Waldo County General Hospital recently launched a direct mail and advertising campaign to increase community awareness of health center services and the availability of primary care providers in Waldo County. “Quality Care, Close to Home” is the main message of the campaign. Health Center resources include priority sick visits, on-site lab work, friendly staff, and programs for qualifying patients that can help to pay for doctor visits and prescriptions.

Hospital staff managed the implementation of the campaign working closely with Pica Design on strategy, photography, copywriting and design. Local photographer, Margaret McKenna, provided the photography for the campaign, which ran in local online and print news channels. The new campaign ties into the hospital’s new website (also developed by Pica Design), which helps track response to the new campaign.

Highlighted in the campaign were primary care doctors in Waldo County and the Hospital’s physician referral service. The Health Centers featured include: Arthur Jewell Community Health Center, Donald S. Walker Health Center, Lincolnville Regional Health Center, Searsport Health Center, and Stockton Springs Regional Health Center. A second campaign focuses on the Hospital’s Physical and Occupational Therapy programs. To view the Primary Care campaign artwork, visit: www.picadesign.com. To learn more about the Hospital’s service offerings, visit: www.wcgh.org.

Pica Design is pleased to welcome Wreaths Across America™, as a new Client. In early March, Pica was awarded a contract to provide web development services to redesign WAA’s new website presence. The new website is currently in development. Wreaths Across America™ is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization that was formed as an extension of the Arlington Wreath Project. The Arlington Wreath program was started by Morrill Worcester of Worcester Wreath Company in 1992 with the donation and laying of 5,000 Christmas wreaths to Arlington National Cemetery. To learn more about Wreaths Across America™ or support their organization, you can visit them at www.wreathsacrossamerica.org. To learn more about Pica Design’s web development services, visit us at www.picadesign.com or give us a call.

Downeast Lakes Land Trust (DLLT) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 2001 by local residents of Grand Lake Stream, Maine. They contribute to the long-term economic and environmental well-being of the Downeast Lakes region through the conservation and exemplary management of its forests and waters.

Pica Design answered a request for proposal from DLLT in April of 2010 and was chosen to redesign the organization’s outmoded web site. We reorganized content and designed a website which would be a resource for visitors, both for conservation news and as a guide to recreation opportunities in the region. A home-page slideshow features photos that capture the beauty and wildlife of the Grand Lake Stream area. We also built in new functionality: a blog, event calendar, and social networking tools. The site is optimized for search engines and traffic analysis. And–last, but not least–what would a non-profit be without its supporters? The new website allows visitors to contribute online; donors can direct a donation to a specific project, or donate in the name of someone special. We are excited to see how the site performs, so we’ll be checking in through Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. In six months, we will analyze the site’s performance in search engines, part of our effort to optimize DLLT’s online visibility and help DLLT staff and volunteers do what they do best: Conserving Forests and Lakes – For People – Forever.

Downeast Lakes Land Trust Website: BEFORE Downeast Lakes Land Trust Website: AFTER

Check out the new site @ https://www.downeastlakes.org

Waldo Community Action Partners (WCAP) has a new website–a dynamic, information-rich site that will be updated and maintained by WCAP staff.

Waldo Community Action Partners’ mission is “to create opportunities for people to improve their quality of life.” They aim to make a big impact on Waldo County citizens by expanding opportunities for health, comfort, and financial and personal development. The site provides information and contacts for public transportation, education programs, energy services, emergency resources, health programs and community projects.

Using revolutionary web techniques, Pica Design programmed the site so that users with disabilities can navigate it without the use of a mouse. Site visitors can also follow quicklinks and visual icons to intuitively locate the content they need. We consulted WAI* and Section 508** to understand the needs of the disability community, then created solutions that we implemented across the site. The site also includes a private website for the WCAP staff to communicate and share documents between departments.

To check out the website or to learn more about how Waldo Community Action Partners supports our community everyday, click here: http://www.waldocap.org

* Pica Design developed navigation for the site to be WAI Compliant for Accessibility. WAI stands for Web Accessibility Initiative and their mission is to work with organizations around the world to develop strategies, guidelines and resources to help make the Web accessible to people with disabilities (for more information, visit www.w3.org/WAI/).
** “508 Compliant” refers to respect for and adherence to Section 508, which requires that Federal agencies’ electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities.

Pica Design is pleased to announce the new redesign of Waldo County General Hospital’s website at www.wcgh.org! Waldo County Healthcare, Inc. (WCHI) serves the healthcare needs of Waldo County residents through Waldo County General Hospital, five rural health centers, home health and hospice services, public health nursing, physicians’ offices and educational programs.

Waldo County General Hospital (WCGH) is a not-for-profit community hospital committed to providing excellent care for patients and their families in a friendly, caring atmosphere in line with its mission to be the BEST. Services are provided as efficiently as possible with an eye on the future and in collaboration with other community-minded agencies. All services are provided regardless of ability to pay in accordance with the hospital’s financial assistance policy.

In early March, Pica Design was selected to redesign and redevelop the hospital’s new website working within the brand standards outlined by MaineHealth. The goal of the new website design was to remain accessible and intuitive to a broad-range audience while incorporating the newest tools and technologies to allow the hospital to enhance their existing communications and open new channels of communication. In addition, the new website needed to offer the ability to allow Hospital staff to manage every aspect of the website. Over the past six months, we have worked closely with the Hospital’s administrative staff to implement and test all of the site’s new functionality, including:

• a search-as-you-type feature to help people locate Doctor specialties that are difficult to spell
• built-in web accessibility tools for the handicapped (for example, the site can be navigated without a mouse)
• a find-a-doctor feature for specific medical needs
• news features & resources: subscribe to RSS news feeds, newsletters (InPulse & Journey to Health), and the news blog

One of the bigger challenges for our team was to code the new website to work on every browser and keep the website as accessible as possible. Should a website break occur, the user has the ability to ‘Submit a Website Problem’ through a link located within the footer navigation.

In addition to developing the new website, Pica Design is providing hosting services as well as consulting on web and social media strategies to help the Hospital get the most out of its online presence. To learn more about Pica website development and social media strategies, contact us by phone at 207-338-1740 or email at: info@picadesign.com

Hey, my name is Zak and I’m a summer intern here at Pica Design. While reading a blog today, I saw a rumor that Google Voice is supposedly opening to the public soon, and I decided to write this blog post to elucidate this great service for our readers. While many of you may not know what Google Voice is, I urge everyone with a Google Account (and who doesn’t have one, these days) to pick up their own number.

Google Voice was originally called Grand Central, a company founded in 2005 which Google bought in 2007 for 97 million. Even years ago it was a promising business opportunity, and it remains a great service.

But what does Google Voice actually do? Well, it’s essentially a new phone number that allows a number of features that most phone services don’t offer.

The Google Voice Inbox (Credit: Google)

First, it offers a unified number that you’ll never lose when you move, get a new cell phone, or change phone service. This number can ring any other number of phones that you own, for example, when somebody calls my Google Voice number, both my cell phone and my home phone ring, which means I almost never miss a call.

Google Voice also features a robust voicemail system. When somebody leaves a voicemail on your Google Voice account, it notifies you via text message and even email, transcribing the voicemail into text and delivering it to your inbox.

Finally, there are a host of other features  Google Voice offers. You can send and receive text messages for free online, screen calls, set different voicemail greetings to different contacts and groups, and more.

Google Voice is free, and a great service. I have been using it since 2008 and its unification makes life easier, which everybody deserves. I urge everyone to pick up a number and at least try it out.

Here is a short clip from the question and answer session at our recent seminar at Unity Center for the Performing Arts.

Matt O’Malia, principal of G•O Logic, LLC, has a fantastic editorial on Roll Call this week, in which he calls for a stronger energy standard in the upcoming American Clean Energy and Security Act.

“Buildings consume 40 percent of the energy produced in the United States, more energy than all of the cars on the roads today. And while automobile fuel efficiency is seriously debated as a path to save energy and money, building energy performance has not received as much scrutiny, even though we have the tools and technology to create super-efficient buildings today. A strong renewable electricity standard will mean these tools get used and these jobs created to make our buildings more efficient and begin to build the foundation of an American new energy economy.”

Read the whole editorial here: http://www.rollcall.com/news/36132-1.html

For more on Matt and G•O Logic’s houses, check out their website at www.gologichomes.com

Join us for a nuts-and-bolts presentation on the benefits of websites for businesses. This is a great opportunity to ask questions about websites, network with other business owners and learn more about putting the Web to work for your business.

Event Details:

Thursday, June 25th

4:00 – 5:30 PM

Unity College Center for the Performing Arts

42 Depot Street, Unity, Maine

For registration and event information, call Julie Downer at UniTel: 948-3959;

or email jdowner@uninets.net

Sponsored by Pica Design, LLC, UniTel and Unity College in Maine

Within the last three weeks we’ve been noticing a show-stopping trend. We’ve found more than one local area site plagued by this notice:

The problem is usually a piece of javascript that a hacker has added to the site. It can easily be removed as long as you can find the infected files and remove the necessary code. We’re trying to figure out if this is a local occurence, or something that’s more widespread. We’d love to hear from you if you have any idea as to the source of the attacks, or encounter other sites that have been attacked. And as always, keep your passwords tough to guess, and close to the chest!