An excellent goodwill project for your community and e-business relationship is a unique web site. Many private schools and sporting clubs do not have their own web site. However, before setting out on this course there are a few items you should be made aware.
- You should purchase the domain name and hosting plan. The expense can be written off for business requirements.
- Be prepared to sell you ideas to the organizations involved with the project. Just because the organization does not have a web site does not mean they want one now. Push the "free" aspect and global communications with parents at work.
- Set up sub-domains for various organizations. The reason is so that you can add FTP capabilities to each organization's directory, thus promoting the organization to maintain the content for their section.
- Use public information to get started with the project. Having a site up and ready when you want to make the sell will increase your opportunity to close the deal.
- Do not place self-serving advertisement on the web site. Placing adds on a page may go against the organization's established vendors.
- Have fun and be conservative with your initial design. I would not "jazz" the page to the point the viewer cannot associate with the web site. Organizational colors are definitely a bonus.
These are just a few suggestions to getting your organization's goodwill underway.
Mike Kniaziewicz, MIS
