Fellowship Admin

A Website Content Committee: Overview for EC Members

 

EC Members:  You need to read this and you need to understand the issues involved.  If you do not understand anything expressed herein, please contact me and we can talk about it. 

303-333-2922

sysop@urantiabook.org

 

March 17, 2007

 

Dear Friends;

 

You have a conference call coming up in which you will be considering matters related to a constitutional amendment creating a standing committee to oversee organizational IT functions. I would like to offer an experienced perspective on this matter which I hope will be helpful. 

 

Before creating a committee it would be helpful to have clearly defined the problem which the creation of a committee was intended to solve and to be sure that this was the best approach to resolution.  Can anyone provide a description of the problem which the proposed IT committee is projected to solve? 

 

In listening to various conversations on the matter, I can assume that the following issues are of concern to those who have drafted and supported this amendment:

 

1.  Concern about evolving a website which reflects the personal beliefs and/or views of the individual(s) doing the work.

 

2.  Concern about making sure there is group input to content, design, and other elements of the website.

 

3.  Concern about evolving an IT function in which only one person understands the system and concern that if this person should suddenly leave the organization there would be great difficulty continuing operations.

 

Is a constitutional amendment creating an IT standing committee the best way to address these issues? 

 

Some time ago at the General Council retreat in Newport Beach, we agreed that we would have a Web site content committee which would be comprised of a web-liaison person from each of the standing committees.  This plan never came to fruition because the committees could not find members with even the most elementary web-related knowledge that would enable them to function in such a capacity. 

 

How is mandating a constitutional amendment going to compensate for a fundamental lack of resources? 

 

Information technologies in the world today are in a rapid state of development. 

 

How can a committee consisting of individuals with no related background or industry experience wisely guide the implementation of these technologies for the pursuit of the Fellowship's declared purposes?

 

Consider our recent experience with Peter Laurence and the "Website Content Committee." 

 

The then-President of our organization unilaterally appointed a personal friend with no related experience to undertake a task critical to our organization. I initially provided the first website content committee with a bibliography of materials which I felt provided essential orientation to website design.  I believe Dave Holt--the appointed chair of this committee--was the only one who read any of this material and when he did so he realized that he had been put in a situation requiring a great deal of background knowledge by a President equally lacking in sufficient knowledge to direct the task well.  Dave wisely resigned when he realized the position in which he had been put.

 

Peter proceeded to interpret his charge as the redesign of the website home page.  His redesign, reflecting nothing more than his personal opinion of what would be good, consisted of a "splash page" for the home page and the incorporation of Flash presentations as primary means of introducing The Urantia Book to website visitors. 

 

Peter's proposed design was both naive and in violation of several of the most elementary rules for successful website design.  Had he taken the time to read a basic website design text he would not have made these recommendations.  An equally uninformed Executive Committee and General Council expressed satisfaction with his proposed design. 

 

Listen to one of the most widely respected website design consultants in the industry, Jakob Nielson.  Dr. Nielson was a Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer with an extensive background at Bell Communications Research and the IBM User Interface Institute.  He holds 79 US patents on technologies related to making the web easier to use and is the author of many books on the topic.  Here is a little bit of what he has to say about "splash pages" in his recent book, "Prioritizing Web Usability":

 

"Splash pages were an early sin of abusive Web design because they hindered people from quickly getting to what they came for.  There are still a few sites that insist on slowing down users with this abomination of a design technique.  New small-business sites seem particularly susceptible to the lure of splash pages--possibly because their owners insist on fancy designs at the expense of catering to customers and their needs.  Splash screens must die.  They give their users the first impression that a site cares more about its image than about solving their problems. 

 

"One of the original--and flawed--arguments for the splash screen was that it functions like a magazine cover, setting the tone for a site with an attractive image.  The most important difference between a magazine cover and a Web site homepage is that a magazine cover must pique people's interest enough to make them want to buy the magazine while a homepage is viewed by people who have already chosen to visit the site.  Two very different roles, two very different designs.  Don't put a splash screen on your Web site.  Remember, you have less than a minute with prospective visitors before they decide whether to leave your site.  Don't waste any of it on a splash screen."

 

Dr. Nielson has this to say about Flash presentations on Web sites:

 

"The one bright point is that Flash intros are almost extinct.  They are held in such low esteem that even the most clueless Web designers won't recommend them, although a few (even more clueless) clients continue to request them. 

 

"Flash degrades the user experience by creating obstacles that prevent people from obtaining what they need quickly."

 

My point here is that if you have uninformed folks making decisions and managing processes for which they have no background or training, you will at best end up with amateurish and mediocre results; at worst you risk organizational disaster.  If you want to provide the organization and the revelation with a state-of-the-art presence on the Web, you will need to employ professionals and utilize proven and well-documented approaches to Web site design.  This simply cannot be done by a committee of uninformed individuals.

 

But what role, then, might a committee constructively play in mitigating effects of the three problems recognized at the beginning of this document? 

 

Website architecture and content must relate to the needs of individuals using search engines to find information.  The major search engines are becoming the default user interface for the Internet.  Many users know nothing about individual Web sites--they view the Web as simply a repository of information and answers to their questions and they approach it through Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search portals.

The primary content, and architectural elements of a good Web site relate directly to how the site interfaces with these search portals and how easily the site provides information being sought by visitors.  All content and architectural decisions must be made with knowledge of these factors. 

 

The primary visual design and navigation elements must be completely subservient to the way individuals zero in on the information they are seeking.  All decisions about design and navigation must be made with knowledge of these factors. 

 

The needs of the user must be the primary determiner of content and architecture, not the ideological preferences of members of an uninformed committee; not the prejudices of Executive Committee members, and not the preferences of financial contributors. (There will always be individuals willing to contribute money to the organization in exchange for seeing their concerns or prejudices taken into consideration--but the Executive Committee must always be able to avoid this subtle trap and keep focus on the organization's stated mission.) It is important that organizational decision makers understand this. 

 

The most important contribution a committee of inexperienced members could make to the process would be to clearly define the purpose(s) of the Web site; to create a clear statement of what the Web site is intended to accomplish. 

 

These purposes are what must be used to evaluate the utility of everything else related to the Web site--architecture, navigation, content, graphic appearance, etc.  Each of these is a sub-element which, if properly managed, should help achieve the objectives contained in the statement of purposes.  They are not separate pieces of art like paintings hanging in a gallery.  Good website design and related graphic elements are all prompters and directors of the psychological processes involved in helping a personality in its quest to find specific information.

 

There should be an ongoing feedback loop here in terms of evaluating usage statistics to see if the objective is being achieved, modifying the elements of architecture, navigation, content, etc. and seeing how they subsequently impact the achievement of the primary objective.  This must be the primary process of ongoing refinement and development. 

 

But without a primary purpose being clearly defined, there is no objective standard for evaluating the sub-elements of architecture, navigation, content, etc.  This is extremely important to understand.  A committee can create the purpose and evaluate Web site effectiveness but the actual implementation of content, architecture, design, etc. must be left to informed individuals who know how to manipulate these elements for purposes of achieving the primary objective of the organization.

 

This is the means by which the website can be kept free from being overly influenced by the personal views of any one individual or even a committee of individuals--the need for the establishment of objective criteria rather than technically uninformed personal opinions.

 

 

What about oversight of database and other IT services development?  The same argument applies--you cannot have technically uninformed individuals directing highly technical processes

 

The organization needs at least one more IT employee or contractor.  Work should be divided up between Web services and internal IT services.  Each area has a long developmental path ahead of it in terms of increasing value to a growing organization in a context of constantly changing technologies.  Having more than one IT person goes a long way toward solving the problems associated with having only one person familiar with critical operations. 

 

The organization should have two groups--a web services development group, and an internal IT resources development group.

 

The internal IT services group should consist of IT employees or contractors and some of the folks who are actually using organizational IT services.  This exists now in an unofficial manner and works quite well.  Myself, Larry Watkins, Paula Thompson, Bobbie Dreier, John Hales are in ongoing discussion about IT/database issues.  The productive interaction between users of IT services and providers of those services is a critical factor in ongoing design and deployment of services. 

 

The same is true of Web site operations.  There is a group of Web site workers who communicate frequently about technical Web site issues.  We want to keep these spontaneously formed committees working well because they are very effective.  They consist of informed members who are actually involved in the day-to-day work of maintaining and developing resources.

 

Evolving and fostering these organically appearing groups should have more priority than the abstract creation of artificial committees.   

 

 

Here are my suggestions about how the Fellowship should proceed with the development of administrative mechanisms which will provide adequate control over what will become the most critical aspect of our approach to the execution of our mission.

 

1.  Oversight of organizational IT services should remain with the Executive Committee.  The presently proposed constitutional amendment is a recipe for disaster because it creates an IT committee with no requirements for the qualifications of individuals who might make up such a committee or even an informed description of the scope of the responsibilities to be entrusted to such a committee.  The scope of the proposed committee -- ". . . the general supervision of the content, structure, and appearance of the website . . ." and ". . .oversight to data base [sic] management . . ."--reflects only a superficial understanding of the complex issues which the proposed constitutional amendment apparently is intended to address. 

 

2.  Because of the increasing interaction between our members, the public, and our IT services, there will be a growing number of related legal and financial issues which constitutionally fall under the jurisdiction of the Executive Committee.

 

3.  The present "Website Content Committee" was created by uninformed individuals acting in a relatively unilateral manner and assigned a task for which it was completely unprepared.  It is a recipe for disaster and should be eliminated as soon as possible.  

 

4.  The present "IT Committee" headed by Steve Dreier is important and the Executive Committee should foster its further development.  It is important because the Executive Committee needs a trusted consulting group so that it can wisely make the financial, legal, and technical decisions it increasingly will be called upon to make.  An internal consulting group consisting of professionals working in various IT related fields is extremely valuable.  This group should also be able to certify to the Executive Committee that all organizational information is being adequately backed up, archived, and that all organizational IT functions could be easily and quickly restored in case of disaster.  The staff responsible for the actual backing up, archiving, etc. should not be the ones providing assurance to the Executive Committee that the task is adequately being done.  This will become increasingly important over time.   

 

5.  As issues emerge related to major equipment purchases, major changes such as a change in hosting services, new directions in software development, new IT services to be provided to readers and Fellowship administrators, these should be submitted to the EC for approval and the EC should in turn be asking its internal IT consulting group for advice.  None of this can be done by a committee of relatively uninformed individuals. 

 

6.  The General Council needs to be involved at the ideological level.  That is, the Council should be determining the nature of our Web objectives--what is it specifically that we want to accomplish with this resource?  This needs to be specific and measurable, not a diffuse philosophic abstraction.  It needs to consist of statements that describe measurable actions such as:

 

Get people interested in reading The Urantia Book

Increase organizational membership

Increase interest in deeper study of The Urantia Book

Increase the number of study groups

etc.

 

7.  The objectives need to be set by the Council. But the Council should also be able to monitor progress toward the achievement of these objectives or change them accordingly.  The actual implementation of website design, architecture, navigation, and content must then be undertaken by technical staff with the experience and knowledge necessary to apply these resources for the purposes described.  This same technical staff should be in communication with the Executive Committee which in turn should be seeking advice from its consulting group, or "IT Committee" when major decisions need to be made. 

 

8.  Technology is changing rapidly as are the administrative approaches to its implementation and management.  For this reason I feel it would be very foolish for the organization to codify any significant IT related functions or management procedures into the form of a constitutional amendment.  Such documents as "The Rules of the Executive Committee," "The Rules of the General Council," and various ad-hoc committees much more readily lend themselves to the flexibility and adaptability that will be required over at least the next decade of organizational IT services development.

 

9.  What is most desperately needed is expansion of our IT technical staff.  I am doing triage.  I cannot bring individual tasks to a refined level of completion because of the need to constantly be shifting my attention from one need to another.  We continue to add more software, features, and services while not increasing technical staff.  Creating yet another uninformed blah-blah-blah committee whose members are impotent to help with pressing technical issues and with whom technical staff is forced to interact further retards our progress. 

 

Rather than creating an IT committee of uninformed individuals supposedly providing oversight of IT work, it would be much more productive to have a committee of informed individuals to which the paid staff could assign tasks as needed to reduce the cost of employing outside consultants.  

 

A good example of such tasks are those which I outlined in my February 2007 report.  In this report I submitted a whole section of issues that need to be resolved before we can move much farther ahead with our IT services.  When technical staff is required by circumstances to deal with such issues, implementation of services is retarded by months and years.  These are non-technical tasks which require only a commitment of time and effort.

 

Over the past five years, the Executive Committee has been provided with detailed information outlining emerging needs.  Not only has there been a complete failure to plan accordingly, there were not even any questions asked to enable an objective evaluation of the situation.  This is irresponsible.

 

If you had your own business and a supervisor came to you over a period of years with reports about machinery on the verge of breaking down, would you ignore it?  Would you fail to ask questions so that you could evaluate the seriousness of the matter?  Would you respond by setting up a committee charged with making sure this deteriorating machinery was polished and looked good to visitors?     

 

If my IT reports are too technical for Executive Committee members to understand, members should ask for clarification or seek the advice of their "IT Committee."  To ignore advice provided by knowledgeable and experienced technical staff and instead unilaterally implement naive and simplistic approaches such as the recent "Website Content Committee" where the President arbitrarily appoints one of his friends, who has absolutely no experience in the matters involved, to manage a committee charged with directing a highly technical activity is dysfunctional and an abdication of the responsibilities entrusted to the Executive Committee by the Constitution.

 

Likewise, if the Executive Committee charges an individual with a certain task and then accepts that work by valuing psychological reinforcement of the individual over an informed critique of work potentially having a far-reaching effect on the organization--this too is dysfunctional.  But this is exactly how we responded to Peter's presentation.  His presentation was not even evaluated relative to what he was actually asked to do--which did not include submitting a new design for the home page.  We were far more concerned about creating the illusion that he was making a meaningful contribution to the organization than we were about the viability of his proposed solution to whatever problem it was he was supposed to be addressing.  (I never heard a description of the problem.) 

 

I will repeat once again -- the critical need is for additional technical staff to apply to the growing challenges of day-to-day operations, not for more committees of uninformed individuals discussing things in the abstract.  I have been repeating this for five years now as the workload has continued to expand. 

 

If you continue to ignore the information I'm providing, you risk catastrophic failure of processes upon which the organization is increasingly dependent and a concomitant organizational crisis  greater than you can possible imagine.  You must do much more than simply set up yet another uninformed, irrelevant, and ultimately useless committee. 

 

The Fellowship's data services will continue to evolve into becoming the administrative heart of the organization.  It would be best if any IT committee was structured to function in an advisory capacity to the Executive Committee with the Executive Committee maintaining responsibility for making related decisions and hiring necessary staff.  Giving a standing committee the power to hire employees for the organization (as is specified in this proposed amendment) should not be granted lightly; there are significant legal and financial issues involved.

 

The ship is steaming out of the harbor and the ways of navigating the open ocean are not the same as those required for protecting the ship in the pre-voyage sheltered bays and lagoons.  Can you rise to the challenge of guiding our ship in the direction of the unknown, rising above what The Urantia Book refers to as ". . . the dangers of the dullness of over-conservative mediocrity"?

 

In friendship,

 

David