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[Focus Slide]
- Building a "Project Impact" Website:
(Introduction) My name is Iola Fleischer. I’m the Associate Director for the City of Fort Collins, Colorado Office of Emergency Management. I am also the Project Impact Coordinator, and Project Manager for our City’s OEM/Project Impact Website.
Fort Collins is a city of 110,000 people, located on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. We’re 50 miles north of Denver.
Fort Collins was named a Project Impact community in June, 1998. We started working right away on our Project Impact Website with the intention of documenting our Disaster Resistant Community Designation.
This presentation will briefly outline the steps we followed to develop our website, and highlight some of our reasons we think it has been successful. We want to encourage other Project Impact communities to build their own websites for the benefit of their residents.
- Coordination:
Our first task was to decide how to coordinate the website project. We thought about who we wanted to be involved in the project, and provide input.
This slide represents some of the major contributors of time and talent in Fort Collins. We initially considered using a committee to coordinate the project, since there were so many agencies involved.
- Project Manager:
We finally decided to appoint a Project Manager. Here are some of the reasons:
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One person to collect and coordinate input from all contributors.
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One person responsible for the final edits and content decisions.
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One contact for Web Developer through which all information is funneled.
Wherever possible, we had a single author writing the content to enhance continuity and consistency in style.
The Project Manager then met individually (and periodically as a group) with the content contributors to begin collecting ideas and information.
- Website Objectives:
Once we were organized, the first step was to define our overall goals and objectives.
We put a brief statement of objectives on the front page of our site. Visitors can quickly and easily see what the website is all about. The objectives can be as broad or as specific as you like. A brief ‘Mission Statement’ is more likely to be read than a lengthy one.
- Finding a Web Designer:
When you’re ready to choose a web designer, you have a number of choices:
- Does someone in your group have the skills to build your website?
- Does your agency have a department to provide web development services?
If not, you’ll need to hire a web designer. Check with an established local Internet Service Provider for recommendations. Ask for references and look at samples of their work. They should be able to show you a portfolio, either live on the web, or by furnishing you with an electronic portfolio (on a CD, for example).
Here are some valuable skills your web developer might need:
- Ability to create custom graphics.
- Ability to take digital photographs and digitize photographic prints.
- Ability to code in HTML and other scripting languages as necessary to do what you want to do on your site.
When you find one you like, define their role: Be specific about their latitude in making alterations to your copy. Do you want them to correct grammar and spelling, or just submit it as is with correction notes attached? Do they need to get approval before making minor cosmetic changes to the website? This will depend a lot on how well you know and trust your web developer. Their role could change over time as trust and confidence are developed.
OK, I found a web developer I like. Now, how do I pay for their services?
- Recruit the designer as a Project Impact partner. As a partner, they may work at a reduced rate, or offer some services for free. For example, our web design firm (Blue Knight Graphics) created the images for this presentation.
- To a certain extent, you will get what you pay for in a professional web developer. So don’t expect them to work for free, even though they may be a Project Impact partner.
- How you choose to pay your web developer, hourly or a lump sum for the entire job, is really up to you. Ask the web developer how they want to be paid, then consult your finance people for policy advice.
- Web Hosting:
Decide where your site will reside. You may not have a choice, depending on your agency’s policy.
The City of Fort Collins hosts our site on their web server, using their domain name. On the up side - it’s free. On the down side - we are stuck with an unwieldy web address (URL). It is hard to remember, and nearly impossible to give to someone without writing it down.
To solve the lengthy domain name problem, consider buying a custom domain name. The current cost is $70 for the first two years through InterNIC.
Another problem may arise because of the method you are required to use for updating your site. Government websites are usually behind firewalls for security reasons. It takes special network tweaking to allow the transfer of files through the firewall from the outside. Some agencies will not allow any type of external access through the firewall. So the problem becomes one of timeliness, especially during emergencies where you want to be able to give the public close to real time updates, like Y2K night, for example.
If your agency does not allow external access to the server through the firewall, then you must use another Internet Service Provider (ISP) to host your site, if you want the ability to do updates anytime without delay.
- Creativity, Consistency, Style & Design:
At this point you’re ready to discuss ideas for site design.
First, spend some time on the web visiting other sites to develop ideas for your project.
Check with your organization to see if they have web development standards. For instance, they may have standard navigation toolbars or other formatting restrictions. Give your web developer a copy of your agency’s web standards document for reference before they begin work on the site design.
Try to be creative, within existing guidelines. If your web pages are a series of long documents that are border-to-border and all text, people will just click on by. Try to make it interesting so it draws people in.
The big thing is having a consistent user interface. Visitors are more comfortable if all the pages have a similar look and similar navigation methods.
Try to make your navigational tools as intuitive as possible. If visitors get lost, or can’t find what they are looking for they won’t stay, and they won’t return.
Use graphics and photographs to break up large areas of text to keep it interesting. In the business they refer to this as “...making effective use of white space.”
Keep images and graphics file sizes as small as possible. Your web designer will be able to choose the appropriate graphic format, and then will size and optimize images before they are uploaded.
You will also want to blend with your organization’s overall image. If you are doing a Project Impact website in the Boston area, a country-western theme may not be appropriate. Check with your Information Technology Department or Graphics Department to obtain approved logos for use on your website. ‘Compromising’ a City logo is generally not allowed. No matter how cool it looks.
Consider designing your own logo if you don’t already have one. Your web developer may be able to help you with this if your agency doesn’t have a department that does such things. It gives an identity to your website. Our web developer designed our OEM logo for us.
- Site Outline:
Once you’ve decided on a style, it is helpful to create an outline or flowchart to give you a visual representation of the entire site. Include all the individual pages you have planned, and connect the ones you want to have linked.
On a large site, this is essential. It is much easier to plan in advance. You don’t want to have to pay your web developer to change a lot of links every time you add a page.
Obviously, you can create a more elegant outline than you see here, but this is actually about what our first draft looked like, and it worked just fine. There really is no need to get fancy unless you are just that type of person.
- Site Map:
It is a good idea to put your final outline on your website in the form of a “site map” or text menu. Many people go to the site map page first thing. It is a quick way to see the ‘big picture’ of the site.
It also helps people navigate easily through the site, or find precisely what they are looking for.
We have a link to our site map/text menu right at the top of our main page, so it’s easy to locate.
Minimize the use of images on this page so it loads quickly.
- Links, Credits, & Bibliography:
Throughout this process you will (hopefully) be doing research and gathering data. This was the fun part. We did research at the library, in local history books, as well as through regional experts and outside agencies.
Keep track of your research materials so proper credit can be given. Get permission when necessary. Don’t plagiarize. We found most people were happy to share their information.
The FEMA website (www.fema.gov) is a good source of information. They even have a media page containing graphics that you can use (like the Project Impact logo), and photographs of a few important FEMA personnel.
Include credits on your site and list your sources of information when appropriate. We made a “Links, Credits, & Bibliography” page to put it all in one convenient place.
- Audience Targeting:
While planning your website, consider your target audience. Consider the technical level of your community. Design your site so those who need it will be able to access it. Use an appropriate writing style. Some information related to Emergency Management can get technical. Write in terms that the layman will be able to understand.
Explain technical jargon. We included a few definitions at the top of many of our disaster pages to clarify terms before the visitor begins reading. For example, if you are going to write about weather watches and warnings, it is helpful to include the definition of these terms.
If your community does not have high speed Internet access (Cable modem, DSL, etc.) you might consider using less or smaller graphics to speed page loading. Another alternative, but lots more work, is to make a second ‘text only’ version of the site for those who are ‘browser challenged.’
Remember, there will always be a certain number of people who bought their first computer in 1985 and still use it. The goal here is to make your site accessible to the largest number of users you can on one hand, and keep it interesting and current on the other hand.
- Personal Touches:
Use local references and personal information to make the site friendly.
Here we put a face on our website - our OEM Director’s photo (superimposed on a photo of Horsetooth Mountain), and we added a scanned signature to personalize it. The real time weather link is always a nice touch.
Keep the global audience in mind, however. For instance, add a short paragraph on the front page about where you are located, including your state name, and a little bit about your organization. Believe it or not, not everyone in the world knows where Fort Collins is. So we tell them. It is not that unusual to visit a website that never mentions what state their business or town is in.
- Site Promotion:
Once your site is approved and posted, you will want to promote it.
Use “Meta tags” in your web pages with selected words that you think your audience might use to search. (Tell your web designer to put these in the HTML code for you.) Meta tags pass their information to web ‘bots’ from the search engines like Hot Bot, Lycos, Alta Vista, Google, etc.
Submit your site to the most popular search engines if you don’t want to wait for a random web bot.
Use traditional marketing, too. Submit information to you local newspaper. They may have a technology editor that will write a nice article about your new website. And that’s free advertising.
Here you see a sample of a refrigerator magnet we made that promotes our website and emergency radio station. It was created as part of our public education project about the City’s disaster notification system.
We also printed bookmarks with the website address on it that we pass out at our mall demonstration booths and other events.
Add the URL to any article or brochure you write, too. We have the web address on our business cards as well.
- Regular Updates:
Keeping your site new and fresh will generate interest and keep people coming back. We actually got a call from a citizen a few weeks ago who wanted to know why we hadn’t done a website update that week. It’s nice to know that people are paying attention.
We have already completely changed the overall look of our site from its original launch in January, 1998.
The Internet culture changes rapidly and you will want to keep up spend time looking at other sites to see what is new. Your web developer can help you out here, too. They usually keep up with the web culture.
Periodically check your site to make sure everything is working and that you have no dead links.
When you make updates, test your website on different browsers to make sure it all works and looks the same in each browser. Standard practice is to test using the latest versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer.
- Successful Examples:
Next I’m going to show you some examples of things we have done with our website in Fort Collins that have been successful.
- Local Disaster History:
A great mitigation tool is to include local disaster history information on your website. It is an interesting way to raise awareness of local hazards.
We included local statistics and historic photographs of our hazards and storms going as far back as 1864. The photos you see here are thumbnails to facilitate quicker page loading. When you click on a thumbnail, it opens a larger version in a new window. (Ask your web developer if you want to do something like this.)
Including local disaster history really helps to define the need for preparedness and mitigation, and it generates support for Emergency Management within the community.
When people see the historical evidence of recurring catastrophes, they realize it will happen again and are more likely to do something proactive to prepare themselves and their family. This ‘grass roots mitigation’ is critical.
Why? Who believes that your OEM can, by itself, prevent all property damage and loss of life during your next natural disaster? Of course not. That’s why it is so important to get people to help themselves. A big part of disaster mitigation involves just that - convincing people to take responsibility for their own survival through advance preparation and education.
This is a huge responsibility and a huge opportunity. Your Project Impact website will be the most easily accessible resource for community-specific information about disasters. It’s worth your time to do it right.
- Emergency Preparedness Education:
So now, lets take that opportunity and run with it. As I mentioned before, a website is the perfect place to provide preparedness information. You may also want to provide some information in brochure format that can be printed off the website, in PDF format, for example.
You will want to make sure your preparedness tips coordinate generally with those of FEMA and the American Red Cross. They are both great sources of information to use on your website. They have tons of brochures available on a wide variety of relevant subjects.
We also provide local information, regarding pre-determined sheltering locations and early notification processes we use in Fort Collins.
- Emergency Notification:
We use our website as a notification tool during emergencies also. For instance, this page is called “Breaking News.”
When we have an emergency event, we immediately post information such as evacuation instructions, sheltering, locations of flooded intersections, and photos as we get them.
We can also include post-disaster and recovery information, such as where to get help and tips for cleanup.
Our citizens our learning to visit the website during an event. They can also tell relatives from out of town to check the site if they can’t contact them during an emergency.
During the flooding on April 30th, 1999 our web designer was out in the storm taking digital pictures. He had photos on our site within a few hours. They were also beneficial for us in the EOC to give us a better idea of what was going on outside so we could make more informed decisions. They were also a great way to document the event and create a historical record for future Emergency Managers and historians.
On Y2K night we will be posting updates on the action, or lack of action, relating to Y2K every half hour beginning at 8 p.m. December 31st and continuing into the wee hours of New Year’s Day.
- Project Impact Page:
We created a specific Project Impact page. The page explains what Project Impact is, and what our goals as a community are. This lets us share the goals with our citizens and keep them updated on our progress.
We can also share our successes with other cities and towns, whether or not they are designated Project Impact communities. It is also the place where FEMA people can go to see what we’re up to.
- Project Status List:
On the Project Impact Page, we have a directory of all of our current projects. We have also included a directory of our monthly reports to FEMA, which keeps everyone up to date on our activities. We update the status and completion of projects as they occur.
You can click on the project and it will open a project overview page, providing details about that specific project. So if you see the project “Real Time Flood Inundation Mapping & Notification System” and you want to find out what the heck that is, you click on it and read the details in the ‘project overview.’
- Project Overviews:
For each project we do, even the ones that are not specifically Project Impact funded, we post a project overview - with the specific project’s explanation, goals, and accomplishments. This is also where we list the Project Impact Partners for each project. We also try to include a photograph of the project. Project details are provided so that other communities can easily adopt the idea.
- Mitigation Efforts:
The website is an excellent way to share mitigation efforts with other agencies, too. An example is our Natural Disaster Information Cards pictured on this slide.
This is a tool designed for 911 dispatchers, or anyone who answers the emergency phone lines during specified natural disasters. It is a series of questions forming a matrix used to formulate incident-specific advice for people caught in an emergency situation, similar to the widely used Emergency Medical Dispatch system. The entire NDIC book is available in PDF format and can be downloaded from our website for anyone to use.
- More Mitigation:
We can use the website as an instructional tool for the local community. The Creekside Park project is a perfect example:
- This was a home buy-out program conducted by Fort Collins Stormwater Division as a flood mitigation project. 30 mobile homes, 2 residences, and 1 business where removed from the floodplain in 1990. The land was converted to Creekside Park, which you see in this slide.
- In 1997 this area suffered a devastating flood which killed 5 women. During that flood, Creekside Park was under 20 feet of water.
- It is estimated that as many as 100 lives were saved by this single mitigation effort. Now that’s mitigation at its best!
- We provide information for our residents on where they can get information or help on home mitigation projects they may want to do.
- Edutainment:
Interesting stories or information will keep people coming back to your website. Here we have a brief history of Emergency Management which includes custom made graphics of the Civil Defense insignia from the World War II era.
The graphic designs were obtained from a 1942 Aetna Life Insurance brochure created to educate the public about Civil Defense (the forerunner of Emergency Management) and other war-related information. Sounds like disaster mitigation, doesn’t it?
- Historical Record:
Your website can serve as a historical record of your events and activities. We started a “Calendar of Events” - listed by dates - which started with our Project Impact signing ceremony.
We have documented events such as mall displays, conferences and meetings, and other important events as they occur -- including photos whenever we can.
- Summary Page:
Project Impact has enabled us to create a website that our community can be proud of for years to come. We believe it is an important tool, and is helping to make Fort Collins more disaster resistant.
It takes lots of work by lots of dedicated people to bring a website like this together and make it successful. But that’s the nature of Project Impact, isn’t it. Communities, Emergency Managers, First Responders, Utility experts, Computer experts, and many others partnering working together to create safer communities across America.
I hope I have been able to demonstrate what a valuable tool a website can be for a Project Impact community. And I hope this will inspire you to get started with a Project Impact website for your area.
- [Business Card]
