CMS Expo Learning & Business Conference

What About Plone CMS?

Brett WangmanPresident, The Center for Association Growth

brettw@tcag.comwww.tcag.com

Topics We’ll Cover Today

• Who Am I, Who Are You, Why Are We Here?• Definitions We Need To Start With• Real World Usage of Plone within Associations– Small associations built entirely on Plone– Large associations using Plone for public web site and

members only area– Workflow intensive applications

• OPENAssociations• Looking Forward

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Who Am I?• Work (Currently)

– President, The Center for Association Growth (Association Management)– Founder, OPENAssociations (Technology Solution Provider)

• Work (Previously)– VP Communications, OutStart (e-Learning)– VP Marketing, Participate Systems (Online Community Management)– VP Marketing, Neodesic (CRM and Online Community)– Advertising Director, Andrew Corporation (Wireless Infrastructure Mfg)– Account Director, Zylke and Associates (Business to Business Marketing Agency)

• Education– BA, English, University of Michigan– MS, Managerial Communications, Northwestern University

• Personally– Married, father of 2, live in Chicago– Reading: 1) eMyth Revealed 2) Team of Rivals 3) Walking the Bible

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Who Are You?

• Content Administrator? • Project Manager?• Content Creator? • Software Developer? • Art Director?• Writer?

• Systems Administrator? • UI Designer? • Entrepreneur?• Student?• Association Leader?

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Why Are We Here?

• Love for or Interest in Open Source• Love for or Interest in Content Management• Vested Interest in One or More of the Leading

Open Source Content Management Systems• Love for or Interest in Associations/Non-Profits• Looking for New Markets and New Customers

for Our Unique Skills

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Definitions

• Associations• Association Management Company (AMC)• Association Technology Platform• Association Management System (AMS)• Open Source within Associations

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Associations

• Official definition by IRS: “In general, an association is a group of persons banded together for a specific purpose.”

• Two main types– Section 501(c)(6)

• trade associations, and individual membership organizations or professional societies

• 86,054 trade and professional associations

– Section 501(c)(3)• philanthropic organizations• 1,010,365 philanthropic or charitable organizations

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Examples of 501(c)(6) Associations

• Legal Marketing Association (LMA)

• International Association of Rehabilitation Professionals (IARP)

• Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP)

• Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services (CAAS)

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Why Do People Join Associations?

• Education / professional development• Information, research, statistics• Standards, codes of ethics, certification• Forum (face-to-face or virtual) to discuss common problems

and solutions• Service / mission oriented – volunteerism and community

service• Provide a community, network, “home”, identity, participation

* Benefits from ASAE web site

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Association Management Company (AMC)

• AMCs are for-profit businesses that provide professional management and administrative services to associations.

• An AMC provides a centralized office that serves as the client association’s headquarters.

• All overhead costs are then shared between the AMC's various clients, increasing each association's resources and capabilities without major capital investment.

• Due to the shared resources, specialists are drawn from the personnel pool and are assigned on an as-needed basis.

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Association Technology Platform

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Association Management System

• An association management system (AMS) is a computerized system which provides a non-profit organization basic database features to run its operations, such as member services, dues, event management, communications, product databases and fundraising.

• Typically, an AMS will be linked to an association's public-facing website so that members and customers may interact with the association. These interactions may include purchasing memberships, products, events, and more.

*Definition from Wikipedia

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Open Source and/or Free Software Services Used Within Associations• Content Management• LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL/mSQL and

Perl/PHP/Python)• Google Analytics• Google Docs• Email• Others???

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Association Opportunities for Plone

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Public Web site - Associations

• Content pages• News• Events• Leadership• Education Offerings• Membership• Member Join Process• Job Bank• Audio and Video

• Event Registration• Content Purchase• Vendor Directories• Featured content• Advertising • Feeds• Chapter sites• Search

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Members Only Area - Associations

• Member Directory• Document Repository• Member Renewal• Member Profile• Committee Areas• Members Only content

access• Audio and Video

• Collaboration Center• Featured content• Advertising • Feeds• Chapter sites• Search

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Association Web Sites – Opportunities for Plone

• Small/Simple/Start-Up Associations– Plone can meet majority of requirements

• Medium-Large/Established Associations– Plone can deliver Public web site and private members

only area– Plone can also provide Chapter sites

• Work Flow Intensive Applications– Plone is the ideal platform for workflow and permissions

intensive requirements

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Small Association – Case Study• Commission on Accreditation of

Ambulance Services (CAAS) (www.caas.org)

• Launched July 2006• Serves up all public pages• Added Plone features include:

– Custom Skin/Template– Custom content types

• News, Events, and Agency Spotlight

– Plone Form Gen – Ask CAAS– Google-powered Agency

Map– SEO friendly pages

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Extending and Reusing Content Types

• Plone makes it easy to extend a content type and then save it for future reuse.

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Building “Mini-Apps” using Plone Add-Ons

• Using a Plone Add-On module, we built a very handy customer support application

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Plone is very Search engine friendly

• Maintaining a simple industry events calendar on CAAS.org has dramatically improved our Google search placement

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Medium/Large Association – Case Study

• Legal Marketing Association (LMA) (www.legalmarketing.org)

• Launched August 2006• Serves public and

members only area• Serves 19 chapter sites• Integrates with leading

AMS, including Single Sign On and nightly sync

• Integrates with leading social networking app

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Medium/Large Association – Public Site

• Custom Skin/Template• Custom news, events,

member spotlight content types

• Featured Content Portlets• Plone Job Board• Plone Get Paid• Advertising delivery

system• Vendor Directory• Chapter Web sites• News Feeds

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Medium/Large Association – Public Site

• Customized Plone Job Board has generate a huge ROI for association

• Banner Advertising has created new revenue stream

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Medium/Large Association – Chapter Sites

• 19 Chapter Sites running on single Plone instance

• Chapters share template but feature region specific photography

• Chapter leadership are provided with administrative rights to their site only

• Real time Chapter membership reports are delivered directly through the site

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Medium/Large Association – Members Only

• Member Directory• Resource Library• Personalized Portlets• AMS integration

• Edit Profile• Renew membership• Event registration

• Leadership Network• Committee “Team

Spaces”

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Medium/Large Association – Members OnlyMember Directory

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Medium/Large Association – Members OnlyResource Center

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Medium/Large Association – Members OnlyEdit Profile (AMS integration)

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Medium/Large Association – Members OnlyCommittee Team Spaces

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Workflow Intensive Case Study• Challenge: Automate a completely paper-based accreditation

review process– Ambulance agencies seeking prestigious CAAS accreditation must

document that they comply with more than 100 standards– Applicant agencies currently send more than 2,000 pages of

documentation as proof (in triplicate)– Three different teams of reviewers must examine documentation– Extremely detailed process with constant interaction between applicant

agencies and review teams

• Commission Accreditation Submission Portal (CASP)– Built in 10 weeks by 5 students from University of Illinois at Chicago– Students had no prior experience in Plone

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Workflow Intensive – Case Study• Workflow

and permissions complexity made this perfect for Plone

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Workflow Intensive Case Study• Plone made

it easy to establish an extensive list of permission levels for our complex workflow requirements

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Workflow Intensive Application• Without a

significant investment of time, Plone allowed the students to “port” the current design to the new Portal

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Workflow Intensive Application• Plone’s folder

structure provided an easy to deploy, easy to understand structure for each of the accreditation standards

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Workflow Intensive Case Study• Plone’s

“smart “ folders made it easy to provide applicant agencies with a view of their progress to date.

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Introducing

• Long Term Goal: Build a comprehensive Association platform using open source components

• Allow associations to download entire platform • Also provide it as a hosted, managed solution• Encourage developers to extend functionality and

contribute enhancements • Short Term Goal: Combine open source with best-in-

class Software as a Service (SaaS) applications

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Introducing

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Association-Related Opportunities

• Use and Extend the OPENAssociations platform• Keep Your Eye Open for Key Areas of the

Association Technology Platform that Could be Served by a New Open Source Application

• Identify Workflow Intensive Applications• Get Good at Skinning a Plone Application• Remember, Chicago is the second largest home

to associations in the country39

Thank You!

To contact me:brettw@tcag.comwww.tcag.comhttp://openassociations.ning.com/ http://twitter.com/growassociationhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/brettwangman847.657.6700 ext 3060

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