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CEO to CEO Keeping Your Web Site Current ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT, September 2005 Four CEOs answer the question: What is the biggest challenge you've faced in keeping your Web site current? About 18 months ago, our staff technology expert who did all things with the Web site--created it from scratch, maintained it, and was in the process of redesigning it--was hit by a car and died at the scene. After recovering from the initial grief of losing a staff member who was also a good friend, I realized that I didn't even have the passwords to access the site. Thankfully, our site was housed with people who knew both of us well, and they helped me access the site and maintain the basics to keep it fairly current. Then I quickly had to find and hire a reasonably priced Mac expert to take over. Mercifully, our new technology person has been wonderful at keeping things current for us from off-site. We immediately removed the online directory (keeping it current was deemed too time consuming until a better system came along), perfected our education page to make it easier to access and maintain, and used more PDF documents with hyperlinks included in e-mails. We also had made sure that our staff expert knew our passwords to work on our computers, but not a single one of us had the password to her computer. After a frustrating two days of trying everything I could think of to access her computer, I finally got really lucky. So a word to the wise: Make sure at least two people know passwords. Helen Carter, CAE CEO, Williamson County Association of REALTORS, Franklin, Tennessee; helen@williamsoncountyrealtors.org
According to Larry Commons, our staff specialist for this area, the biggest challenge we face in keeping the NATA Web site up to date is managing the sheer volume of information and pages on the site. Since we're constantly updating both the public and our members with information, it can be a daunting task to keep the data fresh and to catch every change in each place it occurs. We try to put the latest and most important information at the top and bump other things further down as they diminish in importance. Eve Becker-Doyle, CAE Executive Director, National Athletic Trainers' Association, Dallas; eve@nata.org
Having sufficient staff resources is the greatest challenge, so we focus on those areas that provide the greatest return to our membership. We have two Web sites--one that provides general information about the association and a second members-only version that provides market-specific information that competes with commercial products. The members-only site has a staff member dedicated to updating content throughout the day, starting early in the morning. Fortunately, we've been able to keep a competitive advantage in a small niche market. Richard Owen, CAE Executive Vice President, Montana Grain Growers Association, Great Falls; rtowen@mgga.org
The biggest challenge in keeping our Web site current is to ensure that the home page information is constantly fresh, which motivates visitors to go further and deeper into the Web site. It is a challenge, because it must be continually monitored. One of the solutions we've come up with is having a volunteer Web editor working in tandem with the paid staff member who manages the Web site's content. This ensures that there are at least two pairs of eyes looking at it on a regular basis. Also, a word of advice: If you have a president's letter, take it off the home page. Including a link is fine, but how many times does a member need to see it? William D. Pawlucy, CAE Senior Vice President, Association Headquarters, Mt. Laurel, New Jersey; wpawlucy@ahint.com
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