All –
A great friend of mine, and loyal ARRL member, Scott
Westerman W9WSW (VP of Comcast for
73,
Brian N5ZGT
Director, ARRL Rocky Mountain Division
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Email from Scott W9WSW:
To follow up on our dinner conversation this week, here are
a few humble thoughts about leveraging the Internet at the League.
An able web design house can create an appealing and usable portal for the
League and deploy search engine optimization techniques to get it noticed on
Google and Yahoo. These days that's website 101. Extending ARRL.org's reach
beyond the base site should be part of any proposal you receive.
Here are some ideas:
The new reality of the Web: "People want to consume their content, at
their convenience the device of their choice."
It's important to keep this in mind as you consider a communication strategy.
Think beyond traditional websites, to cell phones and social networks, to
Chumbys and Twitter. You should make your content available to every possible
medium.
The key is RSS, alternately defined as "really simple syndication" or
"rich site summary". Deploying content in this format makes it easily
assimilated into just about any display engine. Learn more about how RSS works
here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)
A key take-away - Each of the important sections of your website should have an
RSS feed.
Use ARRL.org to enhance the QST experience: Printing costs limit the amount of
information we can share in the magazine. Use your web presence to allow
members read expand versions of QST's content, with more data, more words and
more pictures and graphics. An example: In QST equipment reviews, allow the
user to take a 360 degree visual tour of the rig, spinning it around with the
mouse. Open the top of the radio and let the viewer zoom in to the circuit
boards. Put MP3 files of the rig audio outputs on the site and flash video of
the wave forms as they cross the scope.
Rendering the website on multiple devices: You're off to a good start with the
mobile edition. Think of enhancing it in a version for the IPhone. It's also
possible to put some code on the main page that reads the browser type and
renders the content specifically for the browser automatically. This is
typically done to identify the dozen different cell phone browsers to maximize
the quality of the experience on that device.
Blogging: Part of your web presence should be a blog that one or many of the
league staff contributes to. "It seems to us", Sean's contest news,
interpretations of FCC actions, even "the doctor is in", translate
well to this approach. With categories and RSS feeds for each author, readers
can do their own filtering and the blogs can be updated as developments
warrant. The blog differs from the front page news on the site in that it
allows the League to put a human face on amateur radio's most important
advocates.
Social Networks: Once a bastion of primarily the young, networks like MySpace
and the more ubiquitous Facebook are garnering followers of all
age. Facebook has a group feature that is tailor-made for the League. If you
explore the groups, you'll see that some folks have taken it upon themselves to
reach out. There's a Field Day group and an interesting Young Assistant Section
Manager group. Having an officially sanctioned presence is another way to reach
out to both current and potential hams. Recruit volunteers who know this space
lead the charge.
Twitter and Friend Feed: The hottest new - new things are the microblogs. At www.twitter.com, you have 140
characters to speak your piece.. Sounds a lot like packet radio. It's a
phenomenon that, like a DX Cluster, has become a popular way for friends to
exchange hot news in real time. At Comcast, we've discovered that it's a great
way to seek out customer issues and provide instant response. Think of a
twitter feed specifically tracking 20 meter DX, as a way for section managers to
communicate, an augmentation for weather spotters or perhaps something
integrated with APRS or Packet, where your over the air message weather message
can be relayed to on-line followers. Friend Feed is an aggregation engine where
you can read RSS feeds, share links and write comments. The League should have
an ARRL room on FriendFeed where hams can share information and opinion.
Chumby and beyond: As new devices are born, the League should encourage
developers to help place key ARRL information there. One example is the Chumby
(www.chumby.com). Ostensibly a wifi
video device, Chumby can play flash widgets, audio and video streams and podcasts.
Still in its infancy, it's used to display everything from weather information
to EDIS alerts. It can format an RSS feed to display ARRL headlines, pictures, etc. in ways limited only
by your imagination and ability to write code.
Content alliances: Survey your membership to see which web applications are
their favorites. My two current faves are the awesome Google Earth MUF display
and the DX Summit website. How could we develop hooks into these two resources
to display the MUF information graphically in a Java app on the league website,
on a Chumby, or on a cell phone? Why not include a flash application on the
League home page that refreshes every three minutes with the latest DX Cluster
Information from DX Summit? Incorporate links to ham content on YouTube and
podcasts, too. Think about what is most valuable to your members and find a way
to include it, enhance it, or re-invent it.
Instant Messaging: Part of the Division and Section contact information should
be an Instant Messaging address. With universal communicators like. www.meebo.com, it's not critical to
choose a single platform like AOL Instant Messenger or Google Talk, but sharing
that information is another way that members can have meaningful dialog with
leadership.
A natural initial reaction to all of this is, "how much will it cost and
who will do it?" My friend Rob Curley faced the same challenge as he set
about transforming the website of newspaper where he worked. He was able to do
it with most of his current staff, without major incremental expense. It turned
out that new revenue streams more than paid for the enhancements. All it
requires is creative thinking and open minds.
One of the things that makes our hobby at once both wonderful and excruciating
is that we often have a split personality:. We are at the forefront of
innovation but also resist change. Where member communication is concerned, the
reality is that the young are moving away from the printed page and won't wait
for the next month's issue. If we can make our content portable,
relevant, up to the minute and easy to find and use, that can help grow membership
and take us several steps closer to a more intimate relationship with those we
serve.
Hope these thoughts are helpful!
W9WSW