Abstract
The California Endowment wanted a social networking solution that would integrate with their enterprise infrastructure. It was a natural decision for them to select Ektron as the platform to power their CalConnect social networking community.
Challenge
Since its inception The California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation founded in 1996 by Blue Cross of California, has been responsible for awarding more than 9,000 grants totaling nearly 1.7 billion to help California become a healthier state. The California Endowment had two challenges they wanted to address with their CalConnect social networking site. The first was to increase their ability to interact with grantees. The second was to create an environment that would foster communication between grantees and other California stakeholders.
"We wanted to bring together different groups and organizations that usually don’t work with each other but often have similar objectives," stated Julio Zaldivar, CalConnect Architect and consultant at The California Endowment. "By creating an environment where they can network with both peers and experts and collaborate on policies, grant writing, events and projects, we can have an immense impact on the promotion of healthy life styles and healthy community development in California."
Solution
The California Endowment wanted a social networking solution that would integrate with their enterprise infrastructure. It was a natural decision for them to select Ektron as the platform to power the CalConnect community.
A leading Web content management solution provider, Ektron helps non-technical people manage their Web content and add digital marketing and social software features to their sites. Personalized pages, blogs and forums, polls and surveys, even micro-messaging "activity streams" similar to Twitter are simple to incorporate through the power of Ektron CMS400.NET.
Result
Ektron’s collaboration and social features – including profile pages, blogs, wikis, discussion forums and group spaces – were established to provide a convenient, central location for networking and collaboration. The California Endowment leveraged Ektron’s core content management technology to offer more features for members to connect with one another and work together across both local communities and the state. Members can take advantage of features such as calendars to manage events, upload and share documents and collaborate on projects, create photo galleries to add pictures, videos and slideshows, and use alerts to broadcast and manage community announcements.
"What you’ll find at CalConnect is a social networking site full of resources dedicated to improving the health of Californians and their communities," Zalidivar noted. "Visitors have access to some of the latest reports and studies through the CalConnect Resource Library, while connecting with community leaders and health experts throughout the state."
Learn more about The California Endowment
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Overview
CalConnect was built as The California Endowment’s social network community.
Challenges
Results
CalConnect provides a central location for networking and collaboration Members can manage events, collaborate on projects and manage the community
"What you’ll find at CalConnect is a social networking site full of resources dedicated to improving the health of Californians and their communities."- Julio Zaldivar, CalConnect Architect and consultant at The California Endowment
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