Recent Projects (2006)

American Health Care Association (1996-2001)

I was the Director of Electronic Communications from 1996 through 2001 and designed three web sites and a content management system for internal staff. The most important areas of my work there fall under three categories: Media Relations, Content Management, and Electronic Commerce

Media Relations: Converging Media

The synergy of television, radio, printed material and internet is a powerful public relations tool. I worked an independent media relations firm to adapt client initiatives and image campaigns to the Internet. The coordination of these efforts enabled the client to successfully penetrate targeted audiences.

Projects

The Employment Initiative was a staffing recruitment program designed for long term care facilities. I created the extranet component of this campaign by adapting content to the web, providing audio examples of Radio Spots and visuals from the printed material.

The Campaign to Save Long Term Care: Video Clip from NBC's Today Show in the "Forever Young: A Guide to Life After 50" segment of the show. (March 27, 2001)*

(Requires RealMedia Player software. Click here to download free copy and install the software.)

The Consumer's Guide to Nursing Facilities was developed by the American Health Care Association as a public service. The Long Term Care industry is frequently the recipient of negative press. Consumers are faced with an emotionally charged subject surrounded by many complicated issues such as the quality of elderly care and how to pay for nursing care. I adapted the printed material to the web and customized a CGI form to allow consumers to request a free printed copy of the material. Bulk quantities could be purchased from the AHCA Bookstore.

Data Management

Content Management Tools

Using IntraNet Solutions' HTML Transit and Transit Central software, I automated repetitive posting by allowing content authors to publish their material. HTML Transit easily publishes content from source documents into HTML or XML directly to the Web. Using Transit Central, I scheduled the server to run updates automatically. End users simply draged and dropped their files to the appropriate folders, and their content is updated accordingly.

Intranet Content Management System

The Intranet Content Management System was a collaborative project designed to automate data flow from end users to the web sites. This project encompassed a broader range of source documents, including Word, Excel, PDF and HTML documents, and our system focused on three key areas.

User Interface
Users complete a form which gathers all necessary information about their content, including a content summary and destination on web sites. They specify the locations of the source documents using a point and click menu. This information is sent to the Intranet server via CGI scripting.

Data Collection
The form data sent via CGI is stored in a FileMaker Pro database. All necessary information to process the content is captured and contained in the database.

Web Publishing
Every week, a summary report is generated using FileMaker Pro. This information and the source documents are converted to HTML and PDF format and posted on the web sites. The majority of this content is published on the AHCA Extranet and provides valuable industry-specific information to the association's membership.

Prior to the implementation of this system, this information was sent in hard copy. The estimated annual savings in postal fees alone exceeds $50,000.

Electronic Commerce

The AHCA Bookstore

Launched in the fourth quarter of 1999, the AHCA Bookstore has sold over $90,000 of products in 2000. The development team consisted of three people: Director of Marketing, Technical Liaison at the Fulfillment House and myself. Our goal was to make the association's entire product catalogue available for purchase via a secure server and use minimal staff resources and funding as possible.

Back-End Software, Design and Construction

The Bookstore ran on PDG's Shopping Cart Software. The site resided on a remote server; however, I designed the interface to appear as if the end user was still accessing the ahca.org site. This approach maintained corporate identity while integrating customer service and the client's main site. QuarkXpress files and EPS images were obtained from the Service Bureau to eliminate rekeying product description text and the expense of product shots. In turn, I adapted the graphics to web format, and pasted the product text into the database component of the PDG software.