The County Board of Commissioners would like to encourage new businesses to move to your area. Your company has been hired to create multimedia material that will be used on the town's website. The Board has given you guidelines for the type of information that will give potential newcomers an overview of your area's business community.

The Board asked your company for three specific items.

• A guidebook with maps that show the location of specific businesses. The guidebook will include descriptions of each business.
• A timeline showing the history of the businesses in the area. This includes when the businesses were started and how long they have been established.
• A current look at businesses in your town including interviews with local business owners and images of the businesses.

Complete the following activity alone or ask permission from your instructor to complete a team activity. Research the media and technology you might wish to use. Following are some suggested website tools and devices to get you started. Further instructions are given at the end.

• Graphics – images of all kinds including photographs, drawings, charts, business logos, illustrations, 3D animations, and more.
• Hyperlinks – an electronic link to another page on the website or another website.

• Mouseover – when the pointer on a computer screen passes over an item it triggers another item to appear.

• Animation – a series of pictures that make a character or object look like it's moving.
• Video – a display of a moving image made on a recorder such as a video camera or camcorder.
• Slide show – a series of slides containing graphics, text, and sound.
• Audio – sounds such as voice and music.
• Cookie – a software program that collects personal information about visitors to the site.

• Real Video/Real Audio – a live broadcast over the Internet.

• Interactivity – allows a visitor to perform an action such as filling in their name and e-mail address for a database, answering questions on a survey

• Rollover buttons – when the pointer passes over an image on the computer screen, the image changes color or changes to another image.

Tips for gathering information about your business community.

• Use your local telephone directory to identify businesses in your area.
• Take a walking or driving tour of your area to see which businesses would be good locations for videotaping.
• Select local business owners to interview. Ask them about the history of their business and their views on doing business in your area. Decide which business owners would be good candidates to represent the area on the website.
• Visit your local Chamber of Commerce or other business associations to collect historical and current information on your business community.
• Develop questions about doing business in your area and conduct an informal survey of business owners. Some example questions might include: Do you believe business will grow rapidly in this area? Why do you enjoy doing business in this area? Do you believe there is a need for new businesses in the area?
• Use the space provided below to list your plan and questions.