A revamped website for Georgia Tech’s technology commercialization services has made it much easier for key audiences to find what they’re looking for and to quickly and easily get there, says Karen Hiser, senior technology transfer consultant at Fuentek, LLC, who worked closely with the Georgia Tech in reworking the site. The website is supported by the Office of Technology Licensing, Enterprise Innovation Institute, and Industry Contracting Office at the university.

“This is a large, complex organization with a lot of resources available, but navigation of the old site was difficult,” Hiser recalls. “The past website was like a directory, but it was not a roadmap.” Basically, she continues, it provided an index, but left it up to the visitor to figure out which of the elements in the index applied to them.

“There was not a lot of thought put into the titles to make them resonate with the audience, so they just didn’t know where to start,” she continues. “In some cases they had to start at the top of the list and look at many things before they got to what they wanted.”

Patrick E. Reed, MS, senior licensing associate with Georgia Tech, agrees. “Before the site Fuentek developed for us, someone from industry looking to partner with Tech had too many informational resources to choose from,” he says. “By gathering all of Tech’s strengths related to industry collaboration into one portal, industry may now visit a truly one-stop-shop.” The ultimate goal for the new website, he adds, was to make it easier for industry to do business with Georgia Tech.

The new site (http://www.industry.gatech.edu/) is designed to do just that. Visitors to the home page will see the entrance to three distinct portals prominently placed at the top of the page in large frames with four-color images. The names of the portals — “Innovation Impacts,” “Innovators & Entrepreneurs,” and “Doing Business with GT,” catch the eye of interested parties, and at the bottom of each frame is the word “FOR,” followed by a list of the audiences that particular portal serves. Each one also offers a pull-down menu that provides a ‘roadmap’ for the specific audience, enabling the visitor to further refine their search without having to meander through the index.

“The new website offers a host of improvements compared to the information Georgia Tech previously had scattered across several sites,” says Reed. “The new industry site has all of that information in one location accessible through intuitive links.  Beyond the increased transparency of the site, aesthetically speaking, the site offers a visually inspired and clean look.  Conserving this look across all of the related pages helps brand Georgia Tech as ‘business friendly.’” A detailed article on the site revamp appears in the August 2011 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

Posted August 16th, 2011 under Intellectual Property Marketing

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