- Connecting Virginia Beach communities
- A platform for programs
- Mobile app for citizen feedback
About Virginia Beach Connected
A social network for citizens in the Virginia Beach community to connect online in a neighborly way. Making neighborhoods safer through our technology.
We celebrate and support the wide range of organizations in VB that bring color, character and quality of life to our community.
Needs and Problems
Existing Program Support
Breadth of Features
Familiarity & Ease of Use
Ownership
Process Employed
They deployed their new web site through the iterative approach followed by most organizations building hubs. The phases they went through:
Prototype: Covered roughly two months; two weeks for structuring the new Connect site to match their old site, one month for development of new features, and two weeks for socializing it to stakeholders, gaining feedback, and then reaching consensus to go to the next phase.
Beta: Began immediately; the prototype "turned into" the beta. Additional customizations were made, users brought up and initial programs launched.
Soft Launch: As the beta continued and confidence grew, the site morphed into the initial "for real" system as existing content was added and Garden employees and volunteers were trained on how to manage the content for which they were responsible.
Production: It's now in full production with the full suite of capabilities employed: Web, mobile, management console and a number of cloud services plugged in.