<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Thanks Paul, really appreciate you
taking the time to provide feedback. <br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:571C4520.1080000@gear.dyndns.org" type="cite">
<br>
There is a significant preconception at work here which doesn't
seem to have been discussed on the list (at least not that I can
recall). The preconception is: increasing the number of hits on
the Linux Australia web site is an important goal. (Or perhaps
more accurately: increasing the frequency at which members use the
site.) The purpose of my email is to question whether that is an
important goal, and, if the answer is affirmative, understand and
quantify/qualify why.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Sure, it's a fair question. Increasing the frequency of visits, or
the 'stickiness' of visits to linux.org.au is not a goal in an of
itself. However, it's part of a broader goal to increase engagement
with the organisation - across all our digital channels, events and
touchpoints. That engagement encompasses elements as broad as; <br>
<br>
- greater engagement through our Twitter channel - @linuxaustralia -
to grow recognition and understanding of LA's events and activities<br>
- greater engagement through our mailing lists - such as this one -
to ensure that the views and voices of our members are heard<br>
- greater engagement through the linux.org.au website - again to
grow recognition of what we do, and encourage others to be involved,
but also promote things like Grants, and provide information on open
source. <br>
- greater engagement on platforms such as IRC<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:571C4520.1080000@gear.dyndns.org" type="cite">
<p>My main reason for questioning this is: I don't like seeing
good people invest substantial effort on a commendable project
and then feel frustrated when they didn't make the impact they
had hoped. We're a volunteer organisation, and I value the time
that all our volunteers contribute.<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
Agreed. We have limited resources - let's apply them effectively. <br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:571C4520.1080000@gear.dyndns.org" type="cite">
<p> </p>
Here are a few questions to flesh out what I'm getting at:<br>
<ul>
<li>What end does increasing the frequency of member views on
the site serve?</li>
<li>Would the content provided by a new LA web site fill a gap
that is not already well-served by other sites?</li>
<li>If so, what sort of content would that be?</li>
<li>Would this be sufficiently appealing/useful to members to
increase the frequency of their visits?</li>
<li>Are there other ways to engage LA members which might be
more effective/efficient in terms of money, time, and effort?</li>
<li>What does member engagement of a successful software freedom
lobbying/support organisation look like?<br>
</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<br>
So, I think I've answered some of this broadly above, but I would
like to tackle the content questions. Part of the recent survey was
intended to highlight what specific content our members wanted to
see on the new linux.org.au site. In short, yes, there is content
that the LA site needs to provide (or aggregate) that is not
provided on other sites, for instance information on up and coming
open source events, information on the activities of LA and
information on LUGs. I can't answer whether this content would be
appealing to members - but the survey was intended to help provide
guidance on what content would be valued. <br>
<br>
The question around whether there are other ways to engage LA
members that might be more effective is a good one. At the end of
the day though, our web presence is really a central hub for
directing interested parties to the right touchpoint - whether that
be social media, to a LUG, to the mailing lists and so on - so it
should be effective. <br>
<br>
In measuring member engagement, I see two primary metrics - quantity
and quality. Quantity deals with the number of members engaged -
followers, visits to the web page, subscribers to mailing lists and
so on. Quality is very different and speaks to the depth, or action
taken with engagement, such as the number of people debating a
thread, or the number of people signing up for an event. <br>
<br>
Read more of this here -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.demandmetric.com/content/customer-engagement-maturity-model">http://www.demandmetric.com/content/customer-engagement-maturity-model</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:571C4520.1080000@gear.dyndns.org" type="cite">
<p>Speaking for myself, there are a few reasons why I don't visit
the site regularly:<br>
</p>
<ol>
<li>LCA and elections only happen once a year, and I know the
general time of year when that will happen, so I don't really
need the site much between February & September (...ish).</li>
<li>There's no obvious RSS feed - at least, there's no reference
to "feed", "atom", or "rss" on the front page.</li>
<li>I already have too much information coming into my life,
through email, IRC, RSS, Twitter, etc., and if it were just
general Linux news and aggregation of people's blogs, I
probably wouldn't find a reason to add the site to my list of
monitored feeds. I'm a busy person, employed by a Linux
company with a broad reach, and reasonably well-informed about
the industry. From my perspective, it takes a fairly special
web site to get me to come back regularly. Thinking about
various other organisations which I support (financially or
otherwise), endorse, or appreciate, I don't visit their web
sites very much at all, and I don't necessarily see this as a
big problem.<br>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Fixing #2 is probably the only one which would increase the
frequency at which I visit the site, and it may not do so for
very long.<br>
</p>
<p>If creating a new web site is something our volunteers want to
do anyway, then go for it! But I think there may be other
possibilities we should be exploring (at least in parallel)
given the investment which this effort will require.</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
With respect, you're probably not the sort of person we're trying to
reach with the website. You're already actively engaged,
knowledgeable about Linux - and a Linux Australia member who knows
about LCAs, knows about Council elections and when they're held. The
website helps to address the pipeline issue we have by making more
people aware of Linux Australia, our events, our projects, and the
benefits of free membership. In user experience design, we'd refer
to this as 'personas' - understanding different segments of your
user base in order to provide the right information to them at the
right time. Our website probably needs to be tailored to the
'prospective member' persona - the sort of person who's interested
in LA but isn't sure where to start. <br>
<br>
Again, really appreciate your feedback - I think it will help to
focus our efforts. <br>
<br>
Kind regards,<br>
Kathy<br>
</body>
</html>