We are thrilled to realize we’ve been providing digital services to our clients for nearly a quarter century! In 2023, we added the new state of Illinois to make 21 states served during our 24 years in business and reached 27 percent growth for the first time. Our team continues at 55 total members (full-time and contract) with employees in 23 states. We also continue to have talented team members and industry experts contributing to the year’s most popular blog articles, see below for the top 12 blogs of 2023.
Our gratitude extends to our many wonderful clients, employees, contractors, vendors, and event organizers, as well as our families and friends for making 2023 a wonderful year. Thank you! We wish you the happiest of holidays, and best wishes for 2024.
2023 year in review highlights
- 4 awards (Web Excellence and W3)
- 5 new clients
- 21 states served (added Illinois in 2023)
- 55 employees in 23 states (as of December)
Design awards
- Web Excellence Awards, Nature category, Certificate of Excellence:
Maine Department of Education’s Learn With MOOSE - Web Excellence Awards, Education category, Certificate of Excellence:
Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) - W3 Award, Silver, Maine Department of Education’s Learn with Moose
- W3 Award, Silver, Colorado Avalanche Information Center
Learn more at Websites Honored With Design Awards.
People’s Choice winners
- Most Valuable Player: Ezra Friedlander (Developer)
- Grace Under Pressure: Tammy Schlesinger (Project Manager)
- Most Versatile: Brett Kana (UX Designer)
Learn more at Celebrating the PWW Team.
Top employee blogs
- Large Language Model Applications for Government: Adam Kempler
- Everyday Accessibility Tips: David Read
- Rethinking Online Education: Tracy Totman
New contracts
- Colorado Department of Natural Resources
- Fermilab
- Maine Virtual Job Center
- Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks
- Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Projects in progress
- Advocates for Human Potential / California Dept. of Health Care Services
- American Battlefield Monuments Commission (as sub)
- Colorado State University / Center for the New Energy Economy
- Florida Turnpike Enterprise: SunPass
- Idaho Department of Health and Welfare: Various projects
- Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks
- Multnomah County, Oregon
- North Dakota Department of Transportation
- Veterans Administration (as sub)
Completed projects
- Financial Authority of Maine
- Colorado Judicial Branch
- Maine Department of Education: EnGiNE Innovation in Education Platform
- Maine Department of Education: Learn with MOOSE!
- Maryland Health Care Commission
- North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services
- Washington DSHS / Washington Cares Fund
Top 12 blog articles of 2023
The following are the top 12 blog articles in 2023 from the GovWebworks and Portland Webworks blogs (based on Google Analytics page views):
1. Leadership For Complex Times
Perspectives from the Agile to agility Conference on adapting and innovating in complexity
In December of 2019, agile trainer and coach Miljan Bajic hit a writer’s block on a book about agile frameworks. He began asking agile experts for advice and decided to make these conversations into the Agile to agility podcast to share with others who might have the same questions. After interviewing notable names in the field, including Dave Snowden, Mike Cohn, and Riina Hellström, he invited podcast guests to present at an agile-themed discussion on Zoom, which became the first Agile to agility conference, Integral Approaches, in April 2022. Continue reading…
GWW Staff (featuring Miljan Bajic, Dave Snowden, Mary Uhl-Bien, Geoff Marlow, Iain Kerr and Jason Frasca)
January 17, 2023
2. Large Language Model Applications for Government
AI Lab update on the benefits, risks, and emergent guidelines for LLMs in the public sector
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are revolutionizing how we create content and interact with enterprise applications. These Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on massive amounts of data in order to understand and respond to natural language instructions called prompts. Continue reading…
Adam Kempler
October 31, 2023
3. Accessibility-First Mindset
Lainey Feingold on how agencies can build a culture of accessibility
When Lainey Feingold took a temporary post at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund in 1992, she never realized it would lead to her life’s work. A lawyer by profession, she was asked to help a group of blind disability rights advocates collaborate with banks to develop Talking ATMs. A few years later, when the country’s first Talking ATMs were getting ready to be rolled out, one of her blind clients said, “Good job with the ATMs, but now we can’t use this new thing called online banking.” Continue reading…
Lainey Feingold
April 18, 2023
4. Innovating Through Experience
Iain Kerr and Jason Frasca on how to create the new by experimenting with the old
“The beginnings of the new are already there in everything,” is how consultants Iain Kerr and Jason Frasca explained innovation at a recent Agile to agility Conference. “They just need to be actively and experimentally co-opted.” As co-directors of the MIX Lab at Montclair State University, Iain and Jason began working together to foster innovation at the university level, and in 2018 they formed the Emergent Futures Lab to share their approach with public and private organizations. Continue reading…
Ian Kerr & Jason Frasca
February 28, 2023
5. Everyday Accessibility Tips
How teams can work together to avoid the most common web accessibility errors, and more
If “the power of the Web is in its universality,” as World Wide Web founder Tim Berners Lee said, then “access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” Considering that 24.8% of US citizens have a disability, and up to 42% in the age range of 65 or older, it would follow that the websites, tools, and technologies we build must be designed and developed so that people of all abilities can use them. The problem for many agencies is in figuring out how to achieve this daunting and ever-evolving goal. Continue reading…
David Read
May 30, 2023
6. 9 Gov Tech Use Cases for LLMs
AI Lab’s top picks for Large Language Model applications for government agencies
With the October 30, 2023 “Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence” from the White House, the safe use of Large Language Models (LLMs) continues to be a hot topic for many public sector agencies. As introduced in our previous post on Large Language Model Applications for Government, LLMs are a form of AI trained on massive amounts of data to understand and respond to natural language instructions called prompts. Primarily used to summarize, translate, and generate text and images, LLMs were popularized with the public release of ChatGPT and DALL-E in November of 2022. Continue reading…
Adam Kempler
November 6, 2023
7. Rethinking Online Education
How design thinking enhanced Maine Department of Education’s online learning tools
As a K-12 classroom educator, I remember the anxiety that came over me the first time I observed 24 third graders trying to find equivalent fractions using an online classroom whiteboard. When students struggled to navigate these new tools, I found I couldn’t circulate around the room as usual and give private feedback, or gather a small group of students for further instruction while others worked independently in the background. My ability to focus on classroom instruction was seriously disrupted. Continue reading…
Tracy Totman
August 23, 2023
8. March 2023 AI Newsletter
Our AI Lab’s roundup of the latest articles and news relating to artificial intelligence for online services in the public sector
Welcome to the March 2023 AI Newsletter from the GovWebworks AI Lab. The following articles touch on important topics in the industry, including:
- Release of GPT-4 on March 14
- Think of ChatGPT like a junior employee
- AI is changing how we search
- How does ChatGPT generate text?
- Conversations instead of keywords
- How to play around with ChatGPT
Continue reading…
Adam Kempler
March 14, 2023
9. Agile to Agility Leadership Highlights
Agile expert strategies for leadership in complex times
When Scrum coach Miljan Bajic began asking agile experts for advice, he decided to make the conversations into the Agile to agility Podcast to share with others who might have similar questions. He then invited podcast guests to present at an agile-themed discussion on Zoom, which became the first Agile to agility Conference in April 2022. He’s now interviewed more than 70 podcast guests and hosted five conferences. The following quotes offer insights on agile leadership for complex times from guests of the Agile to agility podcasts and conferences. Continue reading…
PWW Staff (featuring Pete Behrens, Patricia Kong, Jim York, Mike Cohn, Miljan Bajic, Mary Uhl-Bien, Dave Snowden, and Geoff Marlow)
January 31, 2023
10. Open Sourcing Education
Open Sourcing Education Jenn Page explains how Maine Online Open-Source Education (MOOSE) is addressing education’s biggest challenges
Jenn Page found a new mission when she was recruited by the Office of Innovation at the Maine Department of Education to develop online content for remote students during the pandemic. With her background as a high school teacher and director of education at Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership, she joined educators across the state to work on the new platform. “We were creating the plane as we flew,” she says of what would become Learn With MOOSE, then called Maine Online Opportunities for Sustained Education, a free education platform to support pre-K to grade 12 educators with remote learning tools. Continue reading…
Jenn Page
September 5, 2023
11. Tech For the People
“Recoding America” author Jennifer Pahlka on changing the culture of gov tech
Too often, when government technology is hard to use, the teams implementing the technology are blamed for something they couldn’t control. In her new book, Recoding America, which has been lauded on the Ezra Klein Show as “the book I wish every policymaker would read,” Jennifer Pahlka sets out to explain why we need a new approach. Continue reading…
Jen Pahlka
July 31, 2023
12. Workforce Success Stories
CareerForce connects job seekers with workforce success in a tight labor market
With the drop in job openings reported this summer by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, states like Minnesota have been stepping up efforts to help employers fill jobs as the tight labor market continues. “Employers can’t hire as many great employees as they would like, which makes the all-important topic of workforce development even more important,” Varilek said in the Star Tribune article. Continue reading…
GWW Staff
November 15, 2023
Learn more
- Celebrating the PWW Team: 2023 People’s Choice award winners and team member retirement recognized
- Websites Honored With Design Awards: Design awards from W3 and Web Excellence for Webworks clients
- View Job Openings: Find your home with us
Connect with us:
