The Boston Private Industry Council engages in a broad range of activities of interest to the workforce development community including researchers, policymakers, labor and community groups and the media. These activities include research, program evaluations and policy development. But Boston PIC also provides or oversees direct services. It sets up workplace learning experiences for high school students and recent graduates through a staff of career specialists, employer organizers, and program coordinators and it actively recruits employers to participate in these programs.
The Boston PIC originally approached Database Designs to do a visual updating of their Dreamweaver website. After reviewing the existing site, we advised the organization that they would be better served by starting with a major rethinking of the way information was organized and presented to visitors. The existing site did not adequately represent the full range of the PIC’s mission, key information was hard for visitors to find, and it was difficult for the staff to keep the site up-to-date because the same content was appearing in multiple locations throughout the website.
Through a strategic assessment and planning process that involved key PIC program staffers as well administrators, we proposed that PIC adopt the Drupal content management system to support the redesign. We developed a new navigation system and Home page design to help channel different visitors quickly to the content they needed. We were able to use the power of Drupal’s database driven system to make information available to multiple audiences on different pages of the site while centralizing the process of posting the original content. This included both research and publications, as well as staff listings.
Following a successful launch in May 2008, the Boston PIC hopes to create a intranet accessible through the website that will serve to facilitate communication among its many committees and working groups.
