PTO Sites & Directories Meeting 06/30/08
Submitted by Erik on Wed, 07/02/2008 - 3:04pm.
ATTENDEES
Erik Britt-Webb, Lisa Cohen, Geoff Epstein, Janet Porcaro, Arnold Sodder
CHARTER
We met and discussed project scope, as described in the PTO Sites & Directories Project Plan. We've divided the project into three parts. We're in the process of establishing teams to define and carryout the action items for each project.
ACTION ITEMS
Here is a snapshot of the action items so far. Going forward, make updates to the Action items on the Project Plan page.
PTO Website
- Setup sandbox – northptso.org (Drupal?/CiviCRM)
- Draft site map
- Determine cotent types
- Determine taxonomy?
PTO Directory
- Setup sandbox – northptso.org (Drupal/CiviCRM)
Hosting/Technology
- Price/feature comparison; select host account
- Setup sandbox – northptso.org (Drupal/CiviCRM)
Next Meeting
- Monday, July 7, 7pm
I realize this seems like very soon, but hopefully we will have some progress to review, and I also want to synchronize with other team members who did not make our first meeting (e.g., Charles, Peter, Libba).
Buy in
We should go slowly and consider this a first year pilot. It is as wonderful as we know it will be, there will be nothing to sell. Through PTO Council we can present our project but I would prefer staying focused on the start-up.
Does anyone have a phone number for Libba? I don't think I even have her email.
PTO buy in
I think we can proceed incrementally here. There is a lot of commonality in function so that is a plus. I think we can start with a group of PTOs and work them as the pilot group, get feedback and settle on a good initial prototype. Then we can fold in the others, making adjustments as we go. It should be perfectly possible to retain enough of the original graphic elements such as logos, favorite images etc to bridge from the current to the future.
Agreed; Proposed Pilot PTOs
I agree with Geoff. We can move more quickly with a pilot group, develop and refine our model with their feedback and then have a much more compelling value proposition for the rest of the PTOs once the pilot group is up and running.
I think the group of PTOs includes: NNHS, NSHS, Bigelow, Ward.
If we wanted, we could also include Memorial-Spaulding and Underwood, which are also run using Geoff's ColdFusion solution.
We should be careful about including too many schools. More schools in the pilot means more work getting their input and training them on how to use the new system.
"We should be careful about
"We should be careful about including too many schools. More schools in
the pilot means more work getting their input and training them on how
to use the new system."
I agree, Erik. My initial comment? was more about the end result, not the pilot. And this is a lot of work if there isn't 'buy in' on a philosophical level from all parties involved. I just wanted to know that at the end of the day, all the PTOs will want to be part of this coordinated project.
Philosophical Buy-in is Ideal
I agree that philosophical buy-in from all parties would be ideal. If you and/or Janet or others could take this on, that would be great--perhaps through the PTO Council. I don't have the relationships or the bandwidth to tackle this.
In any event, I feel very comfortable moving forward with the buy-in we do have, including both high schools, at least two middle schools and several of the elementary schools.
Even if no other schools adopted this solution, the effort would still be worth it to get this many on board. And I'm pretty confident that if we do this right, most others will gladly join in.
Buy in from all pto's?
One of the things I was wondering about is if we have buy in for this project from *all* the PTOs. This is especially critical if we are looking at developing a common theme or lexicon for the PTO webpages. Right now it seems as if the PTO pages from different schools are all over the map in terms of design and where they are hosted.