Given that most EA groups don’t have websites, and that only 6 out of 10 of those that do said that the website was ‘significantly useful’, should we just get rid of websites altogether? Having a domain name that forwards to a Facebook group might be enough, and (beyond renewing the domain name) has basically no overhead at all.
It’s a fair question, and one I’ve been seriously thinking over since I took over LEAN. As Tee suggests, websites are enormously useful to a small number in a way that makes up for the time and resources ‘lost’ by making it available in cases where it doesn’t pan out as that effective. Secondly, a lot of the answers we got in interviews amounted to ‘well right now we haven’t made use of our website, but that’s because we don’t have the tech manpower and need help to get what we want from this’. So I think there are groups that would be making good use of it if it was more user friendly, or if we were able to provide some minimal support for content management. Overall I think that the static site generator you’re working on is a perfect compromise. We’ll continue taking a critical eye, and may still pull the plug at a later date if we think it’s not cost effective. But right now I think it will be.
Richenda will have more insight on this than me, but my understanding is that when the qualitative report comes out, we will see that some of those who do have a website find it incredibly useful and it would absolutely be a disservice to pull the plug on that.
We’re erring on the side of a ‘targeted revision’ of what we provide so that our services only go to those who are most effectively using them
Thanks for putting this together!
Given that most EA groups don’t have websites, and that only 6 out of 10 of those that do said that the website was ‘significantly useful’, should we just get rid of websites altogether? Having a domain name that forwards to a Facebook group might be enough, and (beyond renewing the domain name) has basically no overhead at all.
It’s a fair question, and one I’ve been seriously thinking over since I took over LEAN. As Tee suggests, websites are enormously useful to a small number in a way that makes up for the time and resources ‘lost’ by making it available in cases where it doesn’t pan out as that effective. Secondly, a lot of the answers we got in interviews amounted to ‘well right now we haven’t made use of our website, but that’s because we don’t have the tech manpower and need help to get what we want from this’. So I think there are groups that would be making good use of it if it was more user friendly, or if we were able to provide some minimal support for content management. Overall I think that the static site generator you’re working on is a perfect compromise. We’ll continue taking a critical eye, and may still pull the plug at a later date if we think it’s not cost effective. But right now I think it will be.
Richenda will have more insight on this than me, but my understanding is that when the qualitative report comes out, we will see that some of those who do have a website find it incredibly useful and it would absolutely be a disservice to pull the plug on that.
We’re erring on the side of a ‘targeted revision’ of what we provide so that our services only go to those who are most effectively using them