Please post any comments on these minutes to the Forum

The next FCN Marketing/Media seminar is scheduled for December 8, 2000 at the Natcher Center on the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The planning committee includes: Joanne Shore, Carol Harvey, Sherri Burns, Cindy Saboe, Ann M., Sareen Gerson, Dann Stuart, Cheryl Robinson, Pat Wood, Michael Moore and Marci Hilt. Members of last year's team will be notified. The committee will convene regular Monday meetings on Apri24, 2000 at 12:00 p.m. at NPR. Meetings will continue every Monday until the day of the seminar.

A summary from last year's meeting was handed out (see attached) that summarized the potential areas of interest for the 2000 seminar. In addition, the team concluded that there would be no lunch sessions and breakout sessions will be offered consecutively to allow attendees to attend more than one breakout. Another point that was stressed for the 2000 meeting was to ensure proper follow up after the meeting is over, e.g., distribution of the taped session and materials, etc.

Potential meeting topics, in addition to the ones on the attached document, include writing for the Internet (possibly targeting WashingtonPost.com as a resource for this session and About.com) and E-Gov related to web marketing.

Bill Goodwill volunteered to present about public service announcements (PSAs). We may want to include this as a session at the 2000 seminar.

Carl Stern, a presenter from the 1999 seminar, expressed an interest in participating in FCN's 2000 seminar.

Membership

Looking for volunteers! Volunteering to help out with membership requires minimal work. The majority of the work requires receiving and tabulating RSVPs to upcoming training sessions and seminars sponsored by FCN. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Pat Wood at pat.wood@npr.gov.

Web Site

An attendee at this month's business meeting stated that the Government is losing ground in the promotion of the great stories about the work being done at Government agencies. The Government needs to prepare and publicize well, especially on the web and via the web. The U.S. Mint is a good example of how to market your web site.

David Carroll, Treasury Department, gave an update on the current status of FCN's web site. He noted that the Forum, an online discussion group, is not being utilized. This is a great resource to ask questions and communicate with members of the marketing/PR/communication world.

The dated information on FCN's web site has been removed.

We discussed adding information about the 2000 Marketing/Media Seminar to the web site and providing weekly progress reports. In addition, FCN will begin to post the business notes on the site.

Finally, FCN will establish a 1999 Media Seminar follow up page. One item that will be included on this site is the video transcription from the December 1999 Perception vs. Reality: Media Seminar.

Don't forget to check out FCN's web site. There is a lot of good information currently on the web site. There are links to public affairs offices throughout the Government and links to Government magazines. If you have any additions to either one of these areas, please send this information to David Carroll by clicking on the Web Site Management Team link from FCN's home page.

The next phase for the web site is to ensure all links are working to other sites.

FCN Home

We received a brief update on finding a new "home" for FCN, and are still looking at OPM. This is in process. Additional information should be available in May.

Communication Guide

A draft outline has been created highlighting the topics for the FCN Communication Guide. The next steps are to recruit volunteers to write chapters of the Guide or provide information for each section. The Guide will be both web-based and printed. Currently, the team consists of Marci Hilt and Tanya Ramey (plus one other volunteer?). Please review the document and feel free to volunteer your time to develop any of the sections outlined. If you are interested in helping create this useful Guide, please contact Marci Hilt at marci.hilt@usda.gov. The draft outline will be placed on FCN's web site for review.

Action Items

Pat Gould, who broke her ankle and has been homebound, continues to update our member database. At last report we have 710 members. Rich Kellet, GSA, previously offered to analyze FCN's member database to determine which agencies are represented, the locations of the members (in/outside the beltway) and an estimate of the federal workforce FCN is reaching.

May Business Meeting Topics

One topic for May's Business Meeting is the creation of materials that we can distribute at meetings to promote and educate fellow colleagues about the benefits of joining FCN.