In conjunction with an upcoming marketing campaign, we have redesigned ClermontForKids.org. I worked with the team to design a look that worked within the new brand image.

Social media is a lot of fun because it’s so new and no one seems to have a real process worked out for it just yet. The focus I am pushing with our Facebook page is interaction with the public, instead of the simple pushing out of news we have been doing with our websites.

Of course, we’ll need a user base to interact with so we’re working on getting the word out about the page and have targeted local media, as our main target audience is the county population. The Cincinnati Enquirer gave us a very helpful write up:

Clermont County government is now reaching out to citizens by utilizing Facebook, a social networking Web site that has over 350 million active users worldwide. Citizens can go to the Web site www.facebook.com/ClermontCounty for current information on a variety of events and issues that impact those living and working in the county and the region. “Visitors to the Facebook site can check out the latest local news releases, event calendars, videos, and pictures,” said Clermont County Communications Director Kathy Lehr, who updates the site, along with Clermont Web Master Tom Doepker. “We encourage the community to become fans of the site to keep posted on all the exciting things going on locally,” she said. “Social media is another great way to communicate with the citizens of Clermont County,” added Doepker.

Read the full article here and – more importantly – become our fan on Facebook!

The county commissioners have fourteen offices that report to them. Each department would submit a report every week to report on their progress, but of course these all came in through various means and formats.

Our internal application delivered the following:

I am happy to report that the tool has been very well-received, referred to as “an immense time saver” by all in the commissioners’ office. They were so pleased that they asked us to begin work on streamlining another reporting process.

Many government agencies will be facing furlough days this year and my employer will not likely be an exception. This has definitely been a popular topic among employees and I decided to use it to push more old government forms online.

Late last year, I sent out an email that had examples of different things some of our departments had already done and I asked, “…are there any processes your office does that we can automate through your Web site?”

The best part of this was that I’m really not coding anything new. In one way or another (so far, anyway) all of the requests are something someone else is doing. But what I managed to do was get people to realize that they could use their sites for more.

Responses are still coming in, but I’ve already managed to put together three forms only two weeks into the year:

• A “book a ride” form for the Clermont Transportation Connection.
• The ability to submit address change requests and a monthly escrow form for the Treasurer.

Within fifteen minutes of the Treasurer’s change of address form being online, they received their first submission!

I’m a big fan of streamlining processes. Having a well-documented system in place allows me to design and develop Web sites more effectively. Case in point: the new site for Workforce One of Clermont County, Ohio.

Because of the current economic climate, one of our organizations took ownership of their site. With the help of eager clients and the content of an existing, we were able to get the site up and running in ten days.

In addition to all the normal features like the ability to update their own content and site search, this site uses an embedded Google calendar that is updated by multiple agencies and gives users all of the rich functionality Google makes available.

My department head summed it up: “Tom, looks great – as always.”