Too much exposure to USAJOBS has really turned me cynical. Despite news reports on the need to recruit thousands of new employees, the main federal jobs site is a usability nightmare, unfathomable to even people who work on web sites, like me. While the site has few defenders, some have argued that it has to be that way, because it’s the government. Federal requirements dictate its complexity and difficulty.

There’s got to be another way! And there is. It’s the job site for the Congressional Budget Office. The site is a model of simplicity and common sense, where you can apply for a job in minutes, rather than hours. Let me spell out the differences between the CBO site and USAJOBS:

• It’s all one site.You’re not bounced to a separate organizational site to complete a whole other application, like you would if you applied for a job with Agriculture from USAJOBS.
• An easy password. You don’t need a complicated ten character password with upper and lower case letters plus numbers.
• Upload or copy and paste your documents. Choose which is easier for you – either upload a Word doc or copy and paste your resume. You don’t have to enter information job by job. Supporting docs can also be uploaded.
• No KSAs.
• Job descriptions less than a page long, in plain language.
• No confusing instructions to fax or snail mail in additional information. It’s 100% online.
• It’s well-designed. The site makes excellent use of white space and provides strong visual cues for users, such as making the “Submit Application” button blue and placing it at the bottom of the right-hand menu.

Why can’t the rest of government do this? The site is not complicated, in fact it looks like it was designed in the late 1990s. But it’s simple and easy for visitors. It’s oriented around their top tasks, as good government sites are supposed to.

Looking at this site, USAJOBS makes even less sense to me.

I’ve been reading Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. It’s a brilliant book on the information revolution that we’re going through. He believes that this revolution is as momentous as the development of the printing press, which triggered the Reformation and religious wars. The rise of amateurs and the expansion of consumer choice has meant the end of seemingly unassailable institutions like newspapers.

Seeing how the world is rushing to adapt to the web, I had a practical question. Why doesn’t the government use the web to more efficiently accomplish its work? For example:

1. Why is there no actual Facebook for feds? Govloop (a social network for government employees) is a brilliant idea, a way for federal employees, contractors and other interested parties to communicate and collaborate. Why didn’t the federal government provide this tool (just a Ning social network) to its employees years ago? Think what a tremendous aid this would be to organizing and working together.

Why isn’t there, at the very least, a government-wide directory showing photos, titles and contact information?

Some have argued that there are legitimate privacy reasons for not providing this information to the public though it is the public that pays the salary of these civil servants. There’s a great call for transparency in government. Yet, like with taxes, it’s always transparency for someone else’s program – not yours!

2. Why isn’t there an online project management tool? So much of government work is managing projects – people, inputs, resources, deadlines, deliverables and so on. I’ve seen people use spreadsheets, Word docs, MS Project, Sharepoint, wikis and even crossed-out to do lists. Why doesn’t government adopt a tool like Basecamp (my fav), a web-based project management tool?

The objection to this is that big government likes to put things behind firewalls. A service, like Basecamp, that exists outside of the secure government environment is almost impossible to get approved.

3. Why is so much of government work done on paper? Reimbursements, training requests and purchases so often require the walking around of paper forms and the collection of signatures. Think how much more efficient government would be if these forms were made electronic.

The argument against this is that government regulations require the keeping of records on paper. These rules need to be updated; we’re no longer using typewriters.

4. Why doesn’t government publish all of its photos on Flickr? Shirky lists Flickr as a great example of crowd-sourcing, where amateurs post and tag exponentially more photos than a newspaper or magazine would publish. What if you could visit a National Park Service page and see countless NPS and amateur photos of Yellowstone, all carefully geotagged?

This is an area where the federal government is experimenting. EPA has an Earth Day photo contest in Flickr and the Library of Congress has its own Flickr photostream.

5. Why can’t I just click once to apply for a government job, like I can do on Monster? USAJOBS, with its complicated password requirements, lengthy disclaimers, pages of explanations to wade through, laborious KSAs to complete and endless duplication, is a usability nightmare. And this is how potential employees are introduced to government.

It’s not just the technology. The job descriptions are the very antithesis of the plain language that government aims to promote. Here’s the first line from a recent job announcement for a Program Analyst: 

At the full performance GS-13 level, establishes and administers assigned administrative programs in accordance with Department requirements and other related directives.

Umm, this is a little vague.

For the most part, the ideas I listed above are not revolutionary. This is not Web 2.0. Online directories, web-based forms, improved usability, one-click applications – this is Web 1.0, from the 1990s. Investing in these common-sense processes would make government more efficient, effective and creative.

Have you ever wondered why there’s no ocean.gov? This is a valuable and easy to remember URL that the government doesn’t currently use. And it should, for we all depend on the ocean for the very air we breathe.

When I was at NOAA, it was explained to me that there’s no web site at ocean.gov because no one agency or part of government “owns” the ocean. Lots of federal and state agencies have jurisdiction and interest in what goes on in the watery realm. Doing something with ocean.gov would require cooperation and agreement among the numerous governmental entities which all have a stake in the ocean. Creating ocean.gov would require a web manager with the patience of Job and the diplomatic skills of, well, I don’t know, to get all the various ocean-related partners on the same page. Which is why it’s never been done.

Creating a web site at ocean.gov is not inconceivable, however. It’s been done on a much smaller scale with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, developed by my old friends at NOAA. The web site is a remarkable example of cooperation among state, federal and regional organizations in furtherance of a shared goal. Containing reports, publications, contact information, background materials and much more, the site demonstrates that it is possible to bring diverse partners together to build a web site around a common goal.

My modest proposal is to create a blog, in the style of EPA’s Greenversations, at ocean.gov

The ocean.gov blog would be like a daily email from a friend, letting them know what their government is doing to protect our ocean. And, like an email exchange with a friend, the public can interact with the blog by leaving comments and asking questions.

The objectives of the blog would be:

1. To communicate the importance of a safe, healthy and productive ocean.
2. To highlight interesting and relevant ways all levels of government are helping to protect the ocean.
3. To build conversational relationships with key influencers and the general public.
4. To test ocean-related messaging to discover what works.

Every day, across hundreds of governmental web sites, a wealth of information about the ocean is published online. This includes:

1. Press releases
2. Reports
3. Published data
4. Conference presentations
5. Articles
6. Photos
7. Video news releases
8. Statements
9. Email updates
10. Media stories

However, there is no one place to easily find this information – you would need to be an expert in government organization to even know all this information existed. What’s needed is a daily guide to the relevant information published by government every day, written by expert communicators who know the subject matter. Like with Greenversations, a variety of communicators could be asked to contribute, drawn from a wide range of federal, state and regional government.

A blog is a perfect solution to this problem. Blogs are easy ways to publish information online, without much technical knowledge. Custom editorial workflows and permissions are flexible and can easily be adapted to requirements. An editorial board could oversee the blog and develop editorial guidelines.

Ocean.gov would serve as a spot for the general public to find out what the government is doing to protect oceans and coasts. The main job of the ocean.gov bloggers would be to link to relevant and timely information and provide context for that information. For example, during hurricane season ocean.gov bloggers could link to reports on increased coastal populations and why more people than ever need to be hurricane aware. Or, if a state published a report on a particular stretch of coast, the blog could link to the report, provide an overview and supplement the report by linking to news coverage and including comments from readers.

Call me crazy, but if we can have a weather.gov, why not an ocean.gov?

Note: this also appeared on govloop.com.