CEOs for Cities
Services: Web Design, Custom CMS
Date Launched: June 2008
Case Study
CEOs For Cities is a Chicago-based network of mayors, corporate CEOs, university presidents, foundation officials and business and civic leaders which produces research and new ideas about issues and innovation in America's urban areas. Headed by Carol Coletta, host and producer of the nationally syndicated public radio show Smart City, CEOs for Cities is dedicated to providing the answer to the question: "what makes cities succeed?"
CEOs for Cities came to Green Egg Media in early 2008 with a simple problem: they had outgrown their website. While the site was very content-driven, it was powered by a complicated posting system, making it an escapade each time a user wanted to locate specific content. Additionally, it was cumbersome to post rich media and allow visitors to easily find and view it. This was especially problematic as CEOs for Cities, in an attempt to expand their appeal to a wider audience, was starting to create videos and other media to showcase their research.
Green Egg Media started by designing a site where content was accessible and organized, both for end users and the content creators. By creating a prevalent and visible tag system that tied all the site's area's together, as well as a more transparent commenting system, rather than remain hidden, the site's content rose to the top level and became easy to access and read through. GEM also interfaced with the SlideShare, YouTube, and Flickr APIs to create a custom back end that made it simple to post media to any area of the site. RSS feeds were expanded from just one (for the blog) to multiple regularly updated RSS feeds for virtually every part of the site. For members of the CEOs for Cities network, GEM created a private area that, when a member is logged in, makes it simple for members to read content set aside for their eyes only.