Archive for the 'Web Development – Getting it Done' Category
Written by crystalolig | May 16, 2010 8:38 pm
Oxiem just launched the new website for the Dayton Public Schools, serving the city of Dayton and the community with a modern, easily navigable and clearly branded site. The launch is the culmination of a great partnership with the district’s Office of Public Information. This advanced web system that covers the entire district, and will grow to encompass every school and department in the district.
Key Features:
High level of customization and targeted key messaging spaces
The site serves a dual purpose of informing the public and marketing district initiatives. Each section of the site has available free space for in-house “adlets,” that can promote important dates, share key information and engage various audiences with additional information directly relevant to that site section. For example, the Human Resources department can customize a sidebar ad to promote new job openings, and link directly to the online application for that job. The deep marketing focus throughout the site will keep it flexible and focused on the multiple audiences the district serves, from internal (staff, board members) to external (parents, students, media, community advocates, etc.).
Live Maps and Profiles
While each school will eventually have its own home page, the district site represents all schools and wanted to make key information readily available. School profile pages feature maps to each school in the district, with the ability to generate driving directions to or from the school locations. Contact information for school main offices and principals is readily available.
News Alert Banner with Toggle On/Off Feature
When urgent information needs to be quickly disseminated throughout the district, the DPS staff can toggle “on” a brightly-colored banner alerting any site visitors to this immediate announcement. This could include alerts for snow days, late starts or other crisis response info.
Interactive calendar
The advanced calendaring system serves the entire district with advanced filters by type of event, including items on the academic, athletic and other categories. The system administrators will have the ability to push important events and deadlines out to calendars at schools throughout the district, helping ensure a high level of accuracy and detail across multiple sites and calendars. Calendar contributors at the non-administrative level will be able to publish calendar events and the district can choose to approve and post them to the district calendar, or ignore the event if it is not relevant to the rest of the district.
–
We love when our clients are as excited about a new site as we are. Our fabulous client from the Dayton Public Schools had this to say about the new site:
“It’s sappy, but sometimes I get a little choked up when I see this new site ‘blossom’ before my eyes. This project means so much to me, and I’m so grateful that we are able to work with Oxiem to bring it about. Thanks again,” Melissa Fowler, DPS Communications Specialist, in an e-mail to Oxiem staff.
Oxiem will continue to work with the school district in the coming months to build out individual school sites.
Written by bsterzenbach | April 28, 2010 12:08 pm
We’re not in it for the accolades, but when you get a pat on the back from your peers, it sure feels good!
Oxiem recently took home two PRism awards from the local chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, in partnership with two outstanding clients.
PRSA is a leading organization for communications and public relations professionals, and boasts an active local central Ohio chapter. Each year the chapter honors local companies doing outstanding work for clients in the public relations and marketing communications arena with a PRism Award. Entries are judged by a reciprocal PRSA chapter somewhere across the country.
This year’s award ceremony took place Thursday, April 22 at the Hilton Polaris, hosted by local media personality Monica Day of the local NBC-4 affiliate.
Oxiem took home two PRism awards in partnership with two outstanding clients.
The microsite developed to support recruitment, branding and awareness goals for the Ohio Hi-Point Career Center, Ohio Hi-Point Journeys, won a PRism Award in the category “Non-Profit Social Media Campaign.” Oxiem client Shane Haggerty, marketing & communications director for Hi-Point, also is a member of a PR organization for school communicators and the site also won top honors from the Ohio NSPRA chapter.
Mary Szymkowiak of the Dublin Convention & Visitors Bureau was on hand at the awards ceremony to accept top honors with a PRism award in the category “Non-Profit Website” for the site IrishIsAnAttitude.com, designed and developed by Oxiem.
Oxiem team member Crystal Olig is an active member of PRSA, serving on the local University Liaison committee and a national executive board for the organization.
“What is unique about this award is that it’s judged from a communications standpoint,” said Olig. “Not only do these sites do a great job of marketing, but they are seen by other communications professionals as having a specific, key message and strategy behind them. It’s an honor to be among the 2010 PRism award winners in Central Ohio.”
See a full list of 2010 Central Ohio PRSA PRism award winners here.
Written by crystalolig | April 13, 2010 11:48 am
The social media-driven site designed and developed for the Ohio Hi-Point Career Center‘s “Hi-Point Journeys” is an Official Honoree in The Webby Awards 2010, the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet.
“The Official Honoree distinction is awarded to the top 15% of all work entered that exhibits remarkable achievement. With nearly 10,000 entries received from all 50 states and over 60 countries, this is an outstanding accomplishment for you and your team,” said David-Michel Davies, Executive Director of The Webby Awards for The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, in the official e-mail notification.
You can check out all the honorees in the School/University category now.
“I was excited to see news that our Hi-Point Journeys campaign was named as an Official Honoree in the School/University category for The 14th Annual Webby Awards,” said Shane Haggerty, marketing and communications director at Hi-Point.
“This is such a great honor for the work Oxiem did for Ohio Hi-Point Career Center in helping us launch one of the first full-scale social media campaigns in Ohio public education. The site Oxiem designed is certainly worthy of this honor, and I am most excited of the awareness this continues to bring to our Hi-Point Journeys campaign, our district website that Oxiem also designed and to career-technical education as a whole in the state of Ohio.”
About the Webby Awards
The Webby Awards were established in 1996 during the Web’s infancy, and are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which includes an Executive 750-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities, and Associate Members who are former Webby Award Winners and Nominees and other Internet professionals.
Written by crystalolig | April 7, 2010 7:37 pm
It’s a myth that to work with a professional marketing or web agency you have to have the big bucks. Everyone can be “big” online, no matter how many people or what resources you have at your disposal.
Oxiem truly believes every business, non-profit, mom & pop or other local business deserves professional web marketing. We work every day to keep our services scalable for all types and sizes of businesses.
It’s the reason I wanted to work here in the first place.
My parents put entrepreneurship in my blood, and that kind of history sticks with you. In fact, there was a actually business in my childhood home until I was about 12 years old. Mom ran an in-home preschool, and my dad is a co-owner of an ag real estate business in Nebraska. (And YES, I’m actively trying to get him to let me help him with that website right now — believe me, I’m trying.)
I remember the good years and the bad years, watching my parents struggle through records at tax time (sound familiar?), worrying about making payroll for coworkers that were more friends than employees, and seeing what heart they both put into their respective businesses.
So, I digress. The point is, I can see how many times small business owners face the challenge of continually moving their businesses forward, and online marketing and websites often become a sticking point.
Whether it’s not feeling comfortable with new technology, worrying there’s not point in keeping up because it changes so fast, or simply not having the time or resources to dedicate to building your online business presence — it’s okay. I know where you’re coming from.
Chances are, many of our clients felt the same way right before they called us.
So when my friend Heath called me and asked if I’d give an introductory crash-course on online business and marketing to the Reynoldsburg Chamber, I jumped at the chance. It was an opportunity for me to help local entrepreneurs learn, and share Oxiem’s point of view on online marketing, website development and search engine optimization/marketing.
Here’s what I came up with (thanks to much help from my team). I’m hoping it was useful, actionable and interesting to the group. What do you think?
Comment below or get in touch. Love to hear from you.
-Crystal Olig
Twitter: @sparklegem
Email me!
Call: 614.448.1812
Written by crystalolig | March 29, 2010 6:10 am
Champaign County, Ohio is small county located in rural Ohio, 35 miles outside of Columbus. In beginning the process of creating a website, multiple departments within the county were challenged with small budgets, limited technical expertise and multiple messages. These departments include Champaign County, the Chamber of Commerce, Convention and Visitors Bureau and Economic Development. Oxiem Marketing Technology worked with each department to craft a program would pull together resources and create one unified brand presence, but allow flexibility for each department to customize their content.
Portal Solution
The website portal, http://champaignohio.com, presents the overlying brand with rotating messaging featuring each of the different areas. The user has the ability to select their destination through “Visit” (Champaign County), “Work” (Economic Development), “Succeed” (Chamber of Commerce) and “Live” (Champaign County – to be launched soon!).
Each department has the ability to customize only the content of its respective section/entity, through Oxiem’s O2 Content Management System. This allows for flexibility and department-specific content control, while keeping the brand standards consistent throughout and allowing for resource-sharing at the main portal homepage.
Financial Solution
Each department targets a unique audience, from prospective residents and businesses to recreational travelers – which is what makes the web portal such a great access point. It ranks very well for “Champaign County, Ohio”-related searches and will many times be the “catch all” site for multiple types of visitors. It will then quickly lead them in the direction they are looking for based on the key messaging on the homepage.
“The great thing about Oxiem is that we believe every small business, governmental agency and organization deserves professional web marketing, and we are dedicated to creating a financial solution for your web marketing needs,” said Billy Fischer, Oxiem’s Business Development Manager.
In this instance Oxiem worked with each organization to create a custom billing structure that made the portal possible, splitting budget over each organization, giving the department’s flexibility and breathing room. In a time of limited budgets, this solution enabled each community entity to share resources like photography and content about local attractions and communities, while allowing for unique messaging, editing capabilities and control from each group.
Written by crystalolig | March 16, 2010 12:13 pm
“Irish is an Attitude” is the motif for the Dublin, Ohio, convention and visitor’s bureau website, launched this month by the Oxiem team — just in time for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. From the old-Irish style wood frames, to the lucky shamrock background, a distinctly Gaelic charm permeates throughout the site’s branding and feel.
The site targets consumers, event planners and group tours with attractions and events, the largest of which includes the annual Dublin Irish Fest, the biggest Irish festival in the country and the PGA Memorial Golf Tournament.
The city’s marketers are active users of social media tools, so incorporating those new media outlets was vital. They also wanted to display great photos and have plenty of ad space to feature attractions, tours, hotels, places to eat and things to do in Dublin. The site is ultimately successful because it uses a carefully orchestrated architecture, which creates opportunities for visitor conversion and blends everything under one brand voice.
Aggregating & Sharing Local Social Content
One goal of the site was to take advantage of local businesses actively using social media to market restaurants and shops, maximizing resources and keeping the most current news and events coming through on consistent conduit. To achieve this, Oxiem worked with the CVB staff to create the “Dublin Live” page. This page is designed to reference bulletin boards at classic Irish pubs, and streams social content from Flickr, YouTube, Yelp, Twitter and blogs.
Each stream of social content aggregates automatically, pulling in tweets, restaurant reviews and photos from contributing businesses in the city.
“Dublin Live is innovative because it helps us serve the community and visitors through one consistent Web location,” said Mary Szymkowiak, communications specialist with the CVB. “We maximize the time we spend interacting through social media and encourage our local business partners to share their Dublin experiences.”
Interactive Tourism & Business Directory Solution
Another feature of the Dublin site is the city map and business directory that uses the Google Maps API to display a customized map of Dublin. To create a custom feel, Oxiem used unique icons to represent different attractions.
When a user clicks an icon, an info bubble displays a photo of the venue, plus contact information and a link to a full directory listing for each business, including description, contact information and map with driving directions.
When it comes to local Irish flavor, the CVB’s blog says it best: “And, remember one more thing. You don’t need Irish in your blood. Just in your soul.”
Or in your website, we say. Thanks to Mary and everyone at the CVB for all their hard work and collaborative (Irish) spirit.
Written by crystalolig | February 17, 2010 11:47 am
Fresh French Floral Boutique is a modern floral design shop in Grandview Heights in central Ohio. Oxiem helped owner Trace Kingham and his team create a site that embodied the business – elegant, well-presented and smart.
While many national floral providers try to create an e-commerce experience that jams options in front of you, hoping you choose something, anything, Fresh focused on presenting arrangements in a careful, orchestrated way. Organizing by occasion and price point makes it easy for users to really see what they are purchasing and fit their budget.
“Fresh was a great client because they focused on presenting their capabilities in a creative way. By working together, we found ways to always driv
e that creative presentation back to a purchase opportunity for the user,” said project manager Angela Trego (Side note: She’s working on planning her own wedding right now, so we’ll forgive her for poring over the “Wedding” site section again and again for ideas!).
Combining photos with content like client testimonials, team background and credentials, partners and press mentions – all sprinkled with a dose of French phraseology for added panache – helped fill the photo-driven site with relevant text.
“Oxiem knew that I needed a web presence that married beauty and functionality. Our passion for modern, attention-seeking floral arrangement is perfectly conveyed in our new site,” said owner Trace.
“The team helped me walk through the process, challenging me to think through what was best for the business and what would work for my customers. It was a great experience and I’ve gotten rave reviews in just the few weeks that the site has been up – and orders are flying in at light speed!”
Written by crystalolig | December 16, 2009 2:41 pm
We know modular buildings when we see them. Houses swaying on the back of semi trailers on the interstate emblazoned with “Wide Load.” Schools may bring in a modular classroom for that extra batch of 3rd graders. Even Legos are modular – building blocks to make a house or heck, a mansion.
Recently, Wired magazine covered a smart new theater in Dallas made flexible using aluminum siding and adjustable balconies to convert the environment to fit the show. Tell me that’s not both cool and amazing. The dancers can’t leap from the balcony to the stage? Fixed.
With websites, a modular framework lets you at least start from something instead of from scratch. Like having a Betty Crocker mix in hand, instead of praying you have enough flour, eggs and patience to see it through.
So when I first learned about modular content management systems, like our proprietary 02 system here at Oxiem, a light bulb came on. It’s time and cost efficient, for us and for clients, to be able to plug in key components to your site without wasting resources on development. We build it once, and it’s done.
The word “module” itself tends to confuse, I’ve found. In general, we get what it is – some sort of compartment that can move around, somehow – but we lose the beauty of it. Modules are just slick. They can be separated and – here’s the key – recombined in almost any configuration we can dream up. That’s powerful.
It’s not exactly like building blocks, because each has to be fit to a site according to how it is to act and be used. It’s more like a puzzle for us to help you figure out and for our developers to make happen. But when you have all the pieces from the start, you know it’s all going to come together eventually.
Now if only I could make my closet modular…
Written by bsterzenbach | December 9, 2009 1:49 pm
Variable workforce – a fancy phrase for ‘Now Hiring – sorta’. Contingent or variable workforces are a fantastic way to manage peaks in your pipeline without buying all-new plumbing. Of course we’re talking about freelancers and contractors – those enigmatic folks who have the steel to stand outside the system and work on their own terms.
The variable workforce model is not for every business, but we’ve found that using contingent resources to get things done can be one of the hidden secrets of a successful service business, but you must know the techniques and rules of managing this often volatile workforce. I have worked on both sides of the technology equation – and I see the benefits and pitfalls of each. In technology I’ve been a freelancer, a consultant in an agency, and I’ve been a full-time employee as well. Over the last 12 years I’ve spent most of my time managing technology folks – both in-house and contracted. In this post I’ll share some of my experiences with some practical advice from a guy who has been supplementing a great in-house staff with a great off-site staff for many years.
Some Terminology
I’m going to clear something up before we get started. I’ll refer to most freelance/contract resources mentioned in this posting as ‘outsourced’. These folks might live in the US or they might live in the UK, Bangladesh, or Pakistan – this fact is not important in our discussion. Regardless of where the person lives, the rules of properly managing and leveraging an outsourced contractor are the same.
Outsourcing is Not ‘Cheap Labor’
Let’s start with the most misunderstood concept behind outsourcing – outsourced labor = cheap labor. This is simply not true. If you are paying a local guy $75 an hour for a service, you simply cannot replace that person for $12 an hour for the sole reason that they live in another country or because they wear the freelancer cap. Yes, you can find technology folks who will work for $9 an hour, but you will pay far more for this misguided deal than you would pay for a quality person who charges a quality price. More often than not, the $9 person will take roughly 6 times the hours to complete the same job as the $60 guy. When searching for contractors, don’t shop on price, shop on integrity, experience, and personality. The true value of this model is in your ability to ramp up your output quickly without hiring a bunch of new folks, not in getting the work done more cheaply.
Some Tips
Scope scope scope! Be sure that all work is very well outlined including who is responsible for testing, what the turnaround time is for corrections, extended scope work-rates, etc.
Touching base. With short-term workers, it’s best to touch-base very regularly – daily if possible. This prevents minor misunderstandings about a project from turning into deal-breaking disasters, and gives the employee a forum for questions, feedback, and suggestions on how to improve the project.
Try before you buy. Not quite as it sounds, but start with a very small project with very tight variables. Be picky, be strict. See how the individual works. If they are:
- Competent
- Able to work intuitively (make the right decisions when needed)
- Friendly
- Fast
Consider them for a larger project. Generally I will work with a person on 5 small jobs before I commit to a larger project. This isn’t always practical, but depending on the need, can be a great model.
The Rewards
There are rewards for the hiring party as well as for the employee. In this post I’ll focus on the hiring party.
Flexibility. The true value of a contingent workforce is in the fact that you don’t need to hire full-time personnel to get over a period of heavy demand. You can scale up and back very quickly. This is good for your budget and great for your clients. We are able to satisfy a WIDE range of specialized needs for our clients using this model, and they look to us as a ‘single source solution’ for a lot of their needs.
Specialization. You can ‘marshall in’ valuable specialized resources very quickly and effectively. Recently I had an issue involving LDAP that I simply couldn’t solve (it involved LDAP, Windows Active Directory, SSL, and Linux’s OpenLDAP API). Finding and hiring a person with the extremely specialized skill set would be impossible at the least and prohibitively expense at the worst. I was able to locate a developer that had ALL of these skills in just a day and have the issue corrected within the next day. Total time-cost: 6 hours of development time, and 2 hours of project management time.
The Risks
Confidentiality. You must ensure that you don’t share any sensitive data with short-term folks. You always hire people you can trust, but every now and then people can surprise you. Most often, the risk is not from a dishonest person, but from the very nature of ‘mobile computing’. For example, you may hire a freelancer to work on a website project and they may have their laptop stolen. If they had access to your clients private data, you have an issue. Always setup a development environment with stripped-back data when you are using new freelancers, or when you are using any outside source that could pose a threat to your clients’ valuable data.
The Reality
Take some time and think it through. You always must do a cost/benefit analysis on using any new type of resource. Sometimes hiring someone in-house is the best decision, other times it may make more sense to use a short-term resource. This formula should help:
- Do you have ‘anchor’ employees? This model does not work without a skilled team who will serve as the long-term ‘anchor’ of the system. We have many full-time personnel that are tasked with ensuring continuity and consistency across all aspects of our work, so bringing in a stringer from time-to-time is a great fit for us.
- Who is managing the team? You simply must have an experienced manager with technical skill in this position
- Is there sensitive data involved? Can this data be removed from the project without compromising the persons ability to complete the project?
- Is there a great deal of ‘tribal knowledge’ that must be learned?
- Will this person need to interact with my client at any time?
- Will there be a need to have this person on-site for a majority of the project (this changes some variables)
- Can components of the project be ‘broken out’ and parceled to workers in order to minimize exposure and speed development?
As with any advice I give on this site, please remember that I don’t know your exact situation, so you need to make the final determination as to the usefulness of the advice .
And as always, please don’t hesitate to ask me if you have any questions. Email or call anytime. bsterzenbach@oxiem.com – 937-206-3920
Written by bsterzenbach | November 23, 2009 8:49 pm
Every website starts off with the best of intentions. We have a vision for what we wish to convey to our visitors. We know their needs, wants and fears, and we’re ready to meet them head-on. Most websites do this very well out of the gate, but often, we slip up and fall into some nasty, but easily curable practices. One such practice we’ll discuss today – the website that’s all about me. We call this Me Creep.
Me Creep happens when we forget that our visitor doesn’t so much care about our organization, but comes by to learn how we can solve his problem. The typical narcissistic site will often contain more links with the word “our” than any other type of link. Links such as “Our Philosophy”, “Our Company”, “About Us”, and other such topics riddle these sites. With a bit of introspection (and even more extrospection..is that a word?) we can help these lost souls find their way back into the hearts of their visitors.
To help fight off this behavior, it helps to look at your website with a fresh set of eyes at least once monthly. Imagine that you are the visitor. You have arrived at the site with a burning need for a solution – fast. The visitor is not necessarily seeking to purchase your product or service quickly, but they need to readily identify if you can provide an answer to their current question. Too much fluff about you and they will move along every time. Keep the language focused on their problems, on solutions to their needs, and upon how you can get them out of whatever jam they may be in at the time. Make it clear that they have arrived at their destination. Talking about your corporate philosophy can happen during the pitch, it’s the job of your website to get you in front of the visitor for that pitch as effectively as possible.
Now – drop over to your website as your visitor. Does the site give you the impression that you have the answer to their questions? If not, it’s never to late to make the adjustments.
