Firstgov responds

In the November 1st Government Executive story, "FirstGov Falling Short" by Roger Baker, the author "falls short" with his comments on the current facts at FirstGov. The article is filled with old information and a lack of understanding of what is important to the citizens. Why use data that is five months old? In the Internet world it is like publishing three-year-old information.

Over the past 12 months, a new government initiative called FirstGov, the official Web portal to U.S. Government information, services, forms, and transactions has been providing valuable assistance to millions of customers not only across the United States but from all over the world.

The concept behind FirstGov is to provide a seamless, one stop location for all government information and services from websites maintained by the Federal government. We know that most individuals not only don't know which department or agency is responsible for the information or services but actually, they really don't care. Customers are only interested in obtaining quickly, the information, services, or transactions they want from the government and then move on.

On an average day, a visitor to www.FirstGov.gov has access to a wealth of Federal government information and services, and as of this past June, we added all of the states and the District of Columbia governments websites. FirstGov's growth started off slow because of limited funding and no funds being set aside for branding and marketing of the site. It's a stand alone operation, representing the entire Federal and state governments to the public, with no identity to a specific government agency or department but managed by the General Services Administration.

As more Internet users became aware of its powerful resourcefulness, FirstGov has seen a vast increase in its use by the public. In September, FirstGov had over 7.1 million hits, over 2 million visits, and over 1.3 million unique visitors. FirstGov's traffic comes from 45% .com, 30% .net, 10% .mil, 7% .gov, 5% .edu, and 3% .org NOT mostly from .govs as stated by Mr. Baker.

The highest measure of satisfaction for FirstGov not only comes from the numerous awards, site of the day/week/month from industry, daily feedback, but most importantly by websites that link to us as an important sources of information. This number has rapidly increased: September 2000--approx. 100 links to FirstGov (mainly USG agencies or websites); December 2000--10,200 links; April 2001--16,200 links; June 2001--26,300 links and October 2001--35,400 links.

Specific collaborative changes to FirstGov.gov over the last year have been working with the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) and state governors to add all state web information into the FirstGov search engine. FirstGov created and implemented several informational toolkits such as consolidating all USG agency "frequently asked questions" (faq.gov portal); worked to automate "federal forms" (fedforms.gov portal); created "facts for you" portal; coordinated cross-agency portals such as "kids.gov", "sciences.gov"; "workers.gov", GIS applications under "find services near you" section; added 142 international portals; local, tribal, us territory applications; increased state portal links and added "contact your State Governor" to allow direct feedback.

By offering the first central location for citizens to provide feedback to 130 agency programs, in three branches of government, and to state governments, FirstGov is promoting open government and public participation. Having a customer focus and simple design available 24/7 has allowed all touchpoints (web interface, kiosks, call centers) to have rapid access to the same information and resources without having to know organizational structure, programs names, or acronyms of government.

Another important enhancement to FirstGov was developing electronic transactions, forms, and services by three primary channels - e-citizen, e-business, and e-government. The transaction section laid the groundwork for customer segmentation channels throughout FirstGov. For example, under e-citizen, users can buy postage stamps online, shop at the Smithsonian or U S Mint, e-file their taxes, find a job, calculate retirement savings, register for the selective service and much more. All of the additional FirstGov functionalities were done in collaboration with our federal, state, and local partners.

This past June with a small budget for marketing, FirstGov began an aggressive campaign working with multipliers. Those are groups that have a strong influence on others who work with the Internet. These are groups like librarians, educators, minorities, NGOs, and seniors.

Here are FirstGov's site statistics since January, 2001.

Another area not originally envisioned is the sharing of the FirstGov search engine with other websites. The FirstGov search engine made available free to other Federal websites, saves $50,000 - $100,000 per year for those agencies that choose to use it in lieu of developing their own. This is a partial list among the growing list of users: Department of Commerce, Department of Energy, Department of State, US Treasury, GPO, USPTO, US Army, US Secret Service, GSA, HHS, Cross-Agency Portals (nutrition.gov, students.gov, info.gov, fedforms.gov, pueblo.gov, info.gov, employers.gov, sciences.gov, kids.gov). National Science Foundation, States of Washington, Utah and Mississippi have all expressed interest in using our search engine. Increasing participation could annually save millions and provide better service across all levels of government.

Any current review of FirstGov should also address its impact on providing critical and time sensitive information to the public after the events of September 11th. Here is what FirstGov did and the real story behind it.

On Tuesday, September 11th after the World Trade Center Twin Towers and the Pentagon were hit, the entire downtown area around the White House was immediately evacuated, including the FirstGov offices. The FirstGov team, working at home Tuesday night, worked on the content and design for a special section. By 7:00AM, Wednesday September 12, the team had already assembled critical lists of more than 60 websites and telephone numbers of official government services, critical care facilities, and emergency centers on how to find people, report missing people, get assistance, report clues to the FBI, and more. What was paramount to our effort was the accuracy of this information and at the same time maintaining our site security concerns. Each of the referenced points of contact, each of the websites, each of the telephone numbers we referred to had to be confirmed, and their ability to handle the increase traffic had to verified. The special section. " U.S. Response to September 11", went live on www.firstgov.gov by early Wednesday afternoon. This section is now called, "America Responds to Terrorism".

Within the next few hours, the major commercial Internet search sites such as AOL's Government Guide, MSN, MSNBC, Yahoo, and Google had special hot links to FirstGov. These new partnerships have not only helped market FirstGov, but pointed many new first-time customers to utilize U.S. Government information and resources. In September 2001, the top referring sites were MSN, Dept of State, Google, US Army, the White House, and MSNBC. Based on site usage 40% of our visitors used the search function and 60% used FirstGov's information, transactions, and resources. Each of the Federal government's Federal Executive Boards and Federal Executive Association offices across the United States were notified about the information and services available at FirstGov.gov. Key government sites such as the White House, FEMA, DoD, State, GSA, and SSA all crossed linked to FirstGov. Many specialized listserves and Federal call centers utilized and alerted their subscribers/callers to the FirstGov special information. The media in all of the major locations across the United States also were provided this information.

Twice daily we added new information as it became available. We coordinated with other government agencies how to better display their information. FirstGov set up new topic areas such as benefits and assistance, mail handling safety, anthrax testing, what you can do, scams and fraud, air travel, alternate mail delivery updates, and included TTY numbers for the hearing impaired. We researched and identified the most important citizen need for each day. We also received lots of feedback from citizens and responding to their questions by getting information on the site from to how to apply for military jobs or become a federal air marshal, how to file for social security benefits and tax relief, to what are the warning signs if you've been exposed to anthrax.

The FirstGov staff, living in the real world of the Internet, worked 24/7 and provided the best and most comprehensive collection of critical information available anywhere during this crisis. This crisis was the first time anyone used the power of the Internet's web base information during a major national tragedy. FirstGov's traffic increased significantly, our hits more than doubled, our visits more than tripled and our unique visitors were almost four times what they are normally. Many unsolicited testimonials were sent in on our feedback link, telling us how our site helped locate a missing family member and where to get information from many of the hospitals where the injured were treated. Many people from the United States and more than 60 countries expressed sympathy, anger, and suggestions for additional information. Many people sent us e-mails in support for the President, for the military, and offers of help and requests for peace.

FirstGov is an information portal that has created significant value to the government customer by facilitating and centralizing information distribution across government entities. Prior to the creation of the FirstGov portal, a government customer had no central place to go in order to access government services. FirstGov has centralized, standardized, and facilitated the world of information dissemination and services to create a better overall experience & trust in government for the customer. FirstGov's value proposition is that they seamlessly integrate information available from multiple government departments and agencies to provide customers with one-stop access to available resources.

FirstGov is far from falling short of its potential or its original goals. If anything it is exceeding what many thought was possible when it started. The Bush Administration fully supports FirstGov and plans are to make it the government's "store front" to the public.

FirstGov is proving its value and customer-centric focus every day.

Office of FirstGov
General Services Administration
October 22, 2001