NASA SMD Decides To Totally Reboot Its Internet Presence

Modernizing Science Websites, Thomas Zurbuchen
“More so than ever, our Science Mission Directorate (SMD) websites are the front-door to our worldwide community of enthusiasts and learners. Upon an in-depth analysis of our web presence, I believe it is time for us to elevate the way we communicate and enhance the breadth of our audiences using a focused approach on great content, and best-in-class optimization techniques. As will all of our communication activities, we will do this as one team, and driven by the desire to enhance the impact and inspiration of our science throughout. This is a core-element of our NASA Science strategy, which focuses deliberately on inspiration and communication.”
Keith’s note: I just became aware of this blog posting by Thomas Zurbuchen. This is music to my ears. As I have noted below (and for many years) NASA’s web presence is out of date, broken, and counter productive – in the extreme. This is not what you’d expect Earth’s pre-eminent space agency to put forth as its public face. As some of you may recall Jim Bridenstine set the process in motion exactly years ago. For the most part NASA has dragged its feet on the issue of improving its web and social media presence. Large portions of NASA simply ignored Bridenstine’s direction in favor of their stove piped efforts. Now SMD is going to bite the bullet and fix things once and for all. Let’s see what SMD does. Since SMD is responsible for roughly half of what NASA does in one way or another it could set an example for the rest of the agency. Oh yes: Kathy Lueders has noticed.
– Dysfunctional Science Websites At NASA, earlier post
– NASA Has Had A Year To Reorganize Their Web Presence. Did They?, earlier post
– NASA Just Can’t Stop Doing Web Stuff Twice UPDATE: Three Times, earlier post
– Dueling NASA Websites Update, earlier post