You dont need a website, You need a web strategy! #10ntc

I was spending time cleaning my garage this weekend and I found a whole bunch of tools that I have never used. All of these tools serve a purpose and are still very useful, but at this point in my life I dont have a big plan to build anything.Without a big plan to build, the tools just sit there.

Websites can turn into those tools rusting in the garage very easily. A website, regardless of the coolest widgets, will only be as useful longterm as the strategy behind it.

Keeping this post nice and simple to hopefully make a point, so I will let the ignite video below do the talking.  I must give credit to Gregory Hellor for this post and title! Thanks for the inspiration.



Ignite NTC: Gregory Heller "You Don't Need A Website..." from GregoryH on Vimeo.

Steve has been hiding, sorry

Many of my regular readers (all 3 of you) may have been wondering where is Steve Heye and why hasnt he been blogging in 2010?  I miss his witty comments, deep insight and... OK lets just stop with the self flattery it will get you nowhere.

I want to apologize for my lack of blogging, I have succumbed to the fate of many NPTech staff out there, I have been buried in work, plus hiding in denial that my oldest son is graduating High School.  But as a reward to my faithful followers I will give you a peek at what I have been working on so hard.

The YMCA of Metro Chicago is launching an all new online registration system, that will hopefully reinvent the way people sign up for our programs.  We came in with the thought of "lets design this from the audience perspective" instead of mirroring our own internal structure, nomenclature and ideas.  The shift of how things are displayed, categorized and common across centers took months of conversation with our staff.  The technical aspects of coding, database integration and web development were challenging, but nothing like the cultural shifts that have started.

We had to create a translator or match maker application to "match" the classes stored in our database with the structure we created on the web.  Then we assigned the task of matching to our staff at our centers.  We had quite a few staff comment, "I never knew that my classes were displayed online that way because of the way I set up the data."  We had spent so long coming up with work-arounds in our database, that many didnt realize the implications.

But anyway, sorry for the short post, but I need to get back to work.

Oh but wait, here is your sneak peak access:

Web Address: http://register.ymcachicago.org/
Username: ymca
Password: testing

I would appreciate any feedback also.   But just know that as I type changes are being made to the site based on early member feedback.

3 Ring Circus Balancing act for web content

Writers block is an understatement when people are asked to write something for the web site, it is more like run the other way fear.  But I think a lot of this may rise from a feeling that when you right something for the web it has to be perfect and appeal to everyone, but in my opinion that is backwards of reality of the new web.

 

I picture writing for the web like a delicate balancing act in 3 rings:

Engagement balance between those that already know you and those who stumble upon you.

Audience balance between getting huge volume of traffic and reaching those who care.

Message balance between saying what you want people to hear and what your audience actually wants to hear.

I state those like they are a simple fact and it is easy to accomplish, yeah well good luck with that.

Engagement – We are addressing this issue by deliberately providing two ways to use our site browsing and utilizing it.  For those who don’t know who we are we will provide numerous ways and varying types of content (text, video, stories, interaction, etc) with the key focus of gradual engagement and small steps to get involved.  For those who are already engaged we will provide them the fastest possible way to get to the things that are the most important to them.

Audience – We are doing a complete overhaul of our architecture to improve our SEO (search engine optimization).  We are also revamping how all content gets created and written for the web to make it more search friendly.

Message - Many people try to manipulate their web site based on the message they want to send without taking time to consider what the audience wants to hear or how they want to get that message.  It is a tricky balance to keep the content focused on your message while still meeting your audience needs.

This isnt an all encompassing concept and has a bunch of holes probably, but hopefully brings up some thoughts for you.

After this post, my blog is going to switch focus for March-April off of the web and onto IT Alignment, which is a good friend of mine from the recent past. I am doing this in honor of the book that I wrote chapter 1 for NTEN called Managing Technology to Meet your Mission.  You can learn more on the wiki at www.meetyourmission.org.

What to do when people think they know your brand but are WRONG

Lets play a short game. I will show a brand logo, you tell me what they do.


My Answer - Fast food, good, cheap but very bad for you.

Great cars but very expensive and many people think for only older people.

Ok, I could go on forever with the little game, but I wont.  My point is that a brand not only reminds you of who they are but carries every stereotype with it.  And as a brand that is very hard to change.

McDonalds has tried for years to change its image that it offers healthy choices and actually they do.  But I still order the biggest, fat filled cheeseburger bacon usually.  Cadillac tried for a little while to offer some more lower priced models and tried to appeal to new audiences, but I dont think that worked out to well for them.

SO WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH THIS BLOG?

In the midst of many strategic conversations lately I keep coming up against one thought, people think they know who and what the YMCA is, but they are wrong. No I dont mean to imply they are dumb or that the small peice they know is incorrect, rather they never know the whole picture. They jump to gym/swim or pictures of old facilities or a place for kids.

I will admit that most of this is our own fault as an organization, we dont tell people who we are and what we do enough.  Plus to make it worse, when you have seen one YMCA, you have only seen one YMCA. None of us are completely the same.  To add complication to complication, we do so many different things that I dont even know all of them.

It almost seems easier to spread the word about a new cause that is very focused and new, than it is to get people to change their impression of an existing organization like the YMCA.

That is my challenge in a one sentence format.

So I think I may have to spend a couple Blog posts later on this topic as I move through our web presence strategy, but for now here are some of my thoughts.

1. First we will be spending time making our own staff aware of the image that is out there and make sure they have a better understanding of how we want to be seen, what we do and how to share that with members. Many of staff (including me) dont know about all of the services we offer.
   
2. We are working to completely change the content and structure of our website and online resources to make it easier for people to learn about us.
   
3. Eventually we will find those members, participants, communities and staff that are already our word of mouth champions and give them the tools, content and ability to tell our story for us.
4. User generated content - need I say more?
5. Craft messages for the specific audiences, we always try to appeal to everyone, just stop it.  Get the right words to the right people who are ready to hear it.
6. Leverage our volunteers (board and program) lets get them more involved and aware.

Anyway there are more thoughts in my head, but I cant get them out right now.  What are your thoughts on this?

5 ways to get staff wearing comfortable shoes (or using the web)

One of my first posts on this blog still gets some considerable traffic, 5 secret ways to trick your colleagues into becoming content creators for your website. So in that effort I am going back to another list of 5. This post was inspired by a comment from one of my readers (didnt even know I had any). Thanks Rebekah.

"I think easing them into using the intranet for communicating is a good way to start and I'm hoping it will work! We're thinking of starting an internal blog to introduce blogging and show them how easy and potentially useful it could be for us. Maybe my trickery will be as effective as yours." Rebekah

5 ways to get staff comfortable with using the web

One basic key is just like breaking in a new pair of shoes, wear them enough to get worn in but not too much to avoid blisters.

1. Start with your own shoes. As Rebekah says above, implement functionality and tools within your commited network of staff before launching to the public and expecting staff to understand and participate. So get a blog, tag cloud, RSS feed, photo sharing, discussion boards, comments, etc and get staff to try them in a safer staff environment.

2. Get some people showing off their kicks. Find some staff that are more excited than others and get them to try out some of your web tools. Build up some examples, stories and champions.

3. Look for the best fit. Dont just focus on those people that ar the most willing. Look for the groups that these tools will have the biggest bang or impact with an audience that is a natural fit for technology. For example, setting up a myspace page for groups that work with teens, have a swim team create a ning social network, Camps start a disscussion board for alumni, etc. Maybe dont start with a newer program where people dont know each other yet, program areas with wide topics like an aquatics social network (keep it focused), etc.

4. Leave some footprints yourself. Why even bother to try convincing others if you havent even tried the tools yourself?

5. Display the shoes. Before you make people try out the tools communicate several different times and ways that they are coming and post some demos or sand boxes for them to touch the tools or try them on. Here is a possible set of waves of communications, blast general announcement, run a webcast, run a training, have a colleague blast a story how they used it, send out an example of others using it, one on one conversations with key people, start the training all over, do another webcast, etc.....

6. Make it personal footwear. Dont focus on how the shoes were made or how they work. Make it fun and exciting, focus on what it means to the individual. Let the individual make the footwear their own, in their own time.

And yes, keeping with tradition, my list of five things includes 6.

Photo credit, Lachlan Hardy's Flickr.

YMCA web site, make it useful

My first plan of action with our web site was initially to jump in and fix two major things - the content and the "look and feel".  We have very little content that tells you who we are, what we do and whats makes us better than other alternatives (and yes we are better ;-)).  I had (and actually still do) this big plan for creating deeper content that describes our programs, services, philosophy and mission.   All of this would improve our organic search results, provide more information to members-prospects and would (in theory) increase traffic.

Then a revelation came as we talked through some things.  Why increase traffic when there is no real reason for people to come to our site?  Our online program registration is functional, but needs work.  We have an online donation page.  But beyond that, we dont have anything in place to make that increased traffic stay once they are on the site.  Our current members dont have much of a reason to visit the site.

So that is when our plan was rearranged a bit. We are working to create an innovative, meaningful set of online tools that will extend the services that the YMCA offers.  Our first step is to super size our online registration system.  We plan to make finding the class that is right for you much easier and even pointing out ones you didnt know we had.  We also plan to make the whole experience much more enjoyable and effecient.  We still plan to really beef up our content, but that will take a little time.  

So what is unique about that to merit a blog post? Nothing, but it is my blog so PLLTTHH. (is that the sound when you stick out your tongue?)

Just kidding.  This is worth posting and sharing because I wonder how many of us out there focus on spending so much time getting new traffic, recruiting new members, pushing SEO and such that we forget to make the experience meaningful to our audience.

Too many YMCAs are just OK with mediocre online registration and membership management tools.  Their web site is just there as a reproduction of their brochure and a cash register to accept payment for classes.  I am sure this is true with other orgs as well.  My thought is to offer a set of tools like no other YMCA that adds real value to our members.

Sidetrack from Web Strategy - Quick Wins

I am deep in the throws of pushing our web presence strategy forward when suddenly I turned around to see a bunch of things that I could do now to make an impact. It seems that we always have to fight for that balance between immediate and long term needs.  (wish I knew where that picture came from).

I had been working off of the idea that we need to put a bunch of things on hold in order to focus on the long term win.  I think many of us get through the day putting out today's fires and dont have time to think about the long term needs. But dont we really need both?

So I took a little time this week and got a couple small, quick wins for the team.  First we used Flickr to upload a couple photos of a Grand Opening of our new Kelly Hall location (very exciting to be serving a community that needs us so much!).

Within a short amount of time we were able to get this up and shared.  But with this came a number of struggles.  One of which was that we had a paid photographer at the event and hopefully they were able to get some great photos.  The struggle is that we are still waiting for those photos, we ended up using a few photos that a staff member took.  (notes for next time...)

Beyond adding that quick page about our launch we also took a step back and are working on content that could be easily added to our current site that will also be reused in future development.

Plus we realized that within the IT department we arent using our own online tools well enough.  We will be launching an intranet this year for the full association with plans to have some great social networking and collaboration integration.  But here is our own team that could use a little bit more of that.  I am by no means dissin (if that is the right word for dismissing) the teams ability.  This is the best team that I have worked with ever, period.  We have a great mix of personalities, talents, focuses and strengths.  But we are all working pretty independently.  How will we get the whole association to work together when my own team isnt completely there?

Anyway, the best laid plans.... so it was a timeout from deep thinking to see if there were some immediate needs to be met.  I didnt mention all of them for fear of boredom, but I think you get the idea.  Plus I was able to use that awesome picture of the soccer cat, please tell me where I found that so I can give credit.

Listen, Act, Share as part of online donation

To provide some deeper explanation of my last post I will use an example of online donation.  

Our current web site provides an about us page that explains our mission and 501c3 status.  We also have some history and information about who we are in some secluded areas.  We have the online donation function with a link on the home page to donate now.  This represents the Tell and Do philosophy of tell the audience some things you want them to hear and then give them something to do.

Listen, Act, Share

Here is what we plan to move it to, Listen, Act and Share.  The biggest addition is the Listen area.  For those people are prospects, not existing donors, we want to engage them in a conversation with us, our staff, our board, our partners, other members, other donors or many other audiences.  We also want to give them multiple ways to provide us feedback and information about themselves.

The biggest shift will be to Share from Tell. We will use language across our full web site to share information about who we are, what we care about, what our mission is and why it all matters.  Rather than saving mission talk for our "About us" page it will be woven across the full site.  We will look for opportunities to showcase ways for use to share who we are, members to share what they think of us, staff to show their dedication, volunteers to show their involvement and more.  Our words will be less about making announcements and more about sharing a piece of who we are.

And finally a shift to Act from Do. In my interpretation do seems like something that is a one time occurence and is more of a transaction.  We will still have those transactions but our bigger goal will be getting people more involved and engaged in our organization.  So we will build some opportunities online that will build or surround the donation process, like joining a community, volunteering, sharing a story, recruit others and more.  In addition we will work purposefully to align our online activity with our in person experiences at our locations.  For example building a process around how we interact with our donors after the online pledge happens.  Or how we will drive traffic to our web site for information about how our donations have impacted the community.

This is just a brief and single example of how we plan to shift the way we leverage the online experience to enhance and expand the impact we have on our communities.  This is more than a web site this is the extension of our mission through an online presence. 

Core of new web strategy

Over the next few posts I plan to share the core concepts that we have decided to focus on as we move from having a web site to having an online presence.  The first thing to note, is that first sentence.  In 2009 the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago will be making a move from just a web site to having a real online presence. What is the difference?

The difference is that an online presence will include much more than a web site.  In addition to the web site we will be launching an intranet and beginning to extend to social networks\media.  It will be a lot of work to launch all of these in 2009 but with a fresh start on all fronts, comes a unique opportunity, we will look for ways to tightly integrate and overlap all of these efforts.  It is too early to jump to some of these ideas, but one example is integrating a purposeful use of LinkedIn into our staff/volunteer intranet.

Core of our strategy - Start a conversation with a call to action

It is as simple as starting an online conversation with a deliberate call to action. I did not invent this concept or idea, I am just applying what I have learned from many smart people.

There is nothing dramatically wrong with our current web site, except that for the most part it is just an online version of our brochures. It tells people things and then gives them few options of things to do.

Listen: Our new strategy will add in the element of listening, we need to provide ways for members to interact with us.  This also means we need to get out where the people already are (like social networks) and listen to the conversations they are having about us.

Act: Act will be an effort to build gradual and multiple ways for our communities to engage with us, rather than only providing things to do (like sales).

Share: Sharing who we are, what makes us unique is much different than telling people about our buildings, memberships and programs.  In addition to changing our content, we will also be moving toward content that is specific to the audience.  The little picture of whispering in the ear for the share column is appropriate.  We want to stop screaming to large groups and not be heard, but shift to direct messages to those who are interested.

So that is what we are calling the core of our online presence strategy.  I dont think there are new revelations here, but maybe the way I shared it will bring it to new audiences or start other conversations.

Happy New Year to all of you.  Watch for the next post where I will give a more in depth example of this core concept of Hear, Act, Share.

5 secret ways to trick your colleagues into becoming content creators for your website.

Shh, don't share the following with ANYONE! Keep it to yourself and trick your colleagues at work into becoming the content creators that you know they can be.

One of the biggest complaints I have heard over and over again is that it is hard to get staff at organizations to contribute to content to the website. The IT or tech team should not be the ones writing the content of the website. Nor should it only be the marketing staff, who wants a web site full of marketing pizazz.

But our staff are so busy that they just dont have time to contribute solid content to populate the site. Well here is my list:

Top 5 Ways to trick your colleagues into becoming content creators for your website.

6. Job description. This may seem like you are forcing people, but you have to look at this as just part of their job. Work with supervisors, HR, "C" level staff, etc. to get web site content into all of the appropraite job descriptions. Even if you cant get it into existing ones, there are always those new hires. Now granted, this wont automatically make the content good or even make it happen, but at least their is a small awareness.

5. Three ring binders. Look around for things and pieces of information that people have thought is important enough to keep in a written format like a three ring binder. YMCAs are famous for having a whole shelf of these at the front desk and in every YMCA program directors office. Find what is most useful and repopulate that content into your intranet or web site.

4. Ease it in. Start with an intranet, instead of a public website. Get people involved in our intranet. Get them used to using the web to submit content. Do simple things like a discussion board, a book club, transferring manuals from paper to web, write stories about their background, etc. Get people to start a wiki, start with a small group, then brag about how cool the project is. Then others will want to join.

3. Competition. Pick a couple people that you know are ready to give content, then get that published on your site. Then go overboard in recognizing those staff within your org. A few others will want to join in based on that. Then continue to publicize the people that are contributing. Maybe even create a quarterly award for best content, include a free day off and a cool tshirt. But the most important key is to get those people not contributing wondering why they arent involved.

2. Bribery. Bribe them with food and hold an in-person meeting. Schedule a meeting focused on a topic that you need content for on your site. Then invite the people that have knowledge on that topic to a meeting and serve some pizza, ice cream or something. Get them talking and have someone take notes. Take a quick break. Have someone fast and furious rewrite those notes into some sample content for site. When people return, show them the content and have them react and help rewrite. Then publish and be sure to give all the credit to those people.

1. Steal it. Ask your colleagues a question in an email and dont tell them you plan to reuse it on the web. Just ask a question. Take their reply and rework it as content. Then send it back to them with this quote, "WOW, I was so impressed with your answer that I would love to have this content on the org web site. I attached what it could look like. Could I get your permission to post this?" But dont stop with stealing emails. Look for content to "steal" from discussion boards, memos, handwritten notes, brochures, presentations and more!

See what I did! I tricked you also! I said there were five and I wrote six. OK, I only did that because a top 5 sounds cooler than top 6.

Any Hoot. I would suggest by first trying to figure out what the biggest barriers are at your org. Is it a fear of tech? A feeling they arent the expert? A lack of time or resources? Unsure of what to write? The key is to get them to write that first peice, get permission and show that person how smart and great they truly are (BUT BE GENIUNE!), then next time maybe they submit it more willingly.

I am not claiming to be an expert on any of this, but obviously I was smart enough to trick you into reading this. Maybe now I can trick you into writing a comment?