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.

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.”

One of the great benefits of having a smooth system in place is that you can easily implement it. That’s exactly what happened when one of our commissioners requested an informative Web site to help county residents with the upcoming 2010 census. The simple, one-page site is designed to quickly answer user’s questions and be easy to maintain. Notice that we answer most questions with a link to the official census Web sites, but those we could not were answered as succinctly as possible. We also provide a contact page to let users give us their feedback or ask further questions.

I received the following feedback from one of the site editors: “I want to say a special thanks to Tom. He is so helpful. He really provides the guidance so novices like me can understand creating effective websites. I couldn’t do any of it without his help.”

Visit the site here.