wrw wrote:

Additionally I think moving forward the tech team should look to a new architecture that will work better for our growing needs. Currently our site has a number of issues such as;

* A navigation system that is currently not meeting the growing needs of the site. * The front page is a html file that is not easily updated to the most recent news, classes, etc. * We are not able to clearly drive people to the different areas of our site (vendors that give us money for clicks, sponsorship page, etc.). * We are not using the Confluence CMS (content management system) to its best advantage. Ideally it would control the site and pull content from other databases/apps, i.e. be the main framework and not an iframe.

I generally agree with the above statements. Our site design should be reassessed to see if we can improve it for our needs. This includes the legacy HTML files and iFrames, which I've never been totally happy with but satisfied our needs at the time as well as I could. I am NOT a web designer, won't claim to be and will readily admit that I'm not good at design work. :)

I am currently developing and maintaining other sites that use CMS other than Confluence. I am easily able to change the cosmetic appearance of the site, easily able to generate newsletters, add latest news to the front page, manage user rights and logins, enable others to edit and add content and more. Looking through Confluence and other CMS's we can utilize the Confluence system to control the site with RPC's etc. to link in ASM any other databases/apps systems as needed.

Chloe is currently working on an outline for the new site. I have architected, developed, and managed numerous software projects, and I am more than willing to task list the site re-design in MS Project. I think we should target the start of this project for Jan 08. We can have a meeting at the first of the year and review the outline and determine our front-end and backend redesign and resource needs. I look forward to hearing everyone's comments and suggestions on the site redesign in the coming months.

I'm completely comfortable with you taking the lead on the redesign effort and the website in general. As I've made clear in the past I'm not particularly good (or even comfortable) in the project management space, nor am I a great designer. I have the style and fashion sense of a bonsai tree and I enjoy project management about as much as I enjoy a good IRS audit followed by a round of kickboxing with a Kangaroo. That said, I *am* comfortable in a security, operations and engineering role and that's where I am most likely to be a huge pain in your ass. :) If you're up to it, and Nancy agrees, I'd like to propose a restructure of the tech team itself as part of this whole effort. I'd like to see you and Chloe taking the reigns from me completely for our overall technical direction and people recruitment activities. I'd like to see myself as the tech teams' "Senior engineer", making the core guts of things work and ensuring that the direction we choose is secure and stable but generally not bottlenecking things otherwise. If we go this route, I'm only going to overly concern myself with the following questions: 1) Is our infrastructure secure? 2) Is our infrastructure stable? 3) Is our *data integrity* appropriate? (IE, single authoritative data source wherever possible) 4) Are our technical tools and infrastructure easy enough for the volunteers to use, no matter their technical experience? 5) Finally, if You, Me, Chloe, Wayne and Steve were all to be hit by a bus tomorrow, could a tech newcomer come in and understand how to run things? So, what are your thoughts? Nancy, what about you?

Wendi