Mesa site abuzz with information

If you spot a swarm of bees outside your door, don't despair. A nine-step action plan is just a click away. Mesa, AZ, recently launched a city government Web site replete with all types of information for residents and visitors alike. Powered by Stellent Content Management, the system is said to enable city employees to readily manage and publish content to the site.

The many topics covered on the Mesa site include city government, events, jobs, forms, maps, e-services, news, and departments and divisions. People can visit the site to find information about living in Mesa, visiting Mesa and doing business in Mesa. Residents also can find answers to frequently asked questions and learn how to report certain types of problems (like bee swarms and potholes and streetlight outages, to name a few).

According to a recent news release from Stellent, its software allows the city to automate and streamline the process of developing and distributing government content. Using a Web browser, employees can contribute content to the software, where it is saved in its native format, such as a word processing document, spreadsheet or graphic file. After content is submitted, the system automatically converts it from its native format to a variety of Web formats and publishes the content to the Web site.

"As the amount of content on the city's Web site grew, we quickly realized it was necessary to automate and simplify many of the manual processes we employed to support the site," says Jessica Weiss, a Web specialist for the city. "This solution enables us to create, manage and publish Web site content in a more timely fashion, and allows us to offer content we could not offer previously due to the time involved with the manual processes. The system minimizes the time required for our existing employees to support the site.