The Case of the Disappearing Links

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While we were at the AUSA Annual Meeting & Exposition a couple of weeks ago, we heard from a number of attendees that they have had trouble accessing information from emails because of a change in policy at DoD. New email security measures within DoD and throughout the federal agencies are taking live links out of emails (stripping links) and, in some cases, removing characters from the URLs. This means even if you copy and paste the web address it may not work if there are missing characters.[Tweet "New email policies at DoD/federal agencies are removing links/URLs from messages. #GovEventsBlog"]

The motivation behind this is likely to thwart foreign hacking attempts and phishing schemes where hackers will send an email that looks like it is from an official/legitimate source but contains links that, when clicked, take users to sites with malicious code.  We've written here before about the need to educate all employees, not just those in IT, as to their role in cyber security. Simply removing access to links does little to educate people about their role in protecting government data and systems.

While we applaud the effort to step up security, the practice of link stripping is concerning for all involved. Federal employees shared their frustrations with their inability to navigate to information they need to stay informed, be it a news article, registration for a training opportunity, or to download a whitepaper.[Tweet "Federal employees shared their frustrations with this new practice of link stripping. #GovEventsBlog"]

We encourage our members to communicate concerns to their IT departments and we'll do our part in talking to IT managers as well. But as we all know, policy, once enacted, is hard to change. So how do we work around this new reality? A couple ideas:

  • Make key events or news visible and accessible from your home page. If you are trying to drive people to a specific link, "advertise" it on your homepage. Email recipients may not be able to get to the exact page, but they should be able to find your home page and get to the info contained in an email message.
  • Look for other venues to drive people to links. If your audience cannot access links to your content at work, see how you can drive them via more "personal" channels. Look into Facebook ad campaigns or upping the number of posts you put on Twitter and/or LinkedIn.
  • Think about plain text. Everything old may be new again. While it may not be as pretty, plain text emails may help get better conversion rates. You can also try a mix of HTML, where in addition to the embedded links, you also list the URLs within the message.

We'd love to hear your feedback. For our government users, have you found a work around to stripped links? Let us know in the comments.

Federal News Radio and Women of Washington Salute Our Military Women

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Join Federal News Radio and "Women of Washington" for a special series in honor of our women veterans. The series runs October 26 through November 16, Mondays and Wednesdays at 1pm on Federal News Radio 1500AM and on FederalNewsRadio.com

"Women of Washington" (WOW) interviews five impressive women doctors providing critical medical support to our troops in Afghanistan and Secretary Deborah Lee James, Secretary of the Air Force.  From the hospital Commander to the doctors in the ICU, these women work together to provide quality medical care to our heroes that have fallen.  These mothers, sisters and soldiers share with Aileen Black and Gigi Schumm, hosts for WOW, their heart-warming journey and stories of being forward deployed in Afghanistan.

You can listen to the innovative ways they stay in touch with loved ones at home as they support our brave, critically injured American troops and allies overseas. The last show of the series will feature Secretary Deborah Lee James, Secretary of the Air Force.  Sec James will share the amazing journey that led to her being named to head the department of the United States Air Force.

Aileen and Gigi are co-founders of Accelerated Government Strategies (AGS).  AGS helps companies build strategies to accelerate and capture public sector business.  To learn more about Aileen and Gigi and what AGS can do for your company go to Accelgovstrat.com.

In Webinars We Trust

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We've written a lot about webinars, using our anecdotal research based on what we hear in the market and what we see posted on the GovEvents' site. This year's Market Connections Federal Media and Marketing Survey provided some hard numbers that back up the growth in webinars we've been seeing.

Market Connections has been surveying federal employees for seven years to get a pulse on where and how they get news and information to influence buying decisions. This year's survey of 3,400 had some great news about the rebound of the federal events market as well as some interesting insight into online events. Continue reading →

Federal Events Rebound in 2015

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Market Connections released their seventh annual Federal Media and Marketing Study earlier this month and it has great news for the federal event community. The survey of over 3,400 federal employees showed a significant jump in event attendance. In 2015, 55% of respondents reported attending 1-3 events. That is up from 42% in 2014. Federal event attendance numbers had been declining for the past four years, making this year's jump even more notable.

[Tweet "Federal Media and Marketing Study shows significant jump in event attendance. #GovEventsBlog"]

The numbers back up what we have been hearing from our GovEvents members. Budgets and rules around travel and training have been easing up. Panelists at the event agreed that the tightening down of budgets and approval for events and training was an overcorrection in response to the GSA scandal and now we're finally seeing the pendulum shift back to a more rational place. But it was not just the GSA scandal that led to the decline in event participation. Panelists report there was a perfect storm of scandal, sequestration, and OMB guidance that left people confused as to what was "right" in terms of event attendance. Continue reading →

Top Events for Cybersecurity Month

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October is Cybersecurity Month and many organizations have taken the call to use these 31 days to educate and collaborate on solutions for a more secure cyber world. With over 70 cybersecurity events posted for the month of October on GovEvents, we wanted to highlight some of our picks for must attend events this month.[Tweet "Check out the top #government focused events for #Cybersecurity month #GovEventsBlog"]

  • October 7: Creating a Culture of Cybersecurity at Work (webinar) - The National Association of Counties will hold a series of webinars throughout the month with this one focusing on how organizations can enhance their security practices with widely available training and educational resources.
  • October 13: Closing the Desktop Security Vulnerability (webinar) - The combination of connectivity and skill can increase the risk of malicious intrusion at the desktop. This event, featuring the director of the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), will talk through NIAP's new requirements as well as the new Peripheral Sharing Switch Protection Profile (PSS PP 3.0).

Continue reading →