COJ.net 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 Kevin Holzendorf, Director and CIO of Jacksonville's Information Technology Department.
- COJ.net is a top-notch web portal; how has it been developed in terms of methodology?
The City of Jacksonville’s Information Technology Department (ITD), in close business partnership with City departments, developed COJ.net with an overarching vision of creating, standardizing and bringing to life a vibrant unified “voice” from the City to its citizens.
This vision manifests itself with COJ.net serving as a Content Management System (CMS) that provides a venue for each City department and division to clearly communicate their services. This content is standardized through policies and workflow, creating a professional and unified presentation of information and ideas. COJ.net aggregates this information into one easy to navigate website as evidenced by numerous favorable comments from City citizens.
- Can you summarize the history of Jacksonville's web portal?
COJ.net was and is intended to be THE portal to make City information and services easily and readily accessible while at the same time showcasing one of America’s top livable cities. As such, COJ.net was born out of a need to centralize City-wide departments and services onto one easily accessible web site. This centralization helps to ease citizen frustration in locating pertinent information and requesting services.
- What are the overarching objectives of Jacksonville's current e-government initiatives?
There are a number of objectives in Jacksonville’s current e-government initiatives that build upon and compliment the overarching COJ.net vision:
- Continue to enhance and expedite the exchange of information between the City and its residents.
- Provide a single point of entry for citizens to pay for an expanded range of items and services.
- Provide downloadable documents and forms.
- Increase employee productivity based upon decreased citizen telephone calls and visits to City departments.
- Decrease cost of paper printing, mailing, and processing.
- From a marketing standpoint, what are some of the strategies that you have utilized to draw attention to the information and services provided by COJ.net, both on- and off-line?
The most significant strategy involving COJ.net was to ensure that the URL was used as part of the direct marketing for the city’s initiatives in terms of an online presence. To keep cohesion, most initiatives or public services are kept on COJ.net and are assigned either a sub-domain (jpl.coj.net, maps.coj.net, ecare.coj.net) or a direct link (coj.net/mayor, coj.net/JSO).
In terms of online and offline advertising, one of the key policies was to always market COJ.net first, followed by a search keyword of the specific subject instead of using the actual URL link. This makes COJ.net the prominent address on the advertisements. An example of this would be the campaign for a key City initiative to increase economic opportunity and raise the income of Duval County residents: Blueprint for Prosperity. For print, video and online ads, the user is always directed to COJ.net and then asked to search for the keyword “blueprint.” This ensured that the viewer always started at the COJ.net home page, before moving on to the Blueprint for Prosperity web page.
- How has citizen feedback influenced the development of Jacksonville's e-government services?
Jacksonville’s e-government services are directly influenced by citizen feedback. The most significant on-going requests concern the ability to receive services electronically through COJ.net. We’ve developed products that enable the citizens to download documents; view public meeting notices; view archived video of government events; and pay fees online.
- What is the most-used feature or service on the site?
Our residents want transparency and broad access to information and it’s extremely important to the City to provide it. Our most popular sections of COJ.net are the Property Appraiser’s Property Search as well as the Building Inspection Division’s Permit Search. These sites are an example of how we allow our citizens to search for anything they need at home or out in the field.
- In what ways has social media (YouTube, Facebook, etc.) allowed you to connect more directly and personally with the citizens of Jacksonville?
Social media platforms allow us to stay in constant connection with the citizens of Jacksonville. The Mayor’s office, Special Events, the Jacksonville Sherriff’s Office, and others leverage Facebook, Twitter and Flickr to deliver their messages directly to our citizens. The messages that are relayed through social media are generally written in a conversational format which creates a more personal interaction with the viewer.
- Mayor John Peyton has started sending e-mail updates; how does this program enhance the way your government disseminates information?
Mayor Peyton’s email updates reach over 30,000 citizens of Jacksonville. It enables the Mayor’s office to deliver information on his public appearances, upcoming meetings, and social policy directly to those who opt-in for these updates. This method of delivery keeps his audience constantly aware of his agenda and links them back to COJ.net for a more in-depth explanation of his policies and outlook for the City. The email updates are specifically designed to compliment the messaging and access to information which is a hallmark of COJ.net.
- 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 Jacksonville's web portal?
The world moves fast and information moves even faster. COJ.net is being completely restructured by ITD to keep our residents even better informed by adding the ability to publish news faster than ever with live content updates. We’ll also be more fully integrating social networking services like Twitter and Facebook allowing us to deliver updated almost real-time news directly to our citizens. Additionally, there will be a stronger integration of video services so our residents can see government at work.
- What else that you would like to tell us about COJ.net?
COJ.net is continually evolving to both meet our constituents’ current needs and anticipate new ones. As such, constant change to COJ.net is a fact of life. In order to keep pace, ITD brings advanced technical expertise and tools to bear in order to make the City’s vision of open and accessible information and services to our citizens a reality.