Challenge
Strategically positioned within the City of San Jose Office of Economic Development, work2future addresses the workforce and economic development needs of San Jose-Silicon Valley, in collaboration with small and large businesses, educational institutions and community-based organizations.

NIA Creative began its relationship with work2future in 2006, and 4 years later, the organization remains one of NIA's most active clients. After developing a broad range and outreach and marketing materials, in 2009 we embarked on the development of a new work2future website. This presented a number of challenges:

• The existing website was overwhelming in its size, with poorly organized content and a confusing navigation system that had a number of "bolt-ons" that made it even more unwieldly
  
• Content that was long out of date, and often contained information more suitable for staff than job seekers and businesses
  
• The site had been left-out of the re-branding campaign, meaning that it needed to be completely re-designed
  

Recommendations
We recommended that the new website be designed with a contemporary look and feel that would target businesses as well as job seekers and youth. We suggested a streamlined navigation system with well-organized content that truly targeted work2future customers rather than providing links and documents that would be more relevant to government workers than customers. We also recommended that our staff write the content to ensure consistency of messaging and tone throughout the site. Finally, we proposed implementing a custom Content Management System (CMS) that would make it easy for work2future staff to maintain and update the content over time.

Solution
NIA Creative began by developing a flow chart to depict the architecture of the site, demonstrating the proposed streamlined navigation system and planned content areas. We re-purposed photography we had shot at work2future previously to leverage projects work2future had already paid for, but implemented them in a contemporary way throughout the site. We created a new CMS system and wrote all content for the site, resulting in a completely new website, both inside and out.

Results
The website was enthusiastically received by work2future staff, clients and partners. The site has a modern look, and the overall feeling conveyed by the site is a feeling of opportunity. The site has done a fantastic job in reaching out to businesses and job seekers, evidenced by both significant increases in traffic as well as an ever-growing opt-in list. The new Content Management System (CMS) we implemented will enable the site to grow and evolve with work2future for many years to come.

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