Department of Health & Human Services
United States Mint
South Florida Water Management District
U.S. Commercial Services/Dept. of Commerce/IBM

Department of Health & Human Services

The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is a principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves.

The Department includes more than 300 programs covering a wide spectrum of activities.

HHS is the largest grant-making agency in the federal government, providing some 60,000 grants per year. HHS’s Medicare program is the nation’s largest health insurer, handling more than 900 million claims per year.

HHS works closely with state, local, and tribal governments, and many HHS-funded services are provided at the local level by state, county, or tribal agencies, or through private-sector grantees. Eleven HHS operating divisions, including eight agencies in the U.S. Public Health Service and three human services agencies, administer the Department’s programs. In addition to the services they deliver, the HHS programs provide for equitable treatment of beneficiaries nationwide, and they enable the collection of national health and other data.

THE NEED

The Media Arts Branch (MAB) of HHS had been developed to provide graphic design services for HHS. As a cost center, the MAB was 100 percent fully staffed, reached $500K in revenue, and was responsible for supporting all HHS agencies. As the MAB continued to gain credibility and new customer agencies, it became clear that additional support and specialized talent were needed to meet short incoming project deadlines and to provide top-notch service for the MAB’s existing customers.

While the MAB tried to hire and manage freelance talent on its own, it found it hard to locate quality talent fast, and to manage the process and the freelancers. The alternative was for HHS agencies to use costly ad agencies and design firms. It became apparent that if the MAB did not find a viable solution soon, it would quickly lose credibility, internal customers, revenue, and resources.

The MAB deputy director first reached out to Aquent when her husband received a direct mail piece from Aquent. Impressed with the quality of the design and messaging, she quickly called the local Aquent office. The very next day, Aquent met with the MAB deputy director and our relationship began.

THE CHALLENGE

MAB’s top objectives were to create a dedicated freelance team to handle the variety and volume of design projects while meeting critical deadlines, mitigating co-employment risk, and maximizing resources.

In reaching these objectives, there were some immediate challenges to overcome:

• Internal conflict of integrating Aquent freelancers with the core MAB design team (personalities and work styles)
• Equipment and technology issues (using old systems and versions)
• Administrative tracking methods

Aquent and the MAB deputy director worked closely together to customize invoicing and reporting that would accurately reflect freelancer usage and hours. Aquent also developed a customized recruitment plan that would assess the appropriate design skills, work style, and personality components necessary to ensure a smooth transition into the MAB team.

THE RESULTS

Aquent has been MAB’s staffing solutions partner since February 2001 and was awarded a five-year contract. What started as one or two placements has now evolved into an entire team of eight freelancers located in the D.C. and Rockville offices of HHS. The varied skill levels of Aquent freelancers have enabled the MAB team to:

• Win the confidence of internal customers accustomed to using costly ad agencies and design firms
• Meet the increasingly sophisticated level of design and communication needs of their customers
• Mitigate co-employment risk while using a flexible staffing solution

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United States Mint

THE CLIENT

The United States Mint is the federal government agency responsible for producing U.S. currency.
In recent history, circulating coin production has varied between fourteen and twenty billion coins annually. The Mint also produces commemorative coins and medals for sale to the general public.

THE NEED

The U.S. Mint wanted to extend its education program for children to the Internet, leveraging the
Web’s advantages to teach kids about coins and foster their long-term interest in coin collecting.
As the first U.S. government agency to market its products via the Web, the Mint had no internal
resources to execute such a comprehensive initiative. Rather than outsource the project to a
design agency, the Mint decided to fund staff and contract positions to create the H.I.P. Pocket
Change (HPC) Web site.

THE CHALLENGE

The size and scope of this $60 million initiative were daunting. The HPC site incorporated
multimedia, animation, and games as well as traditional Web design and programming. An
extremely tight deadline only added to the challenge.

THE SOLUTION

Aquent put a three-person project team in place, with responsibility for overall architecture,
character generation, content, illustration, and design. The site was successfully launched on time
due to the herculean efforts of the Aquent team to complete the work under tight deadlines.

THE RESULTS

The U.S. Mint saved $42,000–$54,000 by having the Aquent team create a game called Cents
of Color instead of outsourcing game development to an agency. The U.S. Mint saved even
more by having the Aquent team produce several key animations.

The addition of the HPC site dramatically increased traffic to the Mint’s site. HPC was recognized
by Hot100.com as one of the top twenty Web sites for education and was named by USA Today as
one of its hot education sites. The HPC site, as designed by the Aquent team, is still an integral
part of the U.S. Mint’s Web site, despite a complete redesign of the agency’s main site.

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South Florida Water Management District

SERVICES PROVIDED

Aquent talent/consultants developed and designed the CERPzone Web site (from layout to execution), including graphical content, creating and maintaining the creative aspect of the Web site, and providing design/graphic materials for CERPzone Web site templates. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) is a framework and guide to restore, protect, and preserve the water resources of central and southern Florida. Our talent/consultants worked with a team of IT and coding professionals to create and ensure all new content, graphics, and technologies were consistent with agency established standards and guidelines. They managed daily, weekly, and monthly deadlines and revision requests.

Aquent’s team utilized its programming expertise to meet technical specs for each project, employing multiple software packages, programming languages, and technologies including Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat (PDF workflow), HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Macromedia Dreamweaver and Fireworks, DHTML, ASP, JSP, XML, SHTML, and JavaScript.

SUCCESS OF SERVICE

This was and continues to be a high-profile project that has been designated for more than $20 million of federal and local government spending. The District did not have the internal resources to take on this scope of work and relied on Aquent for the solution in the very early stages of this project. The one-year project was delivered not only on time but within budget, and the District’s expectations were greatly exceeded by the talent/consultants Aquent furnished for this project. To view work in progress, go to http://www.evergladesplan.org.

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U.S. Commercial Services/Department of Commerce/IBM

SERVICES PROVIDED

Aquent was challenged when approached by IBM Federal and U.S. Commercial Services to supply consultants to develop, implement, and maintain a government Web project from South Florida. Our task was to put together a Florida team to work in tandem with an IBM project manager in Boca Raton and the E-Business Development team in Washington, D.C. This project started in May 2001 and is ongoing as of today. The responsibilities of the Aquent consultants we handpicked and managed are listed below:

1. Web Site Planning, Architecture, and Design—This person is responsible for organizing the site, improving usability, and ensuring that the future components can be logically integrated and developed. This person participates, via teleconference or in person, in meetings between the CS and third-party providers to assist with the planning and integration of the new service. This person also maintains the overall visual look of the site, demos and affiliate marketing pieces, and the quality of the graphics that appear on the pages.
   
2. Web Site Programming—The Web site programmer connects the Web site to the database and ensures that data is rendered properly on the site. The programmer ensures that all functionality on the Web pages is programmed and working efficiently. The programmer also performs testing and error fixes, and corrects problems as needed.
   
3. Web Site Coding and Technical Support—This person constructs pages and codes them in HTML, tests and debugs new and existing pages, performs content changes where necessary, and works directly with customers as needed to sort out errors and bugs in the system.
   
4. Database Programming and Support—The database programmer structures the database and manages all data flows into the database from CMS, the BuyUSA Web Site, and outside sources. The programmer also provides location information to the Web site programmer so that the Web site calls can be handled effectively. The database programmer is available to consult on data intake issues upon request from the site designer or the site programmer.
   
5. Content Writer/Editor—The writer manages, creates, and reviews all written materials, both creative and technical. This person is also responsible for editing and proofreading.

SUCCESS OF SERVICE

This project has been an overwhelming success. IBM Federal has gone through two project managers, but the Aquent team has stayed together. Every deadline was met, and the team provided a solution that warranted U.S. Commercial Services to extend the contract in September 2002 through our GSA schedule so it could keep the Aquent Florida team on the project for two more years.

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