e-government (e-gov): the ability for citizens to communicate and /or interact with government via the Internet in a way more sophisticated than a simple email letter to the webmaster, and to provide access to services and information twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
A 2002 survey of Internet use found that, for information or services from a government agency, 65% of all Americans expect the Web to have that information. That's up more than 20% in two years.
The rising expectations for municipal websites represent a great opportunity and, possibly, a heavy burden. Municipal governments are already stretched thin. How will they meet the e-government challenge?
Most local governments turn either to volunteers, outside web design firms, or add the Website task to a staff member's job description. All these solutions have drawbacks. Volunteers come and go and are hard to control. Web design firms specialize in commercial sites and do not understand the special needs of local government (such as budget restrictions). And your staff members are already overburdened: Which task do they drop to pick up the website?
Virtual Town Hall: a firm that specializes in affordable web services for local governments.
Since 1998, Virtual Town Hall® (VTH) has helped small and medium-sized municipal governments take advantage of the Internet. These 22,000 local governments are vitally interested in e-government but often lack the MIS resources to fully implement it. By using VTH, they connect their residents and visitors to local information and services in an effective and efficient manner.
For the following reasons, our approach to e-gov sets us apart from your other options.
Specialize in helping local governments
Over the past four years Virtual Town Hall has had extensive experience with building municipal sites. We've constantly refined our understanding of the needs of a municipal customer based on:
w Evaluation of thousands of municipal government websites
w Participation in Web design seminars at municipal association conferences in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Florida and Illinois, and at the national level at NLC and ICMA conferences
w Direct feedback from municipal staff
w Reviews of literature concerning e-government and municipal website design
Our experience and knowledge makes it easier, and faster, for us define key customers and their specific content and service needs as it applies to e-government projects.
Create easy-to-use, affordable services
Smaller communities want many of the same online services a visitor finds on a big city website. Most of those services, however, come with high price tags and require specialized staff .
We understand the financial and technical constraints of small and medium-sized governments. We scale our services for your budget and and make them easy for existing staff to use. Sometimes, we partner with other companies to create these services; sometimes we build the service ourselves. In either case, the goals are easy-to-use and affordable.
Give maximum control over the content; minimize the technical worries
Our content manager allows municipal staff to quickly add or edit content on your website. In less time than it takes to make one photocopy, they can change web pages, publish documents, and update calendars.
To minimize technical hassles, we host the website and our services on our servers. This means we are responsible for making sure they are available to Internet users 24/7, protected from hackers and viruses, and backed up on a timely basis. When you need to make changes to the website, you login to VTH through your Internet connection.
Provide unlimited training & support
No matter how easy it is to work on your website, people will have questions. Some staff are still nervous about using the computer and Internet; other times you want to do something different and need instruction. We're here to help, over the phone and Internet, so that you get the most out of our services.
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