Client List & Portfolio

City College of San Francisco

Global Website Discovery, Brand Experience & Strategic Planning

In Summary

• conducted extensive market and brand acceptance research
• interviewed 100+ students and stakeholders
• surveyed 1200+ website users
• audited and analyzed current CCSF website (20,000+ pages)
• delivered multidisciplinary 450+ page report with recommendations
• presented customized executive summaries

All discovery activities were undertaken to build a customized, strategic foundation for EMG’s ongoing work with the City College of San Francisco to redevelop their entire website and configure an enterprise content management system to match their specific needs.

Client Background & Needs

The City College of San Francisco (CCSF) is one of the largest community colleges in the United States and more than 100,000 students attend courses at its 11 campuses annually. Offering courses in academic programs and occupational disciplines leading to two year Associate of Arts and Science degrees, CCSF has almost 2,000 faculty and staff members who work within its many schools and departments.

With its large organizational structure and operational ties to local and state government regulations and procedures, CCSF’s specialized needs included a comprehensive discovery process to uncover the communication and technology needs of its diverse community.

EMG Approach & Solution

Recognizing its discovery and strategy development processes fit CCSF’s needs perfectly, EMG quickly coordinated a series of focus groups, workshops and interviews to take place on-site with members of the City College community. The information gathered during these group and one-on-one discussions was then used to develop highly contextualized survey questions answered by users of the CCSF website. A comprehensive, multidisciplinary website audit of CCSF’s website and its competitors’ websites rounded out the quantitative and qualitative research activities.

The discovery process gave way to the strategizing process which began with a team-wide analysis of the research findings before specific marketing and technology recommendations were developed as the groundwork of CCSF’s redeveloped website. All findings and recommendations were compiled and published in a 450+ page report as well as customized in-person live presentations that included an executive summary presented before the City College Board of Trustees in April 2008.

All EMG recommendations were approved by the appropriate CCSF boards, committees and subcommittees, and the Detail and Design phases of the website redevelopment project are currently in progress. The end goal of the comprehensive redevelopment project is to make the CCSF website one of the leading and most distinctive College Web sites in the United States that clearly communicates educational opportunity and collaborative learning within the diverse community of San Francisco.