Friday, 29 Sep 2000

VANCOUVER, British Columbia

I think I’m having a moment. I’ve never met the voyeuristic team that edits these intimate, at times painful, diary entries, but I’m going to miss you folks. I know you’re there. Like that mole on the middle of my back I will never be flexible enough to see, I feel you with me. Okay, clearly I’m tired, what can I tell you about the butt-end of this week …

To recap: I delivered two workshops and discussed the need for media skills capacity building. I talked about issue advertising and how to become an ad exec for the angels. I tried to debunk the stereotype of the humorless enviro activist by telling tales about a messy dinner partner. And finally, I regaled you with some information about the post-conflict region — Cambodia — where I hope to take a working holiday next month. (I thought that might be marginally more interesting than narrating my excavation into the 300 emails that were waiting for me back at the office on Thursday morning. Zoinks!)

Another of our rockin’ ads.

Today I’d like to discuss websites that don’t suck. IMPACS tries to help nonprofits develop websites that work in concert with their strategic communications goals. We help them survey potential users for guidance on the best structure and content. We recommend they heed the advice of web guru Jakob Neilsen and forgo dancing elf animations. We push clients to think of their website not as the gravy on mashed potatoes, but as the protein or carb — one of the basics in their communications outreach. (Overwrought metaphors aside, wassup with these low-carb diets? They make me faint and sweat. Can this be good?) We try to put together a combination of web activism, paid advertising, and mainstream media attention to draw new audiences to their issues.

Recently, we worked with Chris Tollefson at the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre to design a web strategy for a citizen’s action site on clean air issues. We heard clearly from potential users that they wanted something simple with hard data they could use. Chris and his team merged the site launch with a book launch and some extensive media outreach. All the moving parts came together feeding and fuelling the others. This is the way web strategy is supposed to work. We encourage groups to think about the web as an interactive tool for building a relationship with their audiences — potential volunteers, voters, and activists.

But there is one critical thing that we’re not doing on the web front — taking our own advice.

Today and Monday, I’ll be sitting down with a crack team of staffers to rethink, nay, completely reinvent our current web strategy. We have been so busy in our first three years of operation that we have not had as much time as we’d like to spend on our own materials, especially the web. And we’re becoming like the aunt who lectures you about smoking while reaching for her second pack of Marlboros.

This afternoon our crack team (heh, heh) will address the need to build a stronger interactive relationship with our audience — giving them an opportunity to offer feedback or comments via a bulletin board and giving us an opportunity to fire off issue updates or reminders about workshops via a listserv. We need to think about online fundraising, as we are also a nonprofit. The latest stats available tell us that with a strong fundraising program, we could raise one dollar for every 100 visitors. And we also need to think about redesigning the user interface, making the data road map much clearer and easier to use.

I guess it’s a common probl
em. We spend so much time working with others that we forget about what’s happening at “home.” (Not-so-subliminal message to husband — peace out, I’m back in the crib for a while, homey.) So I’m looking forward to the challenge in a Dr. Frankenstein-ish kind of way. We can rebuild the monster using all the component parts we’ve recommended to other nonprofits. We can save face with our partners and give life to website that doesn’t suck.

To end my exhausting week on a life-affirming note, this weekend I’m taking a ferry to Vancouver Island again to visit my new red-haired nephew, Aidan Michael Christopher Gibbs-Webber, born yesterday morning and weighing in at nine-ish pounds (ouch, sis!).

Thanks for the soapbox, Grist. In the words of B.C.’s coolest web campaigner, Kate Smallwood, “You rock!” Take it easy and if you have any comments or would like to chat about any of the scintillating topics I’ve visited this week, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at asgibbs@canada.com.