Stephen Cronin - WordPress and Government

WordPress and Government
Stephen Cronin
6 November 2011
WordCamp Gold Coast

Long Rambling Introduction
• My two worlds:
– WordPress development
– Government web management
• Bringing the two together
• Worlds collide: high priorty WordPress project
• People keen to talk about WP and Govt
• Some success, but many challenges

WordPress and Government Stephen Cronin, WordCamp Gold Coast 2011 Page 2

The Compulsory Disclaimer
• Before I get too far…
• I'm here today representing myself. I work for
the Queensland Government, but I in no way
represent them here today. My views are
entirely my own and not those of QLD Gov.
• May differ from government elsewhere
• And now with that out of the way…


Successes
• Successes help frame the challenges
• In 2008, Mark Jaquith listed:
http://markjaquith.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/us-government-agencies-using-wordpress/

• But what’s happened since then?


Successes – The Showcase
• The Showcase list 22 sites under Government
http://wordpress.org/showcase/tag/government/


Successes – UK
• Trend towards the greater use of WordPress
• The Government Digital Service
• Alpha.gov.uk blog (but not main site)
• The Civil Service site relaunched in WordPress
http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/
• Word Up Whitehall
• British Prime Minister’s site since 2008
http://www.number10.gov.uk/


Successes - US
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
– Released plugins back to the community
– WP Document Revisions plugin also related
• Library of Congress, but only the blogs
• Others:
– The City of Albert Lea
http://www.cityofalbertlea.org/
– Administrative Conference of the United States
http://www.acus.gov/


Successes - Australia
• Federal level: govspace which hosts blogs and
other websites on behalf of agencies
http://govspace.gov.au/

• Queensland: Nothing….
– Survey of all departments: None using WordPress
– WordPress not even on the radar
– Some partnership sites
• Except for the one I’m working on now…
• There should be more!!

Challenges - Conservative ICT
• Government ICT is conservative by nature
• IE6
– Still in use
– WordPress Admin doesn’t work properly
– Posts in Twenty Eleven theme blank?
• Social media
• Change management & security


Challenges - Change Management
• Change = risk
• General model for change / testing:
– DEV -> TEST -> PROD
– Planning, including test and roll back plans
– Change Advisory Board (CAB) approval
– Communicate potential outages
• Required for all changes (even 1 click updates)
• Security


Challenges - ICT View of WordPress
• Plugin code quality
• Update frequency
• One click upgrade
• Update immediately for security
• Automatic updates

• Not all doom and gloom

Types of Government Websites
• Campaign website:
– Promoting an initiative, short life span
• Blogs:
– Expect to see more of these in the future
• Specific purpose:
– doing something different, specific purpose
• Enterprise website:
– The huge complex informational website


Enterprise Level Websites
• Picture of an enterprise level website:
– Anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 pages
– Anywhere from 3 to 7 levels deep
– Several hundred distributed authors
– Complex workflows, up to 5 levels of approval
• How well does WordPress fit this type of site?
• It’s not about traffic, it’s about complexity
• The WordPress as CMS debate…


Challenges – Enterprise Websites
• Functionality:
– Search
– Workflow!
– User permissions
– Managing 10,000 pages
• Terminology: Custom What Types?
• There’s a plugin for that
• Enterprise level support


Challenges - Selection Process
• Depends on the project
• Large sites require formal selection process:
– Selective tendering, or
– Open tendering
– Supplier must be accredited
• How does WordPress get to the table?
– Automattic?
– The department?
– You?

CMSs Used In Government
• SharePoint
• Interwoven TeamSite
• OpenText / RedDot
• Squiz Matrix:
– Open Source
– PHP based
– Used extensively in Aust government
• So why are Squiz at the table?


Squiz Matrix vs WordPress
• Squiz is the company, Matrix the product
• Squiz are an accredited supplier to govt
• Functionality
• Custom Functionality
• Tighter focus
• Lots of other govt clients
• Secure hosting (used by other govt clients)
• Services and support

Challenges - The Government Niche
• Government as a niche
• Real estate and other niches
• Government niche involves:
– Low volume
– High effort (inc accreditation)
– Long lead times
– End to end services and support
• Any of you up for that?


Positives
• Plenty of things in WordPress’s favour
• It’s free, flexible, extendible, proven, avoids
lock in, many plugins, great community, etc
• Greater emphasis on business benefits
• Trends towards WordPress in government
• Everyone’s using WordPress at home


What Can The Community Do
• Relax (only the big sites are a problem)
• Align the language with the enterprise
• Build core plugins for government
• Precedence: A big govt site on WordPress
• Market the business benefits
• Companies targeting the government niche.
• Now get out there and go for it!


Thank You
• Thanks to everyone!
• If you want to discuss this further grab me
after the talk, or contact me:
– Email: sjc@scratch99.com
– Website: http://scratch99.com
– Twitter: @stephencronin


Stephen Cronin - WordPress and Government

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