There is a perilous condition tearing through local government called Too Much Software Syndrome (TMSS). Chances are you have TMSS and are not even aware.
It's those Salesforce seats you never filled. The DAM that purchasing just blindly pays every year. Or that ancient payment platform that has no API and that three generations of IT folks are still blaming on their predessors but not bothering to replace. Or the fact that four of your departments, all with nearly identical business needs, are paying different vendors to do the same job.
ka-ching. ka-ching. ka-ching.
Where does the madness end? Right here, thank you. OrgCentral is a one-stop software bloat wrecking ball. A single, highly-integrated package that takes care of dozens of jobs that used to take dozens of tools.
Check out the videoWe love the tools we've built, but even we don't want to spend all day in them. And unless you're trying to appear busy to the resident who comes to City Hall every morning to whine, neither should you.
Our customizable, web-based and highly flexible software platform delivers next generation website management tools PLUS a powerful suite of modules designed to handle the business-end of running a modern government organization. All while continually harnessing the collective wisdom of your team and constituents.
With OrgCentral at the switch, understaffed, overwhelmed City staffers can stop wasting time on the mundane,redundant and soul crushing and start spending time on the things that matter: Innovating. Delighting customers. Rolling out new services. Generating revenue. And taking the occasional night off :)
There is a perilous condition tearing through local government called Too Much Software Syndrome (TMSS). Chances are you have TMSS and are not even aware.
It's those Salesforce seats you never filled. The Adobe license that purchasing just blindly pays every year. Or that ancient payment platform that has no API and that three generations of IT folks are still blaming on their predessors but not bothering to replace. Or the fact that three of your departments, all with nearly identical business needs, are paying three different vendors to do the same job.
ka-ching. ka-ching. ka-ching.
Where does the madness end? Right here, thank you.
Check out the videoIf you've ever felt like the people who created the software tools you use every day, have no clue as to what your job actually is, rejoice. We've got your back.
We know that if using your software feels like putting your hand on a hot stove, you'll stop using it. If the suck-to-success ratio is not squarely in your favor, you'll find other ways to do things.
We've spent countless hours perfecting every part of OrgCentral's administrative interface to make sure that using it puts a smile on your face. The system is extremely intuitive and our Atomic Design approach interconnects all the parts to ensure that you never have to do anything twice.
And we're not operating in a vacuum in some secret software lair either. Au contraire. Every one of our features was inspired by, collaborated on and tested by real-life local government heroes just like you. If there's ever anything that doesn't fit into your workflow or do exactly what you need it to do, we'll adjust it. Not many vendors will say that.
If you’re involved in local government today, you know all the “what ifs.” What if you could get all your data to work together? What if your systems were expandable and built just for the unique needs of your organization? What if you didn’t have to rely on disparate systems, a roll of duct tape and a prayer to do what you need to do, day in and day out? What if your knowledge base didn’t have to disappear every time a key staffer leaves? And how much would you accomplish if you could spend less time managing and more time imagining?
There’s no need to wonder anymore. OrgCentral is a customizable, web-based and highly flexible software solution delivers website management, a powerful suite of tools designed to handle the business-end of running a complex government organization and a way to harness and archive the collective wisdom of your staff and constituents—all in one easy-to-use, highly evolved system. With OrgCentral, all the dots are automatically connected for you. And things not only work--they work the way you want them to—we'll never ask you to make a compromise or deal with funky workarounds to get things done. And there is nothing we can't build or extend from our existing core feature set. So challenge us. Tell us your biggest pain point and we'll make it go away.We don't do generic. When's the last time you bought anything from a brand you could not relate to? Probably never. You’ve clearly worked very hard over the years to make sure your city is not a cookie cutter place—you deserve more than a cookie cutter website! With OrgCentral, you get a team that actually takes the time to get to know you. A team that takes a fresh approach to everything it does...that is open to saying no to the status quo...that knows the value of user empathy in design and is always ready to question convention.
We are innovative and sprited enough to realize that towns and cities today need to be smarter. They need to think like consumer brands. And bring their A game when it comes to content, communications and services. They need to deliver content like a media company. And innovate like crazy. We are acutely aware that phoning in another generic looking and functionally shallow retread of a website (apologies to our competitors) is just not going to cut it. Here’s to doing great things together!Self-driving cars, intelligent curbs, 6G, subterranian delivery robots, ice-melting bike lanes and zero emission timber buildings. The promise of smart cities is brilliant. And much of it's pretty far off. In the meantime, we've got tools that can make your city smarter and more efficient right now.
Cities today are complex ecosystems and OrgCentral goes a long way towards taming the beast. Everyone of our modules is elegantly integrated with every other one and we make sure you never have to enter anything twice.
There's nothing worse than living with bad software. (Except maybe the RFP process to replace it.) With OrgCentral, you get a modern, infintely extensible system that will grow with you--not hold you back.
As experienced as we are with local government, we know there's always more to learn so we're always listening. Every one of our features was inspired by real-life professionals in real-life cities...just like you. So enlighten us.
Got a process that’s taking too much time, too many people or too much paper? Bring it on! Chances are OrgCentral's already got a module that can help. But be warned, this efficiency stuff can be addicting.
If it sometimes feels like you need a lost and found box for your own data, you came to the right place. OrgCentral's powerful Atomic Design structure allows you to easily create multiple pathways to everything on your site. Behind the scenes, robust reporting connects every dot in real time.
With 20 built-in enterprise-class modules, OrgCentral puts you in the driver's seat when it comes to managing data, facilities, content, people and more. Our unique one-and-done pricing model, means you'll never be nickle and dimed or saddled with vaporous and hard-to-justify licensing contracts.
Let's face it--there are a lot of moving parts in local governent. Information disconnects can kill any organization's efficiency and credibility. OrgCentral's unique, Atomic Content model seamlessly connects departments, people, events, revenue, tasks and communications.
The OrgCentral platform is not beholden to a set release schedule or a dumb-size-fits-all roadmap. We realize no two organizations are the same and have baked in a ton of flexibility and extensibility into our system architecture to accommodate almost anything you can dream up.
Since our platform centralizes many vital 'back of house' functions (20 of them at last count), your data is, by default, in one place and ready to be queried, mined and otherwise put to good use. No APIs or drama needed.
With OrgCentral, you get form and function in one place. That means a modern, intuitive, mobile-ready website powered by a suite of tools designed to make managing not only your website, but many of your key back-of-house operations and processes exponentially easier. OrgCentral is virtually future proof and will eliminate costly licenses for other software that everyone probably hates anyway.
Every time we think we've seen everything in local government, we see something new. That's what makes this work so much fun. Tell us your best local government success story.
After years of workarounds and death-by-a-thousand-cuts sacrifices, we finally have a platform that works (and thinks) like we do."
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Lots of things bug us about municipal web sites theses days, so where to begin? Let’s spin the Wheel-O-Cliches and see where she stops...Behold the LIVE, WORK, PLAY BUTTONS...or how about the dreaded “I want to…” link leading to 300 arcane actions, many written in the wrong tense?...The giant homepage image carousel that never changes is alway fun…And let’s not forget the 37, circa-1999 icons scattered all over creation approach to “Quick” navigation…
There’s a lot to take issue with there, but today, the Wheel-O-Cliches will click, click, click to a stop at the Mega Menu--a really smart idea bursting with interactive, click driving potential that’s been ruined by lazy executions. The concept of the Mega Menu is to provide users with an alternative way of discovering the good stuff. A dynamic, curated look at a site’s highlights.
The problem is that many Mega Menus simply regurgitate the same blizzard of tiny links found in the site’s regular navigation without offering any new help, hierarchy or insight. If your content is too spread out, runs five layers deep or contains words that have no meaning outside of City Hall, put on your content strategy hat, open your analytics and rethink things. Plopping that same hot mess into a giant eye chart of a dropdown is just reminding everyone that you didn’t do your information architecture homework in the first place. #makemegabetter
One look at your site analytics one thing becomes abundantly clear. Browsing habits are changing rapidly. Mobile use is up. Attention spans are down. And users-paths through your site can look like they were created by Taz himself. We do a ton of user testing around here and here’s what we’re finding of late...
Above the fold is no longer a thing. Conditioned by their smartphones, most folks much prefer scrolling to clicking, so build pages and stories accordingly.
No one cares about your city org chart. They just want to get things done. So provide multiple pathways to action: by department...by action...by date. And refer to things in plain English vs. Government-ese.
And don’t count on your home page being the first thing people see any more either. A recent test we did, showed that nearly 30% of visitors skipped their City’s home page by bookmarking the things they use a lot.
So how do you communicate with folks who routinely skip the front door? You devise ways to show them things on their terms. Think of your site less as a series of separate rooms and more like an open space where things can overlap. Think of it as a Piggly Wiggly. They don’t just put the Doritos in the snack aisle. They also put them near the fresh guac that’s on sale. And near the beer. And by the registers.
You can do the same. As someone’s on the way to building permits, show them that revised code ordinance and the new workforce incentive that Economic Development just rolled out. As someone browses park and rec programs, tell them about the open lifeguard positions at the Aquatic Center and next summer’s Town Square concert series.
OrgCentral’s Atomic Content model makes all of this super easy to think about and to apply.
Meet Vera. Vera runs parks programming for a major Midwest City. Vera hates springtime. Not because of the new life spring ushers in after a long, snowy winter, but because it means the 150 parks programs the city offers each spring all need to be put online.
The tools Vera was given to do said “putting online” involve a ton of clicks, a lot of double entry of data, multiple Excel checklists, a bunch of odd workarounds and a lot of squinting at really Fugly (technical term) admin screens.
This is not fun for Vera. And she knows that all that wasted time could be spent doing other things—like training coaches, rolling out new programs, community outreach and you know—doing the rest of her job.
But instead, Vera is stuck at her desk wondering why the software she has does not work how she does. Or why it doesn’t talk to the city’s accounting software. Or why, when she's done setting up all those awesome rec programs, it comes out looking like a DMV form.
Of course she has ideas on how to make things better, but she’s not "techy" so she assumes the system is as good as it gets. She did bring it up once, but Scott in IT told her she was crazy. She also made a suggestion to the vendor responsible for her spring pain and was told what she wanted was not on their road map. No. No. No. Eventually, like the trained fleas in this story Vera gave up and resigned herself to the spring grind.
Vera’s story is not unique. Every city (yours included) is running some outdated, disconnected, hard-to-use software. Software that should have been shown the door years ago, but somehow lives on, like a unbenevolent dictator, wasting time, gumming up the works, and in Vera’s case, taking her spring away.
So here’s the moral of the story. If you use a system that sucks (another technical term) and you have ideas on how to make it better, speak up. You don’t have to be technical either. Just bring your idea to the table and make your case in plain English. If you’re an IT manager or someone who makes software buying decisions (are you listening Scott?) check in with your users, see how they’re doing and how you can help. Then push your vendors to do better. It’s what you pay them for isn’t it?
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s,
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s,
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s,
Look at the average City website these days and besides the fact that many look oddly similar, interior pages are often the same. You can have the one column layout. A single column layout or to mix it up, a lone column layout. Meanwhile, more than ever, you have stories to tell. And story tellers need options. Ways to connect dots...to add visuals and make things modular for your attention starved readers.
So why do many websites look so bland? It may be because site designers are too conservative or too lazy. Or because the “Good Enough” bar has been set way too low. Or maybe it’s because they are afraid of you, our dear site editor. Afraid that you might break something. Afraid that you might suddenly develop a love of fuchsia and the Comic Sans font and decide to flaunt it. Afraid that you are going to ask too many questions.
OrgCentral takes a very different tack. Site editors have many layout options to select from and can embed dynamic content like calendars, forms and FAQs easily almost anywhere without double entry. Most of all, they can do all of this without fear of trashing something by mistake and tripping the Ugly Page alarm. And guess what? When site editors are not running scared and see how easy this content stuff can be, they will contribute more. And that’s a win-win for everyone.