media. He designed and supervised the development of the buzzmonitor, one of the only open source social media aggregator. Previously, Mr. Wielezynski worked with an on-line direct marketing start-up in Washington, where he developed programs and sites for a variety of commercial and institutional advertisers, and acquired first-hand experience of how the Web is transforming the world. He blogs (sporadically) at personomies.com
Cari Wolfson, President of Focus on U!, specializes in analyzing, designing, and iteratively testing websites to create products that are measurably easier to use, learn and understand. Focus on U! provides a comprehensive range of services to clients including user and task analysis, user research (including interviews, online surveys, and contextual inquiries), usability testing, information architecture, expert / heuristic reviews, on-site user-centered design training, and many others. Clients include Health & Human Services (HHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), General Services Administration (GSA), FirstGov.gov, State Farm Insurance, Small Business Administration (SBA), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), two of the President’s E-Government initiatives, among others.
Prior to founding Focus on U!, Cari was a Senior Usability Engineer with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In this role, she helped develop HHS’s Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines book, www.usability.gov and the U-Group newsletter. While at NCI, Cari managed various parts of the user-centered design process for clients, including HHS, NCI, Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Federal Drug Administration (FDA), FirstGov.gov, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and many others. She has also authored various user-centered design articles, including a two-part series for IBM’s Ease of Use newsletter. Cari also served as the Lead Information Architect with a large Internet consulting firm based in Herndon, VA., where her clients included AT&T Wireless, Dr. Atkins, M&M Mars, and Human Rights Watch.
Page Updated or Reviewed: April 19, 2007
