2009-09-21 Web Design status meeting

Old Business:

1. Agenda modifications - Josh, Georgette, Walt, Ann, Doug

2. Subteam status reports

* Office status (Josh)

• Store issues

o Customer issues ... three transactions last week.
o Member role is now working properly.
o FAQ needs revising (Ann to do); Join/Renew page needs updating (Georgette)
o Staff needs to mark orders and memberships Complete (from Payment received) when ebase updated and product shipped. If later want to have a following step, can mark things Finished after something else (t.b.d.) happens. Standalone donations will come in as Complete - need to make sure we don't overlook them.

• Other

o Josh put $1K per month in budget for tech support for Web site.
o Multiple email addresses (office, orders, info, feedback, webmaster) for questions/concerns/problems. Jenny to be removed from dealing with any of them. Josh, Gary, Hedy. Walt advises office is easy to get rid of (except that things reference it). Info@ is sort of an industry standard. (What does Verisign, FedEx, etc. use?) Josh to figure out what to do.
o Use groups to manage confidential documents (e.g. lists of board phone numbers). Catherine to maintain docs.
o Product weights - use to establish handling fees. Rather than change to First Class mail charges, could Josh calculate weights offline and up product costs? Josh to have more info for us next week. Walt will load module on test system first. (Need to update test system.)

* Google Analytics and Theming (Doug)

* Business model (Ann/Ed)

• ShortEscapes proposal review (Josh, Doug) - obtain Web team's recommendation

o Josh: interesting proposal
o Origin: Fodors Is this a startup? What is funding? Looking to aggregate content.
o Walt: consider people time to make changes on Web (Georgette = $$, volunteer time; project manager); what is time scale? Does it conflict with our Google grant? Web changes needed seem minor - stuff Walt can do.
o ShortEscapes does ad sales for this segment of site - revenue sharing with TC. Objective: potential monetization of site. Doug recommends trial relationship - start small and see how it goes. 3 month engagement? Would need links to them on lots of relevant pages. Links from their site back to us. Don't violate Google grant for now.
o Shared micro-site ... risk that we point away from our own pages.
o A way to test the potential for ads on our site?
o If Google grants go away - need something like AdSense or a third party ad manager.
o Scope work to be done, e.g., make x hikes available in the trial period.
o Next step ... Ed to set up meeting with ShortEscapes. What is their commitment to generate traffic back to us? How will they drive traffic? Who are their other partners?
o Don't drive AdWords to shortescapes page, but refer to it in content.
o Walt not available most of November.

• Reporting Web statistics (what, how often, who does it?)

o Relates to board objectives comparing progress against old Web site.
o Initial numbers - new/renew on Web; all renewals. Georgette/Hedy assembled numbers - Georgette will type in.
o 27 Web donations last year; 97 this year. Big increase! 549 last year - 661 this year (also an increase).
o Georgette to compile reports going forward. Looking for advice on what to use. (Ubercart and Google Analytics, Ebase has monthly membership summary. This year 5400 - 6800, currently at 6737.)

* Content (Georgette)

• Current activities
• Darlington page - Phil reluctant to step up to this responsibility. Need to understand what kind of pages are needed. Walt to follow up with DSH committee and then talk with Phil.

* Technology (Walt)
-- Procedure for Web site outages
-- Backup plan - Josh to nudge Joe to call Walt to resolve.
-- Drupal 6
-- Store issues: Ubercart membership process
-- ebase fields to push to the Web site; synchronization plan
-- photo galleries - Walt understands more as a result of doing stuff with Friends of Fahnestock site. Can advise further in a couple of days.l

3. Set goals for next couple of weeks
* Walt's priorities
* Other high priority items

4. Specific action items requiring discussion.
See http://nynjtc.org/meeting/actions
Review outstanding actions from prior meeting minutes

New Business:

Meeting schedule:
Next meeting: phone or office next or two weeks ?
Invite someone to next status meeting?

Parking lot (for later discussion):
Ed requests we discuss: Publication pages; Member org pages; Sponsor pages