Business Objective: Get the word out about a local school board election campaign.
Technical Challenges:
Candidate and volunteers need to maximize face-to-face time — online efforts should support this
Use freely-available tools wherever possible
Technical Solution: Website draws on content provided by third-party tools that volunteers and the community can contribute to: Google calendar, Flickr photos and Yahoo Groups mailing lists.
Business Objective: Distribute the audio for weekly church services — spreading the word and introducing the church to new audiences.
Technical Challenges:
Enable weekly audio update by client with volunteer staff and limited technical knowledge
Do all of this in a way that lets folks concentrate on the audio, not the web
Technical Solution: Laptop with Linux and Audacity to edit the audio. Customized Perl scripts generate the podcast XML and upload the audio to the server. XSL stylesheet integrates the podcast feed into the website for Internet Explorer 6 users.
Business Objective: Help a national cancer campaign make the most of their investment in video online — and call for donations.
Technical Challenges:
Adapt significant made-for-TV video to effective online communication and fundraising tool
Tight timeframe and low budget
Technical Solution: A widget — an embed-able video and donation button that supporters can with one click put on their web or Facebook page — combines video and donation action.
Business Objective: Growing church congregation needed a way to keep everyone informed — without expert staff.
Technical Challenges:
Keeping website content up-to-date
Enable content update by client with limited technical knowledge and no staff dedicated to the web site
Coordinate with existing (paper-based) information flow
Work with a variety of constituents to refine message
Technical Solution: Deployment of Joomla, an open-source CMS, lets non-technical people add events and copy to the site. Copy is added by a simple web-based editor.
Business Objective: Connecticut State Police wanted to modernize their criminal records system, giving officers better access to information and replacing the existing mainframe solution to save costs.
Technical Challenges:
Handling 1.25 million transactions a month in a high availability environment; front end required to scale to 1500 simultaneous users
Integration with a dozen systems in state and across the nation
Coordinating and displaying multiple asynchronous responses from these systems
Implementation of GJXDM, a Justice Department standard for XML message interchange
Technical Solution: Implementation of a Advanced Technology System’s XMR, a central message switch using web services and XML-based translation implemented in .NET.
On the front end, an ASP application was modified to handle generation of multiple inquiries and display of results. Parsing of results for subsequent query is done in the client application’s web service.
Business Objective: Architecture firm wanted to increase their online exposure by moving their portfolio online, replacing the slide show the principles would lug to initial client meetings.
Technical Challenges:
Increase search engine exposure
Enable content update by client with limited technical knowledge and staff dedicated to the web site
Technical Solution: Deployment of Apache Cocoon, an open-source Java web application framework, applies consistent formatting for content using XSL.
Copy is added by a simple web-based editor. Scale of the site meant that an XML file-based storage of site copy and image resources was appropriate. Search engine positioning was helped by partnerships with sites with high reputations.
Business Objective: The Department of Labor needed a centralized place for disparate business units to enter public events, increasing both visibility and usability.
Technical Challenges:
Integration with a legacy web site using server-side includes for templating
Organizational issues meant that design and development teams were not well integrated. Design team needed rapid prototyping that could be usability tested with the target audience.
Technical Solution: An application consisting of an ASP controller that renders XML pulled from the database. The design team provided XSL stylesheets, enabling usability testing while development proceeded on the controller and model layers.
Business Objective: Medical practice wanted to use the web to expand the market for its cholesterol-lowering dietary supplement.
Technical Challenges:
Accepting online payments and easing order fulfillment
Limited technical knowledge and staff dedicated to the web site
Technical Solution: Deployment of Apache Lenya, a Java-based content management system (CMS), applies consistent formatting for content, allowing copy to be added by a simple web-based editor. Integration with PayPal for credit card processing and order fulfillment met the client’s needs for simplicity.
