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Government websites aim to provide useful, timely, and up to date information. Typical information found on government websites range from organizational values and mission statements to press releases and news stories. In addition to providing accurate and timely information, good government websites also make it easier to obtain services.
Increasingly, an organization’s ability to provide valuable information and services to the public through a website is becoming more and more dependent on its ability to keep up with both the changing ways people use the internet, as well as the continuous changes of said information and service provided. If the information is out of date or people can’t easily access it, the value has been lost.
Websites that incorporate features like responsive design which allows for seamless use from smartphones and tablets, or interactive calendars that help residents and visitors stay informed about meetings, events, and activates have quickly become the norm and expectation.
In an effort to stay ahead of the curve on this, Cook County recently launched a new website and used the opportunity to not only update and refresh the content, look, and feel of the site but also to make structural changes to the operational and maintenance processes of the site. When looking at making these changes one of the goals was to empower our subject matter experts to update specific website content in a timely and efficient manner. To achieve this goal Cook County worked with a vendor that specializes in the creation and hosting of government websites to deploy a user-friendly content management software. Through this content management software, we were able to both empower our subject matter experts to make timely and necessary changes directly to the website, as well as spread out the content management workload amongst several people instead of relying on a single individual’s availability to make all required changes to our website. This strategy will go a long way towards improving our ability to keep the information on our website accurate and up to date.
In addition to streamlining the content management process of the website by shifting from a single resource managing all website content to several resources taking responsibility for the specific content they have intimate knowledge of, we also used this opportunity to transition from a on-premises solution to a hosted solution. Having a vendor that specializes in government websites host our website benefits our organization from data storage, security, and recovery standpoints as well as an end-user support service standpoint by providing our content managers with access to the vendor’s dedicated support team, all of which are both critical and challenging for an organization of our size to do well on a consistent basis.
These added benefits combined with an overall reduction in web service costs offers our organization the ability to provide valuable information more reliably to the residents and visitors of Cook County alike in a fiscally responsible way. Simply put, a better product for less money.
Special thanks to all our content managers for putting in the work and to the Cook County Communications Committee for their oversight and management of the transition.
To see the updated county website and learn more about Cook County government, visit: https:// co.cook.mn.us/
County Connections is a column on timely topics and service information from your Cook County government. Cook County – Supporting Community Through Quality Public Service
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