After over a year of consultations, meetings and content creation, APSA is thrilled to announce it's newest member-focused website - APSA Central.
"It's been a long road, but we're excited to be on it."
- President Jeff Bryer
It's been over a year since the Executive Committee sat down at their annual retreat and brainstormed about the Association's key strategies for 2009 - 2011. At the top of the list were membership engagement and APSA sustainability. Under those two strategies was the idea to create a central repository and site for collaboration, communication and information sharing among its members.
While each committee member had a different vision of what that site would look like, all agreed on it's main objective - to better serve its members.
Recognizing that the previous website had limited potential for expansion, the Executive Committee set out on the long process of recreating a site that aligned people, process and technology. But they couldn't do it alone. With time and expertise constraints, APSA sought out a dedicated team of designers who could understand the vision of the Executive Committee, the needs of the members and the technology required to bring it together.
The decision was straight forward after meeting with 7th Floor Media (7FM). Not only did 7FM have the technical expertise and experience of creating sites of this kind behind them, but they also understood the needs of APSA members being APSA members themselves.
To create APSA Central, the design team used information provided by members during face-to-face focus groups and surveys to structure the a website that addressed the needs of members, committees and staff.
Overall, the website would need to (and did!) fulfill the following goals:
- Provide quick and easy access to current and complete information and knowledge.
- Enhance communication across all APSA stakeholders.
- Reduce the time spent finding and sharing relevant information.
- Provide the ability for staff to easily maintain and manage information.
The project was approached in three phases with Phase one concentrating on membership participation, input and feedback. While Phase one focused on membership input, informal member feedback continued throughout the project and was a key component through the next two phases.
Phase One: identify stakeholders, technology, content and detailed requirements for the site.
Phase Two: create content, develop site and integrate content
Phase Three: conduct quality assurance and launch
While the launch of the site marks the final phase of the project, it does not mark the end of it. APSA Central will continue to develop and grow with input from committees, members and staff. Your continued participation and feedback is greatly needed and appreciated.