CityOfAventura.com has been recognized by Juggle as one of the top city government websites in the state of Florida. Below you'll find an interview with Rosie Marquez, Webmaster and Communications Specialist for the City of Aventura.
- CityOfAventura.com is a top-notch web portal; what has been your role in its development?
As the webmaster, I am responsible for creating and managing the site including content, embedded third party apps and social media. We manage the updates centrally to coordinate the information from all City Departments while maintaining consistency across the entire website.
- Can you summarize the history of Aventura’s web portal?
Our first website appeared in 1997 shortly after the City’s incorporation back in 1995. The site started out with static pages, as was the norm. Within a few years, online services began to be implemented. The first online service was our Online Registration System for residents to enroll in recreational programs and conduct online payments. In the last six years, we have added more and more online features including ePermits, WebLink for public documents, and MyAventura. In 2009, we began using social media content on our site.
- What are the overarching objectives of Aventura’s current e-government initiatives?
Our initiatives aim to raise the bar for customer service using technology to maintain a high level of service for our residents, businesses and visitors.
- From a marketing standpoint, what are some of the strategies that you have utilized to draw attention to the information and services provided by CityOfAventura.com, both on- and off-line?
Online, we use social media channels and in particular, Twitter. We have seen great success and it is building momentum every month. When we ‘tweet’ about information from our website, we always provide a link for details and online forms.
Offline we mention our website on any print materials, news releases, our cable TV channel and our radio station.
- How has citizen feedback influenced the development of Aventura’s e-government services?
We will run an online poll after implementing a new service such as our ePermits system. That poll gave us feedback to make immediate changes and improve the tool for our customers. We also receive emails from our site visitors giving us feedback and recommendations which we have implemented in the past. Something seemingly minor as a word change can help a site visitor quickly find the information they need.
- What is the most-used feature or service on the site?
It’s almost a tie between ePermits and our Online Registration System. ePermits allows residents, businesses and their contractors to view the status of building permits and request inspections. Online Registration is for enrolling in recreational classes and programs offered by our Community Services Department.
- In what way has harnessing Twitter allowed you to connect more directly and personally with the citizens of Aventura?
Twitter has really enabled us to broadcast real time messaging and with the RSS feed to our home page; our users can still see the information without even knowing what Twitter is. We know the response has been positive through the growing list of followers, and the increase in ‘retweets’ and mentions.
- How do you utilize the “My Aventura” service to disseminate information and create a personalized experience for citizens?
We use the Message Center module to broadcast email publications for different topics. Users control their subscriptions depending on their own preferences. We also use MyAventura to provide a dynamic calendar embedded on our site for events and meetings.
MyAventura is a completely personalized customer service portal bundling different types of information into one place. Residents can submit work requests for issues like broken streetlights or potholes, search through our knowledge base of FAQs or submit a specific question on any topic. MyAventura gives residents a direct link to the people who can answer their questions or address their concerns.
- Where do you see e-government heading in the next 2-3 years? Are there any exciting new features or services currently in the works for Aventura’s web portal?
From what we’ve already seen, e-government will continue to grow and become more interactive as more citizens use mobile apps and web browsers on their cell phones enabling more real time communication.
Visitors to our website can expect to see more interactive content and improved navigation to find information as we prepare to redesign our site.
- What else that you would like to tell us about CityOfAventura.com?
We welcome our website visitors to give us feedback so that we can continue to deliver a high quality of service to our community.