I can’t believe that #CityHallSelfie day is tomorrow, and that y’all are as excited about it as I am! I’ve been singing “Let Me Take a Selfie” all weekend, much to Kent’s chagrin.
The interest in taking a city hall selfie is surging and it’s pretty amazing to see the enthusiasm from across the country. We love this quote in the Texarkana Gazette about #CityHallSelfie day:
“We want to encourage citizen engagement. We want people to know where City Hall is, where to come if they have a question or want to attend a meeting, participate in the decision-making process, especially younger people who may not have been there before,” said Lisa Thompson, Texas-side public information officer. “We know it’s kind of silly, but people are taking selfies anyway.”
ELGL wants to promote pride in local government careers. And yes, selfies are silly, but being proud of your work in public service is important. #CityHallSelfie day is another way for our members to share their excitement about public service.
As always, please contact me if you have any questions or concerns you’d like ELGL to address; you can tweet at me to @kowyatt or email me directly. Thank you!
Connect:
- Welcome to ELGL! We added 24 new members to the ELGL family and two new organizational members: HdL Companies, and Polco.
- We met Laurent Walcott from Municipal GIS Partners.
- Karl Knapp from the Town of Cary, NC shared his path to a local government budgeting career.
- We launched the ELGL Choice award for local government vendors.
-
- Here are the nominees we’ve received so far – impressive list!
- This week’s Jobs, Jobs, Jobs featured our ELGL Choice award nominees.
- We shared jobs from SGR, and two jobs at Open Gov.
- ELGL members in the Portland area will gather for a “Hands Across the Highway” social hour on August 23 in Tualatin.
- I Love BBQ series continued and we profiled 17 more people who are signed up to attend the #ICMA16 ELGL mixer:
Communicate (ELGL.org Content):
- We started to get ourselves and our members pumped up and ready to roll for #CityHallSelfie day on Monday, August 15.
- Here’s a really cool avatar you can download to your Twitter account for #CityHallSelfie day.
-
- We shared the good news that we’ll offer trophies for #CityHallSelfie day winners in a vareity of categories.
- Kristen Donald with the Apex Parks & Recreation District shared her life in presidential terms.
- Morning Buzz continued to share important local gov topics (mixed with a healthy dose of irreverance):
- 8/8/16 – Baseball Mascots
- 8/9/16 – GenCon
- 8/10/16 – Katie Ledecky
- 8/11/16 – Michael Phelps
- 8/12/16 – More Michael Phelps
- 8/13/16 – Cheah! LesDogg in Rio
- 8/14/16 – More Olympic Action
Communicate (By the Numbers):
- ELGL.org had 13,256 unique views on 40 blog posts.
- The most popular post of the week? The ELGL Choice award.
- Our Tweets from the main ELGL account had 52,800 impressions.
- We added 39 new Facebook followers and our posts reached 5,630 people from the main ELGL Facebook page.
Educate:
- ELGL member Chris Maddox, the CEO of Romulus, gave us a City Hall Selfie 101 lesson.
- The “Break It Down” series continues, this month with the theme “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” We learned from Deb Schoen, Interim Superintendent of Sports, Beaverton, OR about recruiting and retaining excellent local government employees.
- Member organization Polco offered ELGL members the chance to win free polling services in a drawing they’re holding to showcase some new services they offer.
- We also launched a new partnership blog with ProudCity where our members can ask questions and get answers about digital government.
GovLove:
- This week on GovLove, Kirsten interviewed Rob Carty from ICMA, an #ELGL16 sponsor.
- We also produced a bonus! episode of GovLove featuring Jim Hurley from McHenry County, IL about their county podcast.
Final Thoughts:
- Here’s my favorite GIF of the week:
Questions? Comments? Drop me a note and let me know how ELGL can best serve you!
