Challenge
The City of San Jose, in partnership with over 30 public and non-profit organizations,
approached NIA Creative with a request to create a website and collateral materials for their
collaborative called BusinessOwnerSpace.com (BOS) – a virtual organization providing
business support services to small businesses and entrepreneurs located in San Jose –
Silicon Valley. But while BOS is a virtual organization, its partners operate brick-and-mortar
organizations that provide direct assistance to business owners and prospective business
owners. As such, BOS materials needed to not only educate and inform in their own right,
but at the same time, they also needed to drive traffic to the individual BOS Partners so that
direct services could be provided.

Recommendations
NIA Creative recommended the development of a highly intuitive and informative website
that provided key insights into major content areas of interest to business owners. Within
these areas, NIA would write high-level content covering the most critical information for
business owners and entrepreneurs – and BOS partners who assist in those areas would be
featured, along with links to their custom profile housed on the BOS site. To reach out to
Silicon Valley’s diverse ethnic and business community, we proposed utilizing photography
depicting the variety of businesses and cultures of the area. We recommended the creation
of a “virtual tour” of the site, as well as key site utilities such as an interactive site map,
keyword search, FAQ and help page. We recommended that print collateral be designed and
developed once the homepage had been created to ensure that all materials functioned as
an integrated campaign.

Solution
Per our recommendations, we shot custom photography that was used in a flash banner on
the homepage as well as on pages throughout the site. We also developed a flash-animated
Guided Tour that is accessible from the site, and delivered the same tour on an interactive
CD. We wrote all content for the site, and created unique features such as a short
self-assessment process that helps direct site visitors to areas of the site that will be of greatest
interest to them based on their business needs. The database-driven site was set-up in a
way that enables BOS Partners to update and maintain the content with ease. Partners are
able to create their own profile page, input events into an interactive calendar, etc. We
designed and printed collateral to support the site, including a presentation folder, trifold
brochure, flyer and poster as well as vinyl banners that were hung from street poles in downtown
San Jose to generate excitement for Launch Week.

Results
The City of San Jose and all BOS Partners were thrilled with the website, as were the elected
officials and small business owners and entrepreneurs that attended the launch events. The
site received a Proclamation from the San Jose City Council, and site statistics show that site
visitors are accessing not only the site’s content, but also clicking on links to BOS Partners.
The collateral was disseminated during launch week and was also well-received. Plans this
year call for a video library spotlighting BOS Partners, monthly e-blasts and more.

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