Would love to see a web site in which I can go plug in departure and arrival points, at which point it maps out the journey, and identifies the amount of tolls for each stretch of road applicable, and whether the toll is manned or not. Driving across country can create some bewildering times if you find yourself without much change.
Wayne Kessler: October 2009 Archives
Most Home Owner Associations (HOAs to the uninitiated)
need web sites. Clearly most associations need a web site, they are currently stressed
by today's economy to reduce costs and by today's technology to decrease the
delivery time of information. There's a dead zone there in between those two
pressures, and it's called paper. Associations have to figure out the way to
most effectively deliver the content and information their membership wants and
needs electronically INSTEAD of paper, which is a shift from the previous IN
ADDITION to paper.
HOAs have a third pressure - a general reliance on
volunteers - for getting everything done. Paper, in addition to cost, adds
labor - delivery, printing, etc. Web and email is SO much easier, and quicker.
So what's the hold up?
Delivery, primarily. There's still a sizeable
population out there in the residential world that's not online, and the
residential world is where the HOA operates. For HOAs, this is primarily an
age-related factor, and not one they'll be able to get by immediately, but as
time goes by, it will solve itself. For some HOAs this may also be an economic
issue, in which case the issue may be more problematic.
That does not mean that HOAs shouldn't do anything
yet. There are thousands of HOAs online, and if you take a look at them, you'll
see they are proactively trying to establish email connection with their
members, and using their web sites as resources. Just a few
examples:
to see what kinds of interactive and static resources HOAs can provide online.
The key for HOAs to remember, however, is that building web value takes
time. It takes time to collect the email addresses for email delivery of
information, it takes time to develop online resources for HOA members to
reference - such as bylaws, calendar, and previous board minutes - so the sooner
an HOA starts, the sooner it will reach a critical mass that will retain
appreciation from members. I'd strongly recommend providing a neighborhood an
email discussion group that allows all members of the HOA - but just members of
the HOA - to participate, whether it be sharing recommendations of a plumber or
figuring out a good place for a neighborhood picnic.
In short, if you run an HOA - get started, particularly in collecting email addresses.
There are exceptions, but in general for a real,
existing, planning-to-exist-for-a-while organization, going with a free web server provider is a kind of a dumb way to go.
Be the customer. That's the only way you can expect accountability.
When you do a web site primarily of Twitter "tweets",
you get visitors of searchers of various Twitter "authors". That's what we see on IAmNoLobbyistBut.com...
I just read about some local government official bragging that their website didn't cost anything because a resident built it for them and will maintain it for them, for free.
I have some words of advice for any real organization wishing to have a web site: Be The Customer.
By that, I mean, you should be paying somebody for your web site maintenance and continuation - either on payroll or a vendor. Why? Because a web site isn't paper stock, a product bought and delivered. It's not static. It takes some work for it to be worth anything. That work begins with the initial design, but does not end there.
There are a few souls out there that love web work so much that they'll do it for free forever and will think about the needs of your organization and will do these things proactively and will never expect anything in return from you.
Good luck in finding those souls. For the rest, you need some sort of transactional basis to maintain and develop a relationship that will go forward and pay your organization benefits, rather than being a dead end that will have to be replaced in the near future and most likely generate a "reboot" of your whole effort.
Finding somebody that will do your web work for free is fine as long as you realize it's part of your organization's learning curve, and you're likely to learn some hard lessons this way. Bragging about it, on the other hand, is ignorant.
I have some words of advice for any real organization wishing to have a web site: Be The Customer.
By that, I mean, you should be paying somebody for your web site maintenance and continuation - either on payroll or a vendor. Why? Because a web site isn't paper stock, a product bought and delivered. It's not static. It takes some work for it to be worth anything. That work begins with the initial design, but does not end there.
There are a few souls out there that love web work so much that they'll do it for free forever and will think about the needs of your organization and will do these things proactively and will never expect anything in return from you.
Good luck in finding those souls. For the rest, you need some sort of transactional basis to maintain and develop a relationship that will go forward and pay your organization benefits, rather than being a dead end that will have to be replaced in the near future and most likely generate a "reboot" of your whole effort.
Finding somebody that will do your web work for free is fine as long as you realize it's part of your organization's learning curve, and you're likely to learn some hard lessons this way. Bragging about it, on the other hand, is ignorant.
I expect that the dam is going to break on various IT projects as funds become available, and some companies that work with the state are going to be deluged with items that were detained for 100 days. I know we're expecting some of that.
One of the sites I manage is a Home Owner Association of about 410 households. The HOA has a contact/content management system, but one of the keys of make that system work is to have a valid email address for every member (in this case, households).
Which brings up the constant problem the Internet has had - not everyone has email, and that's a problem that is going to continue into the foreseeable future.
At some point, there's going to be a stigma for not having an email address. It isn't today, because we simply don't expect certain adults to learn how to use email - or to be honest, to learn how to use a computer. But that expectation changes with every quarter-generation or so, and there will be a time when not being online is seen as a backwards practice, perhaps akin to continuing to use the outhouse on one's property when water and sewage connections became available. The question is: when?
Which brings up the constant problem the Internet has had - not everyone has email, and that's a problem that is going to continue into the foreseeable future.
At some point, there's going to be a stigma for not having an email address. It isn't today, because we simply don't expect certain adults to learn how to use email - or to be honest, to learn how to use a computer. But that expectation changes with every quarter-generation or so, and there will be a time when not being online is seen as a backwards practice, perhaps akin to continuing to use the outhouse on one's property when water and sewage connections became available. The question is: when?
