Creating A Platform for Participation: An Overview of NAMAC’s Website Launch
In June of 2007, I joined NAMAC as Online Community Manager through the CTC VISTA Project, a program of the federal AmeriCorps VISTA Program. As part of my service, my work plan tasked me with:
“…(increasing) the democratization of media structures by fostering capacity building, networking, and collaboration among our member organizations through the build-out of NAMAC’s online participatory Web 2.0 interfaces.”
No small task. Doing so would require a nearly complete restructuring of our current site’s inner workings, features, and custom-built framework. There were nearly 1,500 pages of articles to sort through, reorganize, and clean up before grafting them onto a new content management system —complete with new features that would not provide a clear return-on-investment (in this case, degree of online member engagement) until months after their initial appearance on the new site. How would we best be able to energize and reactivate the rich offerings of our website in a participatory, Web 2.0. framework? Coming in to work with NAMAC’s awesome online repository of articles was a bit overwhelming at first, but it granted me a unique and intimate look at the archive of knowledge comprising NAMAC’s offerings to the field.
After extensive discussions among staff and NAMAC members—who drew on their experiences with the site, its users, and its content—we have now initiated our fifth site relaunch. In this article, I will give a brief overview of some of the site’s new areas and features as well as a sneak peek into the internal staff processes that brought these offerings to fruition. As you read on, I invite you to reflect on the ways that you might leverage some of these new offerings in your own navigation of the site and the media landscape at large.
The Face of the Field
The Face of the Field represents the people and organizations that make up our membership. Here you’ll find NAMAC’s familiar Featured Organization as well as new Featured Leader profiles. You will also find links to our Directory of Organizations, Members’ Events & Announcements, and Job Bank. Articles posted by NAMAC members will also be fed in from our new Idea Exchange.
Idea Exchange
NAMAC’s Idea Exchange is a rich collection of thought-provoking articles on media, arts, and culture. Here you can critically engage with ideas and with other NAMAC users by commenting on your favorite articles. Our main goal for this area is to truly activate and bring to the surface the vast archive of knowledge contained in the articles on our site, while allowing members to exchange and develop new ideas and knowledge of their own.
Members’ Events & Announcements
The Member Events and Announcements area houses current events and announcements submitted by members. Announcements for NAMAC’s own programs and services will also be linked to and displayed here.
Advocacy and Policy
The Advocacy and Policy area will feature policy briefs and analysis created by NAMAC as well as handpicked articles, RSS feeds, and guest blog posts from our media policy and advocacy partners.
New Categories
The categories of articles within site areas were also rewritten. You will still find all of the familiar categories like Fundraising, Telecommunications, and Capacity Building throughout the site, but our categorization system has been opened up to include the ability for site users to tag their content and write their own categories for what they post and read on the site. The output of this feature will be noticeable in various “blocks” found throughout the site and presented in del.icio.us-like “tag clouds” for quick linking to other relevant articles on the site.
Other Features
Over the past few months, we have developed a host of new features that are now ready to be released and used by registered members as well as the anonymous and non-logged-in user:
As part of our last bi-annual retreat of 2007, I developed and proposed a comprehensive content position statement—a charter of how we might best leverage the new site in fostering networking and collaboration among our members. At that time, we agreed that:
“The new NAMAC website will support the technology and communications infrastructure between NAMAC and its members in an online interactive community and integrated constituent relationship management system .”
Through extensive dialogue with staff, as well as a good hard look at the possibilities and limitations of the technology we were going forth with, a new meme emerged during our most recent, 2008 staff retreat to galvanize further development of the site: a field-wide member knowledge management platform.
I have since updated our original site vision to:
“The new NAMAC website will support the deepening of reciprocal relationships among NAMAC members and partners through an online, interactive member knowledge management platform.”
As you visit us online, I ask you to consider:
“…(increasing) the democratization of media structures by fostering capacity building, networking, and collaboration among our member organizations through the build-out of NAMAC’s online participatory Web 2.0 interfaces.”
No small task. Doing so would require a nearly complete restructuring of our current site’s inner workings, features, and custom-built framework. There were nearly 1,500 pages of articles to sort through, reorganize, and clean up before grafting them onto a new content management system —complete with new features that would not provide a clear return-on-investment (in this case, degree of online member engagement) until months after their initial appearance on the new site. How would we best be able to energize and reactivate the rich offerings of our website in a participatory, Web 2.0. framework? Coming in to work with NAMAC’s awesome online repository of articles was a bit overwhelming at first, but it granted me a unique and intimate look at the archive of knowledge comprising NAMAC’s offerings to the field.
After extensive discussions among staff and NAMAC members—who drew on their experiences with the site, its users, and its content—we have now initiated our fifth site relaunch. In this article, I will give a brief overview of some of the site’s new areas and features as well as a sneak peek into the internal staff processes that brought these offerings to fruition. As you read on, I invite you to reflect on the ways that you might leverage some of these new offerings in your own navigation of the site and the media landscape at large.
New Site Areas
Discussions during the development of the new site were dynamic and lively, resulting in many areas of the site being completely rewritten or absorbed into new areas that coalesced during our brainstorming sessions. New areas include:The Face of the Field
The Face of the Field represents the people and organizations that make up our membership. Here you’ll find NAMAC’s familiar Featured Organization as well as new Featured Leader profiles. You will also find links to our Directory of Organizations, Members’ Events & Announcements, and Job Bank. Articles posted by NAMAC members will also be fed in from our new Idea Exchange.
Idea Exchange
NAMAC’s Idea Exchange is a rich collection of thought-provoking articles on media, arts, and culture. Here you can critically engage with ideas and with other NAMAC users by commenting on your favorite articles. Our main goal for this area is to truly activate and bring to the surface the vast archive of knowledge contained in the articles on our site, while allowing members to exchange and develop new ideas and knowledge of their own.
Members’ Events & Announcements
The Member Events and Announcements area houses current events and announcements submitted by members. Announcements for NAMAC’s own programs and services will also be linked to and displayed here.
Advocacy and Policy
The Advocacy and Policy area will feature policy briefs and analysis created by NAMAC as well as handpicked articles, RSS feeds, and guest blog posts from our media policy and advocacy partners.
Other Areas
Our Job Bank and Member Directory have also been rewritten, and there is now an interactive Google map that visually displays clickable locations of our member organizations across the country. Organizations are tagged with “keywords” to allow for easier browsing and searching.New Categories
The categories of articles within site areas were also rewritten. You will still find all of the familiar categories like Fundraising, Telecommunications, and Capacity Building throughout the site, but our categorization system has been opened up to include the ability for site users to tag their content and write their own categories for what they post and read on the site. The output of this feature will be noticeable in various “blocks” found throughout the site and presented in del.icio.us-like “tag clouds” for quick linking to other relevant articles on the site.
Other Features
Over the past few months, we have developed a host of new features that are now ready to be released and used by registered members as well as the anonymous and non-logged-in user:
- New and improved Member Directory with sortable columns for member organization, state, and year founded
- Interactive Google map of all member organizations
- New and improved Job Bank with sortable columns for organization name, job location, and type
- Social bookmarking services (share on: del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Facebook) built in to all articles
- RSS subscribable Telesalon podcasts (also playable and downloadable right from the page)
- Microsoft Word-like text-editor built in to all content posting forms
- Image/file uploading directly from the content posting form
- New and improved categories for articles, including the ability to “free tag” posts
- Ability to cross-reference member organizations in articles
- RSS-enabled policy area
- Printer-friendly pages
- Many other performance and interface tweaks throughout.
Developing and Refining Our Site Vision: Our Internal Process
Another important part of the site development occurred during our staff retreats, where we set aside some time for in-depth, “group mind” dialogue around how we envisioned the site best serving our members. In any large web project, a vision must be articulated to guide its development. In my own articulation of this vision, I wanted to develop intuitive new features to support members’ online engagement with each other, while still attending to NAMAC’s mission to serve as a trusted guide to the field. The staff retreat allowed me to ask for and integrate feedback from staff to refine this vision.As part of our last bi-annual retreat of 2007, I developed and proposed a comprehensive content position statement—a charter of how we might best leverage the new site in fostering networking and collaboration among our members. At that time, we agreed that:
“The new NAMAC website will support the technology and communications infrastructure between NAMAC and its members in an online interactive community and integrated constituent relationship management system .”
Through extensive dialogue with staff, as well as a good hard look at the possibilities and limitations of the technology we were going forth with, a new meme emerged during our most recent, 2008 staff retreat to galvanize further development of the site: a field-wide member knowledge management platform.
I have since updated our original site vision to:
“The new NAMAC website will support the deepening of reciprocal relationships among NAMAC members and partners through an online, interactive member knowledge management platform.”
Join Us In Our Launch!
In concert with NAMAC staff, members, and a new and invigorated vision for our online strategy, we will be moving forward as scheduled towards our July 2008 launch date. I am currently overseeing the launch and future development of NAMAC’s online member engagement and kindly invite you, our esteemed members, to casually browse, comment on, and interact with our new site.As you visit us online, I ask you to consider:
- How might you see our site better serving our communities’ needs?
- How would you like to engage with us (and each other!) online?
- What other types of features, content, or issues would you like to see discussed on our site or developed more fully?
I have always believed that any community is its own best resource. Feel free to contact me with any thoughts, questions, or suggestions at: morgan [at] namac [dot] org. I am also available at my desk via phone at: (415) 431-1391, ext. 305. As Online Community Manager, I can be contacted on the usual social networking service sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
I look forward to connecting soon.
