Mark O’Keefe Web Portfolio

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life2006-2009

I arrived at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in the spring of 2006 with a goal of making pewforum.org the go-to place for data and research on religion and public life. The website’s home page tells the story.

It went from this…

To this…

The result: unique monthly visitors increased 132% in just two years. But changes went far beyond an increase in traffic and a new look and feel for the home page. Under my tenure, the presentation of content was transformed.

To showcase the think tank’s election-related content, I conceived, developed and edited Religion & Politics ’08. Built in 2007 with search-engine optimization in mind, the microsite became so popular it eclipsed all other locations on pewforum.org.

A popular feature summarized candidate positions on 12 values-laden issues, ranging from abortion to the Iraq War. I oversaw nearly every aspect of the site, managing the research, writing, editing, presentation and Web development.

From late 2007, when there were 17 major candidates, until November 2008, when it came down to McCain vs. Obama, the site enabled users to compare candidate positions on issues.

I conceived and co-authored exhaustively researched 3,000-word religious biographies of Obama and McCain, along with shorter profiles of Biden and Palin. These profiles were extensively used by the media.

I also conducted frequent Q&As with senior fellow John Green, perhaps the most respected academic expert on religion and U.S. politics in America.

These efforts attracted visitors and earned critical acclaim. Religion & Politics ‘08 was a Webby Awards finalist (top five) for the best political (not religion, not that there is anything wrong with religion) site of 2008, outshining more well-known political sites such as CNN Politics, msnbc.com and washingtonpost.com.

The Pew Forum is best known for its survey data. The challenge, as I saw it, was to present the data online in ways users could better engage with it. For a large survey of religion in America, I managed vendors and staff to design and develop this interactive showcase of survey data that was a 2009 Webby Awards honoree in the religion and spirituality category.

The new, expandable section included dynamic maps and charts, enabling users to drill down for information with a click of a mouse. The data package went live the same day the survey released, an ambitious undertaking, requiring coordination under pressure. The site exceeded the previous one-day record by 800% on the day it was released.

I also introduced multimedia “virtual events” to our site, expanding the audience beyond the chosen few who might normally attend these events in Washington. I chose to partner with free blip.TV technology because it made it easy for bloggers and others to display Pew videos on their own sites as we displayed it on our site. The technology also empowered users to share these videos on YouTube or on social networking sites such as Facebook.