We are just wrapping up work on the International Association of Panoramic Photographers (IAPP) website. Actually more than just the website. We’ve always wanted to implement the Full Monty for a non-profit or association and we finally got our chance.

So…What Happened?

We were approached by an old, (well not Old, but former,) colleague from  USAA, Dawn Snow. She’s secretary and defacto webmaster for the IAPP and they found some funding to redo their website. We proposed not only revamping the website so it would be easier to keep up but also connecting it to a membership management system so all of their operations would be easier. The IAPP is an international association with members scattered around the globe. They have no staff, so everything, from website upkeep to membership processing, falls to volunteers, usually the board of directors.

First, we proposed moving their old (1990s vintage) static website to the WordPress content management platform. We found a great commercial template that we could change. Especially important to the IAPP was that it accommodate the wide panoramic images created by their members.

Next, we set them up with a Google Apps for Domains account and moved their association email over to it. They get a branded webmail interface that has loads of storage and the added advantage of Google Calendar, Docs, etc. Future plans call for website integration of  Google Calendar to show workshop schedules and Google Docs for instructional materials. We’ll use two very good WordPress plugins to make this happen.

And then we set them up in the Wild Apricot membership management system. Wild Apricot is a software as a service site for non-profits and associations. It has modules for Members, Events, Donations and Forums. The service provides for a monthly or yearly subscription that’s based on the number of contacts in your database.

IAPP is using the Membership module to automate their new and renewing member functions. Previously, the treasurer took email requests and received checks to deposit. Now IAPP can accept credit cards for membership. And Wild Apricot automates renewals with reminder emails sent to expiring memberships. They are also using the Forums module  for their Classified Ads (something members had asked for) and will use the Events module to manage their conference and workshop calendar and registration.

And…so far so good. Their new site looks great and now many volunteers are contributing to it. Their email management is much easier. And their association management headaches are a thing of the past.

Yea! Finally!

We’ve proposed this solution to a clients before but haven’t had the opportunity to implement it. Since we’ve “been there, done that” as the volunteer leader and manager of a professional association we knew the pain of managing a web presence and managing membership. Especially renewals! Renewals mean revenue and a sloppy or non-existent renewal process means, well, reduced or zero revenue.

Small organizations have a lot on their plate. Making website management easy eases that pain. And we think the “virtual association” concept will do the trick for most associations without the resources for staff. Non-profits, even with a small staff, can benefit from this kind of low-cost solution too.

We’re happy we were able to put the IAPP on a good footing for the future.

Contact us if you think we might be able to help you.

This started as a comment on the the above titled post written by Carl Douglas on the Intranet Connections blog. The topic is a catalyst for my one soap box topic affecting professional communication.

I’ll start off by trying not to offend anyone but…

Would it be safe to say that you Carol and the other commenters have been principally text content creators in your professional lives?
Everyone has made points about what is good communication. And some have made the point that video is bad except when it’s good.

THAT is the point. Bad anything is still bad no matter what medium it uses.

Carol you posed the question about why someone would sit through a video wherein “the company CEO (is) talking about corporate initiatives”. Why would an employee sit through reading a 2 page text or worse, email, about the same thing? Answer is they wouldn’t.

I know all of you do this before you write something – you determine the audience, figure out the overall objective and determine the goals you want to achieve after someone has read the piece. You may not write this down at this stage in your career because it’s second nature and a kind of “Duh!”

The missing element is for THAT audience, for THAT objective, for THOSE goals which medium is best. If you’ve been a writer for years and years and you’re given an assignment then a written piece is probably the first thing that comes to mind.

As a professional communicator you must have much more in your bag of tricks than writing speeches, releases, documentation, etc. In the multimedia world we have lived in for the last ten or fifteen years you MUST understand all media and it’s optimal use. If not you are limiting your own professional growth and not serving your employer or client professionally.

I have a video production background. I have done the huge budget productions and the one man band productions. I have produced interactive multimedia for both consumers and business people, again from hundred thousand dollar budgets to Frankensteining PowerPoint on the cheap. I have designed websites for large e-commerce companies and for the neighborhood mom and pop business.

And no matter what kind of medium my client has asked for I scratch my head before every project and figure out if they have chosen the RIGHT medium. Sometimes they listen and thank me and I either use the medium I recommend (or I refer it out to someone who REALLY knows what they’re doing.) And sometimes they don’t hire me. And sometimes I walk away when I know their big mistake doesn’t have to have me as the fall guy.

So, I do all this electronic based communication. And I know enough about print communication to know that I need to bring someone in or refer it out. I can write a script or a web page but I know I am not a annual report or PR or documentation writer.

One last point. We are not the audience. We used to be but not anymore. The digital native is the audience. Those who have grown up with never NOT knowing a technology mediated environment. You can try to force them to read more than two pages at a time but they expect the message on a screen. Whether it’s well chunked web or email copy, audio clips (like podcasts) or video they want it when they want it and how they want it. In the 80s we all discovered “time shifting”; taping Magnum PI so we could watch it later. Digital natives are fully evolved time shifters.

Is video useful? Yes. Is PowerPoint (and Slideshare by extension) useful? Yes. Is text useful? Yes. But we have all seen bad uses of all of them. What we all want to avoid as communications professionals is to not have any of those bad uses be something we created.

This comes via NTEN- The Non-profit Technology Network. The post, “25 Ways to Increase Your Organization’s Communication Capacity” has some great ideas for making communication easier no matter what kind of organization you have – sole proprietorship, big business, government, non-profit, education, association or club.

Here’s the highlights.

Clarify Your Strategy

Automation

Get Everyone Participating

One of the most misunderstood concepts in copyright law is “Fair Use.” The Fair Use doctrine allows creators to use portions of copyrighted work for the purposes of scholarship, review or parody. There are four factors to consider.

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

I won’t write a treatise on Fair Use here because, well, I’d be here all day. But I’ll do the next best thing. Check out this link to a page on Fair Use at the Center for Social Media at American University.

Call me a media geek but I want to hang with these guys. They do some of the coolest research around and have compiled some great resources.

Fair Use is abused by many creators and strikes fear into many others. Sampling in pop music is a form of Fair Use. Clips you see on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show are Fair Use. (You didn’t think it was a REAL news show, did you?) The Obama “Hope” image is arguably Fair Use, although the Associated Press will argue differently. Unfortunately, far too many people abuse Fair Use to all of our detriment. Big copyright holders such as Big Media and Big Music would like to see Fair Use go away. But Fair Use is the best way for creators to build upon our media culture.

Also unfortunately, Fair Use has been used to scare the begeezus out of the education community. Copyright violation has been linked to plagarism and rightly so. But many school districts and colleges have banned the use of ANY copyrighted material in ANY student work for fear of copyright liability. But use of copyrighted material in educational projects is clearly permitted under Fair Use.

So I’m hoping some of my more scholarly, education profession friends will dig into these Fair Use resources and try to change their administrationss views.

It’s only fair.

Here’s another gem from Jared Spool’s User Interface Engineering blog. This an excerpt from Ginny Redish’s book “Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works” (which I have been threatening to buy for myself). This post, “Breaking Up Large Documents for the Web” is actually Part 1 of 3.

Sometimes you have content that needs the web just to get the right distribution to the right audience. But reading, like writing, for the web is different than for print.

I would use this article as your starting point. Then start thinking like your visitors and then do the common sense test.