[Sagamore Online] Near Term Plans

[John R. Lenz]

Dave, thank you for pulling this together. I've been thinking about your email since it came through. Also seen others' responses. I actually had a dream/nightmare last night that we were all in a meeting in person in the library about this email.

I guess my first question would be has the group/you decided on a goal to achieve? Is the main goal to facilitate easy communication through the community? Is that the issue?

If we want to solve that, I think your idea of a mailing list with archives is a great tactical tool to get the job done. And for ease-of-use purposes, I'd use Google. 

Also, applying for Google apps as a 501c3 (PTA) can lead to great stuff down the road. For instance, it is possible to get free Google Adwords, with a budget of up to $10,000 a month for ads. Now I know we're not necessarily selling per se, but having a kickass adwords campaign extolling the virtues of Sagamore, promoting the events we undertake, encouraging tours of the school for prospective parents, and countering some of the negative publicity of the county would be valuable to our community. 

One thing about technology to keep in mind is that maybe something you might take for granted is not understood by the vast majority of the population, and is often not used correctly. But a mailing list is pretty damn simple to educate people about, and many people are already on lists and are familiar with the nomenclature.

However, if you start talking wikis, etc. you're going to lose people.

If PTA wants to stick with wordpress, I can do the theme work, as I'm sure many could. And as you know you could have an admin with contributors and the contributors would all have accounts.

I hope the above helps and I hope I don't have nightmares again tonight.

-J


On Mar 10, 2013, at 1:07 PM, Dave Allen Barker Jr wrote:

> Kim Speece (PTA co-president) and I got a chance to talk on Friday about online and general communication efforts in service of the Sagamore Hills ES community.  So, I'll describe my ideas, and I hope to hear feedback, or ideas of your own, from y'all.  Participating in this discussion so far are: myself, Kim, Monica, Heather, Vera, John, Jonathan, and Sally—and anyone is welcome to join or follow along.
> Short version of what I'd like to do:
> 	• Buy the domain name "sagamoreparents.org" ($10/y) through the PTA's existing Dreamhost account
> 	• Establish email discussion lists @groups.sagamoreparents.org for things like general Sagamore and per-grade discussion amongst parents
> 	• Promote the mailing through the PTA (newsletter)
> 	• New website (first at dev.sagamoreparents.org) where we work on a new reference website for all Sagamore parent static information needs
> Should I/we do it?
> And now… a lot of words.
> Archived Mailing Lists
> Short version: synergies of information distribution, parent involvement, volunteer knowledge transfer, and school promotion, can be ours by simply routing all email exchange through archived mailing (discussion) lists.
> Scenarios
> 
> 	• A parent wonders about the state of the pond beside the school
> Without archived mailing lists
> The parent chats with their nearest neighbor or emails the PTA.  Information sources are limited and the answer finds a limited audience and is lost to the future.
> With archived mailing list
> A message to the school-wide, general-interest mailing list allows the PTA to respond, as well as any other random parent who can add some information.  Other parents on the list learn something they would not have otherwise, and the discussion can be pointed to (in the archive) when the question inevitably comes up again.
> 	• Organizers put on Science Night
> Without archived mailing lists
> A handful of organizers begin work via email.  They solicit volunteers through the weekly PTA newsletter.  Volunteers are addressed individually by the organizers, often with repetition of information.  Many ideas are passed around, and the best are utilized for that year's event.  The experience of the effort are lost to personal email boxes.
> With archived mailing lists
> A handful of organizers begin work via a mailing list.  They solicit volunteers through the weekly PTA newsletter, and those with extra interest can get up to speed with the organizers' work by reviewing the mailing list archive.  Volunteers are addressed on the mailing list as well, where answers to individual volunteer questions can benefit others.  More enthusiasm and resources come to the project as volunteers get each other excited.  When next year rolls around, the experiences of the prior year can be reviewed through the mailing list archive.
> 	• PTA records a meeting's minutes
> Without archived mailing lists
> A single meeting minutes document is generated, and nothing more comes of it.
> With archived mailing lists
> A single meeting minutes document is generated and posted to the mailing list.  Parents on the list can stay informed, and the list can host related discussion.  The PTA can participate as much or little as they'd like in resulting discussion—even just having access to other parent sentiment is useful to the PTA.
> Implementation
> 
> A couple mailing list systems come to my mind, of course there are others that could be considered too.
> One option is Mailman, software that can run on any hosting service (like Dreamhost we have now).  It allows users and admins to manage subscriptions through both email and the web, and generates web accessible archives.  It's what powers this list and others.
> Another option is Google Groups, which, in addition to what Mailman does, allows posting to the list through the web (not just email).  Lists would be under Google's domain (@googlegroups.com) for free.  Our own domain could be used with Google Groups by using Google Apps, which is free for non-profits (is the PTA a non-profit?) and education (would have to be associated with the school), or $50 per year (per user, but I think we'd need only one user to create groups (mailing lists)).
> I think I'm leaning towards Mailman, for the control and simplicity (once setup (which I can do)), but there's an appeal to Google doing the hosting, and we may decide to lean on other of their service offerings anyway.  We can always switch either way, without much pain, if setup right.
> Website for Parents
> 
> Mostly, we just need to put time in curating the content of the site.  But I'd like to talk a bit about platform.
> Currently we (sagamorepta.org) uses Wordpress with a customized theme.  To refresh the look, I think we should use Wordpress's current default theme (twenty-twelve) (well tested, supported, and featureful) and create a child theme with some of John's recent "Be more." design (ala Sagamore's district hosted site).  I've made a place where we can document other ideas.
> I'm also enamored by the idea of the site being a wiki so anyone can "scratch their itch" to the benefit of others.  I've been experimenting.
> Google Sites might be neat.  Similar to Google Groups mentioned earlier in how it can optionally (via Google Apps) be under our own domain name.
> Going Google
> 
> Google got my attention last year when I was helping Oak Grove Young Children's School establish their own web presence (prior they were hanging off Oak Grove United Methodist Church).  I took notes while I tested a Google Apps account for them, playing with Groups, website (Sites), Calendar(ing), document sharing (now Drive), and more.  It was way more solution than they needed, but that might not be the case for us.
> I'm conflicted on "going Google".  I'm excited to roll with a major innovator, and leveraging new ways of working.  I'm weary of relying on a single vendor, and we still have untapped potential in the tools we use now.  Plus, we can always selectively test out individual Google product offerings (I can imagine Google Drive being useful).
> Domain Name
> 
> It's been suggested we should have a new domain name, leaving "sagamorehillspta.org" to speak more directly to the PTA.
> As I think about shaking things up a bit, and getting parents more involved and communicating, I wonder if doing that somewhat distanced from the school and the PTA is indeed the right answer.  I would hate to see discussion stifled on mailing lists because the PTA didn't feel comfortable hosting particular discussion through their domain.
> I was thinking "sagamorehillses.org" at first, but now think "sagamoreparents.org" is better.  That's really the audience I'd like to reach.
> Conclusion
> 
> There's more I could blab about, but I'll stop for now.  Thoughts?  Thanks.
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