Transforming the citizen digital experience with content velocity and generative AI
Welcome to Adobe’s blog on our recent webinar, Modernizing Citizen & Business Communications with Content Velocity. Here, we will explore the state of digital government experiences and how content velocity can help unlock the content lifecycle and close the gap between the demand for digital government services and the challenges agencies face in meeting those needs.
The content landscape is changing rapidly, with the number of channels, formats, and experiences exploding in recent years. The private sector has been driving this experience for customers — raising expectations for speed and accessibility — and now citizens expect that kind of speed and efficiency for government services as well. In fact, 65% of respondents in a Deloitte Digital and Adobe survey said they want to access government information and services available on all channels, including web, email, chat, social, broadcast, phone, and brick-and-mortar office.
But agencies face incredible challenges in delivering a holistic and equitable digital experience for their constituents — with challenges ranging from the relentless pace of content and new citizen demands to disconnect processes causing wasted time and burnout.
70% of teams spend more time on non-core work, managing manual tasks in disparate systems across roles. Additionally, these inefficient processes and increased expectations contribute to 25% content waste — redundant and duplicate assets.
These challenges manifest themselves in this spaghetti-like content process, where nothing is linear, everything is convoluted, and just staying up to date is a full-time job. Working this way is expensive and time-consuming, resulting in poor quality work, employee burnout, and a poor customer experience.
Modernizing government communications through content velocity
Understanding the content lifecycle — and the fact that it is an iterative process — is foundational as agencies map out their communication strategy and user journeys. This carefully orchestrated process must happen for every piece of content that is produced. And since multiple teams play a role and serve many functions, from planning to approvals to personalization, the process must be centrally managed in a way that anyone can collaborate or pick up with context where others left off.
Put simply, accelerating content velocity requires cross-functional collaboration. That’s the only way to take content through each step from the creation phase to production, managing how it is utilized, curated, reviewed, and shared to deliver an experience that meets citizens’ needs at the right time on their preferred channel. Just like any well-managed process or system, it helps align those producing the content going in while also managing and measuring the various experiences once published.
There is no finish line for creating, managing, and delivering meaningful content and the experience for citizens. It’s a journey of constant iteration and constant analysis. No matter where an agency falls on the content lifecycle maturity model, it’s more important than ever to take that first step in establishing an efficient and equitable experience for everyone.
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children case study — content velocity in action
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) relies heavily on content to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization. NCMEC cannot perform its mission without storytelling — and for the organization, imagery is everything.
NCMEC receives nearly 30,000 images a year that they must process and deliver to the public. That takes a mix of science and art, according to Gavin Portnoy, NCMEC’s vice president for communications and brand.
To get this done, the organization uses tools like Adobe Experience Manager to streamline the many content workflows — including all case information, forms, and images from forensic imaging specialists — that come with every new case of a missing or exploited child. Portnoy outlined some best practices for NCMEC.
- Collect. Seconds count when it comes to finding missing children. NCMEC must move quickly to find appropriate digital assets (photos, videos, and so on) and check all the boxes with both law enforcement and the families. It’s important to get the photo and resulting content out to the public quickly, but not at the expense of others involved. A defined workflow supported by collaboration tools in Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Experience Manager Assets can keep things moving efficiently when it matters most.
- Listen. It’s challenging to cut through the noise on social media. There are many factors to think about, including how people consume media as they scroll through. Every touchpoint is a moment to capture attention, but before posting NCMEC comes up with an integrated digital strategy that considers all platforms and how they can be leveraged. It’s important to listen to your audience and meet them where they are by asking questions like “Where is our audience?” and “What platforms are important to them?” Tailoring each piece of content to the specific audience and platform increases the impact.
- Deliver. Next, NCMEC needs to get the content out the door. In the case of a missing child, time is everything, so you don’t have time to do a long podcast or video. You do have time for a 30-second headshot video, though. Because all NCMEC’s webpages are unified on Adobe Experience Manager Sites, the organization’s staff can publish the content themselves instead of needing to contract out to external developer resources.
Not only does this kind of iterative process make delivering content more effective and efficient, but it also frees up NCMEC to focus on what matters.
“This allows us to spend more time with the storytelling,” Portnoy said. “Which I think is the absolute most important thing.”
Generative AI meets exploding content needs, reduces skyrocketing costs
Recently, generative AI has emerged as a transformative disruptive technology set to revolutionize content creation and production. This comes at a time when agencies face explosive content needs fueled by digital transformation and constantly feel the pressure to deliver high-impact, personalized customer experiences across channels.
Embracing generative AI accelerates creative ideation and production, enabling organizations to quickly and cost-effectively deliver branded experiences that will increase customer engagement. Generative AI helps with creative expression, enabling significant savings.
To put it in more practical terms, tools like Adobe Firefly, our new family of creative generative AI models focused on image generation, and Adobe Express allow content teams to create completely original, never-before-seen images based on amalgamations of photos from the vast Adobe Stock database. Adobe Firefly was built with the assurance that the AI content it creates is consistent with an organization’s brand standards, safe for commercial use, indemnified, ethical, and high quality.
https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3420809
How to get started
Adobe offers myriad ways to kick-start your content generation and create meaningful digital experiences for constituents. One great way to start your content velocity journey is the new, global beta version of Adobe Express — an all-in-one content creation app that makes it fast, easy, and fun to design and share standout content.
Beyond that, we’re especially excited to bring the magic of generative AI with Firefly directly into Express, allowing users to generate stunning images through text to image, generative fill, text effects, and generative recolor to take the guesswork out of design to create anything you can imagine. It is free to register and start using.
Learn more about how content velocity is delivering value through digital experiences at the speed of mission.
Adobe provides government agencies with the solutions they need to modernize digital experiences, efficiently deliver services, increase citizen engagement, and build trust through personalization. Visit the Adobe Government Solutions page to learn more about creating simple, seamless, and secure government experiences.