Textor Webmasters is in a good position to apply our skills to the needs of trade associations and professional bodies. The associaton web site- We developed the British Hospitality Association (BHA) web site many years ago, and have been supporting them since, adding features and generally maintaining the site.
- We developed a large content management system for the National Federation of Builders (NFB) web site.
In both cases there is an outward facing site with information for non-members. and a closed user group for members. The outward facing site provides news, industry information policy statements and so on. It also has information for potential members. The objectives of the public site are: - Further the aims and views of the association by publishing policies
- Provide a resource for journalists or researchers who want more information about the industry
- Help potential customers find association members
- Provide industry information and statistics to members and non-members.
- Publicising conferences
- Recruiting new members
The closed user group has information about meetings, events and so on. Content management is a key issue here as this information is dynamic and requires constant updating. In the case of the BHA the information is updated by their administrative staff in the main office. In the case of the NFB each region has a login that allows them to update information about their region. Trade directoriesAnother important area in which we can help in our expertise in developing on-line trade directories. We support a large on-line trade directory at http://www.bobsguide.com which is a commercial operation. The same expertise and software can be applied to most industries: - To serve members by publicising their services
- To help members find suppliers either from the membership or outside
- As a potential source of income for the association
Working with our partner company MyGuides Ltd we can provide a turnkey solution including database administration and customer support. ConferencesWe also have experience of developing a large on-line system to support academic conferences, both in collecting and screening speakers and in conference registration. This was developed for a professional conference organiser and is heavily used by them. The system is in two parts: - Abstract handling covers the collection of abstracts, subsequent peer review and publishing. It supports abstracts that have many sections which can be text boxes, tables or diagrams. Submitters can log back in the make changes at any time up to the cutoff. The peer review process is done over the Internet which has significantly reduced paperwork and costs. It has recently been used to support a conference where over 2,000 abstracts were submitted, the bulk in the final two days of the submission period.
- Conference registration covers the booking of places at a conference, social events and hotels. There is an automated interface with the back office system which allows hotel prices and availability to be uploaded and bookings to be downloaded.
ConclusionWe are in a good position to help trade associations in maximising their benefit from the Internet. We can work with your existing design company to provide the content management function on your web site, or we can provide a complete solution is association with one of our established design partners. Talk to us about what we can do for you. |
