The Guide's Purpose:
This Guide was written to support executives, managers, board members and resident volunteers who wish to create a resident oriented website, upgrade an existing website, or simply want to reduce the learning curve and costs of long term website management.
The Guide provides tools and techniques for project planning, selecting content, estimating and offsetting costs with Revenue, managing website Vitality, Partnering with vendors, and most importantly, Organizing and managing association resources for success. The techniques shown in the Guide are ones that other associations have found to be successful. This provides the opportunity to learn from their experience, or to cross check for things that might be overlooked. The Guide also identifies the key issues and obstacles that a successful website may face, and offers suggestions for solutions. The goal of the Guide is to save you time and money as well as showing practical and cost effective project management techniques.
The Guide provides Tools and Techniques to Help You:
- define which functions and features are important
- select content so residents will actively use your Website
- ensure your Website can pay for itself
- maintain the vitality of your Website
- evaluate and select the best vendors
- with tools to ensure vendors and volunteers finish on time and on budget
- build a strong organization with job descriptions
- respond to, “We cannot afford the staff to build a great resident website”
- build broad support and cope with a vocal minority
This 170 page Guide is for Managing a Successful Website whether
installing, improving, or maintaining an association / resident website.
While software is important, it is the Management Process that leads to
great content that excites Residents. And it is the Management Process
that incorporates Revenue-generating capabilities to secure the funds
necessary for long-term success. Our goal is to provide the tools that
help assure that success, and “Best Practices” guidance
for association executives.Most Association Managers recognize that the luxury of having a quality
Website has become a necessity. Successful websites have moved from being
“one more thing to manage” to a critical part of the association’s
image and a signature of success for association management.The Guide explains in detail, in laymans' terms, the methods to
utilize when you are designing a site, working with vendors, recovering
costs or ironing out internal conflicts. Best of all it provides lots
of actual examples that can serve as a baseline for your own creative
ideas. The applications and solutions presented have benefited from the
suggestions of thousands of users during many years of operation. We have
included here the
Chapter Index to illustrate the level
of thoroughness and usefulness of the information provided.The material is best approached
by reading the Chapter Summaries first, and then deciding the detail in
each Chapter that applies directly to the time and circumstance of your
association. Each Chapter's sections (see Reference Material in each Chapter's description in the Introduction) provide ready access to specific detail covering most situations
and issues the manager will encounter.
