It’s another win for Simalam Inc. and Emerging Leaders at IABC’s Virtuoso Awards on June 6. The Virtuoso Awards have recognized excellence in communications and the best in creative strategy and design across Southwestern Ontario since 1995.
This award is the third for the exciting collaboration. Simalam received the Techcellence Community Engagement Award from TechAlliance in February; late last year, Simalam won an Outstanding Achievement Award in the charity/non-profit category at the Interactive Media Awards (IMA), an international competition honouring outstanding achievement in website design and development.
The client, Emerging Leaders (EL), is a London nonprofit organization focused on developing, engaging and retaining young professionals as a means to making London a more vibrant, dynamic, desirable and fulfilling place to live and work.
While the objectives were straightforward – to create a comprehensive, interactive, inclusive site that helps people get involved in the local community – a number of variables had to be considered: motivating factors for visitors, means by which they arrived at the site, context in which they viewed the site, visitor tasks, and organizational goals.
The new Emerging Leaders site allows users to access the content they want when they want it. The site is easily accessible from a range of mobile devices as well as desktop. It’s customizable: users can personalize their experience by selecting the content they want. Anyone can submit new items, events, blogs and other content, making it truly a community-centric site.
“The Emerging Leaders site is the product of strong collaboration between EL’s Sean Quigley and our team,” says Adam Malamis of Simalam Inc. “Without solid planning and an understanding of who was going to visit the site and what they wanted to accomplish, we couldn’t have created a site that really aims to give you the tools to make London yours.”
The numbers are noteworthy. Among other stats, visits to the EL site have increased by 137% since the redesign, and page views per visit have increased by 236%. And, most importantly, EL membership has tripled from the previous year.
Sean Quigley, executive director of Emerging Leaders is pleased by the results. “It’s about creating the space to achieve your ambitions. That can only happen through feeling you are connected to and a part of the community. The site connects you to London and lets you know where and how you can get engaged.”
