New Start Nova Scotia
The Challenge
When prominent Nova Scotia businessman and citizen Bill Black contacted Kula Partners, he was looking for a way to engage Nova Scotians in a meaningful discussion about the province’s future.
At a time when Nova Scotia is grappelling with a number of significant public policy challenges, Bill saw an opportunity to contribute to the dialogue by working to explain issues and present proposals in an accessible way. In addition, background information would be presented for each topic to be covered along with meeting the key objective of inviting feedback and conversation to help make the ideas better.
Our challenge was to create an online platform where Nova Scotians could learn about the critical issues facing their province while engaging in thoughtful conversation about Nova Scotia’s future.
The Solution
New Start Nova Scotia launched early in 2010, covering a series of issues ranging from pension reform to the future of health care. Each main topic is introduced with a brief overview video while blog posts and whitepapers are used to dig into specific issues in greater detail. Building New Start NS using WordPress delivered the extensive commenting functionality required to host discussions surrounding each topic, in addition to making the site remarkably easy to update client side.
A key feature of New Start NS is its use of responsive design, dynamically responding to each visitor to present the site beautifully across mobile and tablet devices as well as “normal” browsers. The result is a site that is optimized for mobile users without requiring the additional time and expense of creating and maintaining a separate mobile site.
The Result
Few initiatives to spark dialogue about the future of Nova Scotia have attracted the level of active interest and participation of New Start NS. With each new topic introduced, new discussions are started and new ideas are formed about how the province can best move forward.
The conversation has expanded well beyond the site itself, with blog posts on various topics being repurposed as op-ed submissions and various news outlets reporting on the initiative. Further, the issues presented on New Start NS have formed the basis of a Halifax Club Speakers Series, serving to extend the discussion about how to make the province a better place to live, work, learn and play.