The past few years have provided a fascinating look at how online publishing has transformed as weblog-driven content has come into its own. Online publishing has not only become easier to do, the tools for the management of information flows have become more sophisticated and have established a foundation for how communication models will continue to evolve.
This article takes a behind-the-scenes look at the ongoing transformation of our chapter newsletter, Coast Lines, the communication flow of the STC Canada West Coast chapter, and how we arrived at our current online communication system.
Historically, Coast Lines has been one of the key methods of communicating with chapter membership. But, over time, as more immediate methods of communication became available (email, web), the chapter’s communication model shifted, and Coast Lines’ purpose began to shift.
Migrating Coast Lines online had been a topic of discussion for the chapter executive many years prior to this past year’s re-launch. It was tempting keep the discussion limited to the value of the possible various final outputs, in particular, online versus print. Online content can be dynamic. Print is tangible and easier to read at one’s leisure. (Note: to a limited extent, Coast Lines did offer both content in both mediums, as the chapter did provide archived PDFs online.)
Assessing the usability and value of Coast Lines online was much more than a case of weighing the pros and cons of print versus web outputs. As we began to build the business case and plan for re-architecture of the entire STC Canada West Coast website, which involved examining our chapter’s information flows and workflows as well as our resources, it became very clear that there were many development and resource factors that needed to be addressed. In particular, content and the logistics of publishing and distribution (cost and resources) had all become concerns for both the chapter website and Coast Lines.
It made sense to address these concerns for the chapter website and Coast Lines together. The requirements of both were similar: if they were to continue to be useful resources for our readership they needed to contain timely, informative content and compliment the chapter’s other methods of communication, as well as not be a drain on the chapter administration. Despite the medium, if we could not meet these requirements, then we could not bring value.
Changing Communication Methodologies
The look and feel of Coast Lines has changed over the course of our chapter’s existence. (See the Changing Faces of Coast Lines in this issue of Coast Lines.) As well, over time, as our chapter embraced new communications methods, the newsletter’s purpose began to shift.
The chapter has a few archived copies of Coast Lines from the mid-1980s and from those we see that the publication focused on traditional newsletter content: chapter and member news and announcements of upcoming events. However, by the late 1990s, the chapter began publishing more in-depth feature articles.
By the start of 2000, a few challenges began to arise: privacy issues with member information, and, a growing problem, increasingly stale news as the press cycle could not keep up with the information cycle of the chapter. If news needed to get out to members quickly, phone blitzes were organized, but that was a cumbersome process.
In fact, by this point, the primary mode of communication by the chapter to its members was no longer Coast Lines, but mass email and the chapter website. The chapter Web team became invaluable for posting timely updates of chapter news to our web site.
The glue that held Coast Lines together was its focus on feature articles and columns: interviews, reviews, profiles, and viewpoints contributed by several staff writers and members of our community. Furthermore, over the past number of years, the chapter executive was also increasingly aware that STC Canada West Coast membership was growing less-Vancouver-centric and that value that we could provide outside of our locally-organized events was something that needed to be addressed. In that regard, Coast Lines is one of a few resources that could address that issue.
Facing Publishing Challenges
As long as it was a print publication, improving the Coast Lines publishing cycle to align with the chapter’s communications needs was a daunting task. Press time was becoming significant hurdle to overcome.
But added to this, was the concern about how feasible it was to migrate the publication online. Did the chapter have the resources to spend the time publishing HTML content? Our Web team was already over-stretched with keeping up with our by-then standard home page updates that kept our members and community informed of chapter news.
True, we are a chapter of communications professionals, experts with many tools and technologies, but as a volunteer-run organization, we knew that we could not count on resources (people, time, and tools) always being available. In a volunteer-driven organization, resource constraints like these are crippling.
We could have continued to publish PDFs of Coast Lines on our website, but DTP would still need to occur. With weblog-driven publishing improving in the past few years, the timing of Coast Lines’ migration online could not have been better. The migration team realized, however, that the chapter would benefit from more than publishing to a simple weblog interface that online blog tools like Wordpress or Moveable Type provide. We envisioned a publishing system that would allow us to manage the various types of content we published: news, events information, and Coast Lines content.
Consolidating And Redesigning Information Flows
There are many aspects of the STC Canada West Coast site architecture and migration that are not discussed in this article. The site is still in its infancy and has not yet undergone extensive user testing as of the publication date of this article or a “look and feel” redesign.
There has however, been a significant change in how information is managed “behind-the-scenes” and how it can be distributed externally via our website or email communications.
Publishing & Content Management
There are several community-geared web publishing tools that would have enabled the functionality that the chapter was looking for. In the end, we selected pMachine’s publishing system, Expression Engine, because of the relative ease and timing with which we could have the site developed, future redesign capability, and the tool’s after-support system that would support future chapter volunteers.
Expression Engine provides a member management module that enables us to assign permissions to different user groups within our community, for example volunteers, contractors, or regular members, which enables us to easily manage content that is only relevant to members. Expression Engine also provides a communication tool so that the chapter can easily retain its mass email system – an integral part of our member communications.
Content destined for website or Coast Lines online publication is entered via a weblog interface and tagged according to the type of content it is. With those tags, the site can be coded to publish dynamic content in a variety of locations and ways. From a system use and maintenance perspective, this was a huge advantage.
Coast Lines Content Entry Interface
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Building Value
Migrating Coast Lines online with the chapter website has enabled STC Canada West Coast to integrate and consolidate our communications flows. It has brought chapter ‘news’ and ‘events’ information back in closer proximity to Coast Lines and realigned those information flows.
It is now relatively easy for the chapter to bring value to specific member groups via its online interface. For example:
User-fed Content – Content portals for specific user groups within our community (currently, job seekers and contractors) have been created. For an example of this in action, visit the chapter Job Zone pages and notice the links to archived employment and business-related Coast Lines articles. The same is also true on the Coast Lines home page, where we can now publish dynamic links to the latest chapter news stories without interfering with the newsletter’s publishing cycle.
Searchable Content – Search mechanisms have been implemented on various portions of the site (Coast Lines, Resource Library) enabling user’s easier access to specific pieces of content.
With both mechanisms, it is easier for specific user groups within our community to access a wealth of knowledge that would otherwise be buried in stacks of printed back issues of Coast Lines that were likely headed for the recycling bin anyway.
The Future
“Publications” are living. Both Coast Lines and the STC Canada West Coast website will continue to evolve and be shaped by our member needs and our resources. Now that Coast Lines is online, does this mean that it will never be a printed publication again? Perhaps it will if it makes sense to our community in the future.
At this point, we need your feedback on what is working or is not working for you on the new site. In the next few weeks we will be asking you to give your feedback about the new website and online newsletter in a short online survey. If you would like to assist with the user-testing process, please contact Chapter President, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
