Gobiernousa.gov

Leilani Martinez, a friend of mine from years ago, runs GobiernoUSA.gov, the federal government's portal site focused on Spanish-speakers. It was great to see her again at a recent event at George Washington University put on by Foresee, an on-line survey tool in use by some agencies.

As one of three presenters May 1, 2007, Leilani talked about her experience rebranding the site from FirstGov en español to GobiernoUSA.gov. I have to give it to her. She recounted a common experience - non-Hispanics thinking a Latino site must simply be a translation of an English site that meets the same objectives. She overcame that internal hurdle - at the federal government no less. In the rebranding, she was able to tailor the offerings to those who would be using the site - Spanish-dominant folks interested in knowing more about the federal government.

She also said that the data she gathers from Foresee more closely reflects her audience than general studies of Latinos on-line. I suggested that it might be because general studies of Latinos on-line tend to lump English and Spanish-dominant Latinos into the same bucket. She concurred.

It was great to see her and great to know she's doing great work.

GobiernoUSA.gov