The Global Health and Safety Initiative, a collaboration to promote safety and sustainability among some of the leading organizations in the domestic health care sector, launched a new website and wiki to spearhead its efforts. Their strategy is to green the health care sector by encouraging health care administrators to view people, profits and the planet as a triple bottom line when thinking about health care.

The GHSI website features images of healing gardens, organic foods, sunlight-enhancing architecture, environmentally-preferable health care products, and other concepts being promoted by GHSI. The content is focused on the work groups, which is where the GHSI work is carried out. Significant exposure for founders and funders is also important for a group that is just being created.

The Smithsonian wanted two related websites: one that would serve as a permanent online exhibition for a collection of historic photographs, and another site for the Smithsonian's Asian Pacific American Program. The APA Program site would allow visitors to easily find the updated information about upcoming and recent events, volunteer opportunities, and other Smithsonian programs.

Because the Smithsonian site contains a wealth of exhibit and event information that is frequently updated, the site needed to have a clear logical structure that would allow visitors to find information easily and quickly. As a resource for millions in the U.S. and and abroad, the site also had to be fully Section 508 compliant for accessibility. The completed site provided familiar navigational tools such as a sitemap, as well as basic and advanced search options. However, most of the navigational design went into the site structure itself. The site uses clean, consistent, intuitive nagivational layout, along with hot-linked features on every page that provide previews of exhibit items that the visitor might otherwise not learn about.

National CAPACD is a national coalition of civil rights, community development, social service, education, and housing organizations that address the housing and community development needs of Asian Pacific American communities. They needed a website that reflects the diversity of APAs stretching from New York to Honolulu, and which also highlights individuals and groups in the coalition.

The National CAPACD website contains extensive resources for coalition members and for funders, legislators, journalists, and others interested in these issues and communities. Easy-to-use membership sign-up tools, newsletter subscription tools and donation features facilitate interaction with National CAPACD staff, and allow staff to find the data they need in the password-protected database attached to these interactivity tools.

Campaign Advantage created a blog for the Asian American Action Fund, an Asian American PAC whose website we created several years ago. Within months of its launch, the blog now has traffic comparable to the website itself.

"This is an example of how a client's needs evolve as the technology evolves," said Emi Ireland, President of Campaign Advantage. "Once we started the blog and trained their volunteer editors, they have been posting diaries almost every day."

A popular feature on the blog has been the opportunity for any member of the Asian American community to say in 500 words or less why they support any candidate. This, in turn, has led to an upsurge in comments and increased viewership.

The Asian American Action Fund (AAA-Fund), a not-for-profit Political Action Committee, asked us to implement an online campaign to help Asian Pacific American (APA) candidates and politically empower the APA community. The goal is to raise funds for candidates and encourage more APAs to get involved as volunteers, donors, and candidates. The website features information about Asian Pacific American candidates from across the nation.

To educate visitors about the issue, we created a database-driven interactive to show the level of under-representation in each state. In usability tests, the interactive map page created a healthy level of cognitive dissonance in visitors. They clicked on the data for their state, and were amazed that APAs could be so under-represented. They usually checked out the data for states where their friends and family reside as well. To channel that concern into positive action, we put three action buttons at the bottom of the results page. Visitors can either go to the Take Action page, send the data to a friend via email, or print out the data in a format that can be posted on a bulletin board, appended to a memo, or passed out as a flyer.

Painter, university professor, and feng shui master Catherine Yi-yu Cho Woo needed an online gallery to showcase her paintings for clients, gallery owners, and exhibition curators. Her website had to reflect the harmonious nature of her work, and provide high-quality, color-accurate online images of her paintings. Within days of launching her website, Dr. Woo was contacted by a gallery that had previously told her they currently did not have budget to host an exhibition of her paintings. "The director was impressed by the paintings she saw on your website," said her contact, "and wants to host your exhibition in a few months."

By allowing two levels of zooming, the permanent online photo gallery for the photographs of Ricardo Alvarado allows the online visitor to see the photographs with more detail than if the visitor had come to Washington to see the original offline exhibition.

Most museums keep visitors a safe distance away from their treasures, and the lighting and traffic in large galleries does not always allow a visitor to closely observe the story in the background of an historical photo. After exhibitions close or move on to other venues, the exhibition usually exists only in the minds of those who came to see it. Thanks to this permanent online gallery, these precious photos continue to be available for study and enjoyment.

We provided both technical and blogging (communications) services for the CleanMed 2008 conference, held in Pittsburgh from May 20 to 22, 2008. The conference blog was designed to give real time updates about the conference to the many people around the globe who were interested in promoting sustainability in health care but who could not attend the conference. Once the conference was over, the blog served as a reference tool for those seeking information about panels that had been blogged at the conference.

Liveblogging is the best way to promote a conference or other activity to both onsite and offsite participants, and we anticipate that more groups will be doing this in the years ahead.

An advocacy group dedicated to stopping a piece of legislation on Capitol Hill wanted a website that could make its case online, while also providing contact information, telling visitors how they could contact their legislators, and other traditional website functions.

Two Flash presentations were created that tell visitors, whether they have fast or slow internet connections, why they should oppose a bill pending on the Senate floor. Compelling personal stories, facts about the issue, and news releases give visitors personal reasons why they should support support the cause.

This website, created for the Century Council, features a compelling Flash presentation, materials on a program to curb alcohol abuse by college students, and an extensive private section of the website that includes an online discussion board and a variety of online reference materials for educators and others who are implementing alcohol abuse prevention programs.

Colorful, student-oriented graphics and layout keep the mood light, while thoroughly documented information on how to prevent alcohol abuse aimed at first year students, student athletes, fraternity members, and those who get caught drinking while driving helps students to address an issue that affects every college campus.

Based on the positive feedback they received for other websites we produced for them, the Century Council, a leading non-profit organization, invited us to produce a fourth website, focusing on high school students. Graphics and features were designed to appeal to students as well as educators and parents.

A database-driven ordering system allows visitors to order a CD-ROM and materials to teach students about the dangers of alcohol abuse, and an educator's guide, FAQ document, and other materials are easily downloadable in PDF format.

The Century Council, a leading non-profit organization, wanted a website that reached out to both youth and older target audiences. Graphics and features had to be lively and engaging, while conservative enough to appeal to educators, law enforcement, and parents. The website features a database-driven system for ordering Century Council materials, extensive press room resources, and information for Spanish-speaking visitors.

The online home of the D.H.S.'s Metropolitan Medical Response System is designed to help fire, police, ambulance, and other "first responders" from all over the nation to share information and respond quickly in case of a medical emergency. The website features public and private reference libraries, as well as a password-protected area with features available only to MMRS staff and affiliated individuals.

This website is the online home of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), an $11.6 million collaborative project of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, the California Department of Health Services, and the Public Health Institute. CHIS is the largest state health survey ever conducted in the United States. It is a telephone survey of over 55,000 California households across the state, focusing on public health and access to health care. CHIS data gives health planners, policy makers, counties, and communities a fuller picture of the health and health care needs facing California's diverse population.

The CHIS project demanded both database programming for the Internet and an effective, logical, and user-friendly interface for presenting complex data to broad audiences. As the survey reports are presented online, they feature published reports, policy briefs, fact sheets, and an online data query system that allows visitors to obtain information tailored to their needs—whether by health topics, population groups, or geographic areas. For example, a legislator, researcher, community group, or journalist will be able to determine specific health facts, such as the number of white women with cancer and no health insurance in Alameda County.

Reflecting the diversity of California, the site features materials in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Khmer (Cambodian). The flow was also designed to be user-friendly for the four main types of visitors to the site: legislators, researchers, journalists, and community-based organizations.