Mariemont Website improvement meeting

I met on 11/21 with Kim, Jeff, and Andy to talk about what could be done to improve the Village Website on short timing. Very productive meeting, recap of email I sent below.

I'd like to see a series of improvements with the goal of cranking up transparency/effective communication without $$ investment in a way that's easy to support.

Cortney
-----------
Hi Guys,

Really enjoyed our time on Saturday. Here are my notes:

purpose
inform, engage, promote
portal for everything mariemont
for current prospective businesses, current prospective residents, and tourists/visitors. current Residents primary audience
2 way communication w residents

approach
phased approach so that we can move towards more, better transparency
choose not to include enquirer like comments right away. Website could lose focus
this probably means easy to submit info/feedback, but an intermediate step of review for appropriate-ness before broadly sharing back
do want to get more raw unfiltered at some point

desired features (phased)
visual calendar
citizen login - constant contact expensive, salesforce.com
classifieds/corkboard like crossroads.net
updates per committee submitted by chair via twitter (in addition to sunshine law reqs)
place for MM Citizens, MM Businesses to publish a link. need to help businesses here in MM
most requested links either dynamically or we resort every 6 months
map showing true village + neighorhood Districts + links to council
How Do I format
Links to MM relevant sites: Wikipedia, theater, town crier link (Need this to be a true portal), Yahoo local, city-data.com, Inn, MPF, Topix.com
rotating photo, maybe 10 sec, maybe per session, maybe per month
amateur photo contest, generate eyeballs at launch
professions photos good too
picasso and flickr offer folder capability to auto rotate pix
online tax doc links need to be preserved
Google Docs as repository for our information. May reduce size of TW Cable bill for hosting? All docs avail to everybody. Can you see google docs anonymously? Agree logged in users better, but would like to be avail to all
icrc invited to film and links included
podcast and link in the short term. Research: laptop + $8 mic + editing software http://audacity.sourceforge.net all that's needed. one of us can do this! more info on process: http://www.ehow.com/how_5116110_make-podcast.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=yssp_art
selling ads to finance improvements? Allowed?
counter stats - google analytics
videos of events, like tree lighting and mem day parade
polls - great way to learn our way towards open communication
random, changing facts, maybe historical trivia, budget concerns, #speeding tx on wooster pike, etc. Maybe as a ticker? Need freq updates if this option. plug in twitter updates? Anything mariemont? We do this at PG
video contest, use poll to declare winner. great for getting eyeballs to site

I think I may have slowed down the group, putting a jan 1 update at risk. Sorry about this - I think a new site on Jan 1 is an awesome idea, and want to help us get there. Pls let me know what I can do. Maybe build the District Map? If this would help, I need to know what the file format should be.

It's gonna be fun!


Thanks,
Cortney
271-4513



scheeser.blogspot.com