Advantage West Midlands (AWM) is offering a helping hand to
their partner organisations during the difficult economic climate
with a groundbreaking, low cost solution which enables AWM-funded
organisations to get a new website up and running in record
time.
The Regional Development Agency (RDA) for the West Midlands has
worked with Amaze to develop a new infrastructure to deliver
websites for local partner organisations, no matter what the size -
from small start-up projects with only a few web pages to larger
local ventures with hundreds.
In a matter of a few weeks and for minimal cost, organisations
can now build a website which demonstrates professionalism, ensures
consistency and reduces the time required for website
administration. It also provides access to a wide range of
sophisticated website features that would otherwise be unavailable
to them.
Choosing from a range of pre-built website templates and
features including blogs, forums, event calendars and image
libraries, partners can build the website that is right for them.
At the same time, each website is different, allowing the
organisation to retain its own look and feel for their own
autonomous website.
Content is managed using SDL Tridion's content management
system. Features include the Tridion BluePrinting capability,
which is key to the fast generation of new sites from the AWM
Infrastructure, and the Tridion Outbound Email facility, which
enables website owners to create newsletters and publicise events.
Ken Clark, the Regional Website Project Manager for Advantage
West Midlands said: "We realised we needed to find a way of
ensuring the investment Advantage West Midlands is making in these
sites is the most efficient and effective use of our available
resources.
"This solution ensures both cost and time to put a new site in
place has been greatly reduced. Partners don't have to spend as
much as they would if they went online independently and we can
ensure standards are maintained as partners are able to refresh
sites easily."
New partner sites continue to join the initiative, with
currently ten sites live, four in the process of being implemented
and even more in the pipeline. The latest site to go live is
www.wmfor2012.com. This site was built in under a month and was
launched in July 2009. It supports and promotes the various
activities around the region and the five sub regions in
preparation for 2012.
With every new organisation that joins the community, the return
on investment and the pool of available functionality is increased,
meaning the benefits are felt across all sites and the AWM website
community continues to evolve. As some organisations require extra
features such as social media integration, interactive maps,
streaming video, Flash integration, or a secure membership
registration process, these features are added to the 'pool' of
functionality that new and existing organisations can choose
from.
Ken Clark said: "The beauty is that this solution works on
different scales, from large sites to very small sites where they
get a great deal of functionality for a reasonable budget."
Amaze was selected as the partner for the Advantage West
Midlands website infrastructure project because of their expertise
in web design and build projects and experience in Content
Management systems. Amaze is handling all aspects of the project
and is continuing to play a pivotal role in promoting and growing
the community. The marketing and technology company also
hosts the community of websites and provides support and training
services via a dedicated helpdesk.
Ian Wallace, Account Director at Amaze, said: "The innovative
approach is something of which both Amaze and AWM are very proud.
It's a great example of how an original vision can be turned into
reality, to the benefit of all concerned. We see the AWM model as
clearly best practice in the industry. It should be an example for
Regional Development Authorities and similar organisations around
the country."