One of our weaknesses...

...has been documentation!
I'm sure I've said this before, but we have been so slack at taking photos etc. Most of the time we've been so focused on the task at hand that we didn't even think about it.

Now we come to the time when we have to make a slideshow for the Awards night, and find all of about 5 photos have been taken. What we do have, however, are many images of the things we've done such as pamphlets, business cards, and letterheads. So our plan for today is to go over to Glenfield to visit the centre, and grab a few examples of pamphlets etc with the old logo and pink design. Then we'll scan them in so we can do a sort of comparison.
We'll also get an opportunity to finally get a group photo! After all of the time spent together and a million emails, we have not one photo of Digital Fix with NSWC staff.

As for the most important aspect of the challenge: the website. It has been up and running properly for some time now, which is obviously a great thing. However, Digital Fix have absent-mindedly forgotten to take a screen shot of the old website for comparison. Sadly, it is never to be seen again...

Uni has been quite busy lately. It's the last week before mid-semester break so I'm sure everyone has a lot to do. Unfortunately this means team Digital Fix have been slacking off, and therefore I shall quickly type up a list of things to do over the holidays:

• Write up a document on how to admin the forum. Slightly more complicated than how to update website, but only needs to be used for moderating content.
• Start getting people to link to the site using the badge. This is a simple thing of emailing friends etc.
• Paypal - donations button ASAP. A possible long term goal is to set up a way for people to pay for courses online.
  

One thing we have done is the banner, which will hopefully look fabulous once printed.

supposedly finished, but not technically

So the challenge has supposedly been finished for some time now. But it's still in the back of our minds.
Miles, for one, is still in contact with Cathy to perfect the banner. Most importantly, however, we are just so close to having a PROPER website. It's very exciting. When we finally get the site onto the temporary host, we can send out links and actually begin the process of promoting the website. At the moment people can use the website at www.womyn-ctr.co.nz but we can't give them links to particular pages (e.g. our services).
I'm actually quite keen to just see how the badge idea will work (it may not), and whether the idea can be applied to other organisations.

Finally, it will be just great when we can get a list of links on here to various things we've done so other teams can see. I had a great time snooping through everyone else's stuff.

I can't wait for the awards dinner, EXCITEMENT!

Afterthought

Hey!

Something we discussed at the beginning of the challenge but completely forgot to add to our brief: Google Analytics. So we are just adding it now, 2 days after the end of the challenge. If we'd set it up at the start of the challenge it would have been interesting to collect a bit of data from the old site to compare with the new one but that's ok.

Actually, we've been quite slack overall on the comparing front. We focused so much on getting the site done and cool-looking and functional that we let down the documenting side. This means that you don't get to see the old site which, when put next to the new one, really illustrates how much we have achieved in terms of creating a fresh new look for the centre, and making the website more welcoming. Also, I've noticed that we haven't put the manual that Kat created up online. I'll text her to remedy that as soon as possible. And does anyone want to see a screen shot of the Silverstripe CMS? I have to say that we are so glad to have found Silverstripe. It was the perfect CMS for our needs and with Kat's manual+ the online video tutorials, I have no doubt the North Shore Women's Centre will be able to update their own website confidently.

We are quite happy with how the forum is going so far. The forum was quite an integral part of our brief and though not many people have been contributing yet (the forum is only about 3 days old), we have quite a few members just reading.

Unfortunately the hosting situation is still not resolved so the badge doesn't work yet (because it would be linking to www.screengraffit.com/digitalfix/ instead of www-womyn-ctr.co.nz). This is quite disappointing as we thought it was such a good idea and could have been quite successful. We really wanted to try to tap into some sort of viral campaign and this seemed like the perfect solution. I am going to push this as soon as the hosting situation is sorted out. I can't wait to see the badge on people's blogs and websites.

WHOA

Ok everyone, see the magic, click here.

After two and a half hours of negotiation, we finally have a proper website... well kind of. The data is still coming from www.screengraffiti.com/digitalfix/ but going to the domain name www.womyn-ctr.co.nz.

The hosting problem is one that will have to be sorted out properly later on. But that will do as a short term solution. On Monday we shall resume the investigations into who could possible know the password, everyone has finished work now, and there's nothing we can do over the weekend.

We shall begin by thanking Mike Cochrane from gardyneHOLT design partners. I cannot even start describing how much of a big help he has been over the past 3 hours! Together we discovered 4 different web hosting companies were involved in the womyn-ctr domain: Domainz, Maxnet, DMD, Swizzle... Not to mention Hostican who still haven't gotten back to us.
With his insane technical knowledge, Mike narrowed it down to DMD and found out that 2 key people in their tech staff do not work there anymore which might explain the fact that no-one knows the password. However, they have agreed to look into it and hopefully will be able to tell us what it is on Monday.

Secondly, we would like to thank Robbie Boyd for all the web-savvy wisdom he passed on to us, and for adopting the site onto www.screengraffiti.com. Without him we would only have achieved half what we actually did! He pointed us towards Silvertripe and he told us how to design a website with usability in mind. Really, he has been the person Digital Fix has turned to the most, and without him the site would probably still be in concept stages! Thank you so much.

Thirdly, we'd like to thank yMedia for giving us this opportunity. It was a really eye-opening experience and all three of us have learnt a lot from it. Especially to expect the unexpected! It's amazing how you can have fun and be stressed-out at the same time! But seriously, time management is the key.

And last but not least, our buddies at the North Shore Women's Centre! These ladies have been truly amazing. So accomodating and nice, and really good at imagining our ideas! Of course, they have particular tastes and we have to adapt our design to fit with their vision, but that's what working with a client is all about, and we are so glad that they're happy about the final result. Really, we couldn't have expected more from them, and we look forward to continuing to work with them. Miles is already drawing up concepts for the banner which should be ready by Monday, and I will keep in touch with Mike to sort out the hosting problems. Katherine is still emailing back and forth with Cathy on the details surrounding administrating the website. In 10 minutes the yMedia challenge ends, but that doesn't mean we'll cease to help these women out. In the couple of weeks we've worked with them they have imparted to us so much wisdom on gender issues and feminism, it's really quite hard not to get caught up in it all.

We are so happy. Everything came together in the end. The very end haha.

Last minute addition to the brief!

Kaira (NSWC manager) has just told us of an exciting last minute addition to the brief!
She found out about injoygraphics offering to print free banners for non-profit organisations if artwork is provided. Apparently they only had 2 left on offer. Today she received email confirmation (NSWC managed to get the last one) and has sent us the content and dimension details.

Digital Fix shall quickly whip-up an amazing banner design for the centre. This will be a great way to physically advertise the centre to those women who do not use digital media, and a chance for the centre to reach out to more people. What an awesome opportunity!

The Waiting Game

After hurriedly signing up for a hostican contract and waiting for it to go through yesterday, I got up today to find a forwarded email from Cathy at the North Shore Women's Centre containing these words:
"Thank you for contacting HostICan Verifications.
It seems your order didn't quite process correctly. Please can you provide me with your domain name for your account, so I may get it setup? Sorry for the inconvenience."

Cathy has since replied but it looks unlikely that we will be able to change their website by 6pm tonight. Luckily the new website does have a temporary home at www.screengraffiti.com/digitalfix/ thanks to Robbie adopting it onto his website. This means that we can start getting people using the forum before the challenge is even over. However, the badge won't be able to be disseminated as it would link to the wrong website. -sigh-

Also, as we have spent all our time and efforts sorting out this hosting business and the sign-up process for hostican, we have had to sideline signing up to paypal. However, it is a simple process once approval is gotten from the trustees and I think that though the centre did not get a donations button from us in the Challenge, they have learnt enough about it to achieve that themselves in the coming weeks.
In the future, we will endeavour to help them go even further, by trying to set up a system where not only can people sign up for courses through the website, but they may also pay the fees through paypal, making everything available online. This would save the North Shore Women's Centre a lot of time sorting out enrolments.

-Aurelie

The end, I suppose...

Well, it's been a rather long, sometimes frustrating but mostly cool two weeks. I personally haven't been too busy this last week, most of my work was the week before, getting a logo and colours sorted. I also did a whole lot of website concepts, a pamphlet, a business card and a letterhead (some of which are on the previous post).

This week the primary frustration was not having information about the centre's current web host who, as we learnt on wednesday, does not support php. So the end of this week has been all about trying to get them signed up on a new host in time for the end tonight. Yesterday at about 4pm, we signed them up to 'hostican' who are cheaper than their current host and also support php. Unfortunately, they take 24hrs to confirm a contract so not sure whether we'll get all the stuff migrated over from the current temporary host.

But, on the brighter side, we've made a badge for the women's centre to distribute to other women's centres and blogs to link to their site, constructed a forum, set up silverstripe and taught the women's centre how to use it, re-organised the navigation structure of the site, given the page a whole new look, organised a library of fonts, images and other files for use in future designs and created an online form so that people can contact the centre directly from the website. Silverstripe really is the most important thing from the centre's point of view, because it is such a huge step up from the system they had previously, it will allow them to make the website very dynamic, hopefully new content will appear at least weekly!

So it's been fairly busy.

This experience has been awesome, it feels great doing something that benefits people who spend their lives helping others, learning a thing or two about web design and having heaps of fun times along the way. It's been cool to do some design again, it makes a really nice change from the usual rigours of studying Electrical Engineering :)
So I guess this is over and out from me, I can't wait to have a good look at what everyone else has done, I'll see you all at the awards dinner!

-Miles

Host problems + lack of time

It took a week and a half to get the FTP info for the centre's current host and last night we discovered that the host (dmd) is likely to not support php (a code language essential for Silverstripe to function). So we went into problem-solving mode and at 1am started looking for a suitable new host for the centre's website. We were quite concerned because we didn't want to have to make the NSWC fork out a couple of hundred dollars for a new host, and we began feeling quite guilty that maybe we'd blown it for our challenge.

Then, taddaa! After looking at many costly hosts we found www.hostican.com. At the moment they have a deal where they will pay off your old contract, so that the centre wouldn't have to pay 2 hosts at the same time. Also, they have waived the set-up fee and their monthly rate (about $6-$7 depending on the contract) is very reasonable.
One hiccup however, the site says that after payment it takes around 24 hours for the contract to come into effect. So at the moment we are encouraging the centre to act as soon as possible, in the hopes that hostican is the centre's host by Friday so that we can migrate the site before the 6pm deadline. Whatever happens we will be working right to the very end, as this will delay us quite a bit while we wait.

This also means that we aren't able to disseminate our badge. This is quite heartbreaking as we were looking forward to seeing whether it would succeed and people would like the idea.

One positive aspect: all 3 of us are driving over to the centre tomorrow to teach Cathy how to use Silverstripe. We are very excited about this as the moment the centre staff are able to update their own website will be very triumphant! We've asked her to prepare a topic for the 'important issues' page or a news bulletin for the home page so that once we are all confident she can use it, Cathy can attempt to update the site herself while we are there to give any assistance needed. We are hoping all goes smoothly and she requires no help, so we can sit back and relax knowing the staff will have no problems after we're gone.

Can't believe the end is only 2 days away. Whoa. I keep telling myself the other teams are just as busy as we are, which kinda helps calm me down, but if the hosting problem isn't sorted out then we really cannot fulfill our brief... and that's all out of our hands.

A rebranding exercise

Miles has been hard at work designing a fresh new image for the NSWC. Below are examples of possible new designs for a pamphlet and a business card. Once I get my hands on the current ones I will scan them in to compare the old with the new.

We are getting to the stage in the Challenge where stress is kicking in. 2 team members have a uni forum on Wednesday night and an essay due on Friday (which neither has started) and the 3rd has a girlfriend coming back from London on Friday whom he hasn't seen in a month. So we all have a few distractions trying to cloud our vision, but we are determined to see the Challenge through and if that means failing an essay, well so be it! The North Shore Women's Centre have put all their hopes in our hands and we must not let them down. We have such high ambition for the website and we hope to really achieve the best we can. Unfortunately time is running against us and we keep realising all the things we could do "if only we had more time".

At the very least we know that even if we don't achieve everything we have set out to do, we will have made a big difference in the way the centre uses their own website, simply because it can be updated daily as opposed to fortnightly.

We are all so excited to get to the end, and to see all the other teams' work come together. It will be very interesting to compare all the projects and the difference everyone has made in their NPO's daily use of digital media.

-Aurélie

Mid-Challenge Review - The week ahead

We did an awesome video for you guys... then when I went to edit it I realised I couldn't get any sound out of it. Because the deadline for the review is today we won't have time to redo it so I'll just do a written overview of what I can remember everyone saying.

Aurelie:

• One thing we have definitely taken off our to-do list is the changing of domain name. Basically, we've realised that it's not needed and would bring unnecessary costs to the centre. Being a non-profit organisation means that funds need to be spent on more important things, and because the current website ranks very high on google, it means that people can find the centre's site easily despite the strange domain name.

• Our initial brief did not mention Silverstripe as our CMS. We've found this to be relatively easy-to-use and quite customisable. It also has a built-in newsletter function.

• Finally, we have decided that if we complete the planned website before the deadline, we will add an online donations button. This is only if approval can be gotten on time, as anything to do with money will probably go through an even more lengthy process than the designs had to go through.

Miles:

• After getting approval for the use of the logo I designed, I have now created concepts for pamphlets and business cards. I am aiming to create a fresh image for the centre to attract new members as well as invite current members to get more involved.

• The website design is already on its way to getting approval and I've made the badge. The next step is finally getting the FTP information for the centre's website host. Without this we can't migrate the site to the centre's domain name, which is quite an important step! Unfortunately the centre is having problems getting hold of the person that used to take care of the old website.

• I have been discussing forum options with a professional web developer who will suggest some options. I am hoping for a definite solution to be found by tomorrow so that I can start helping to implement it – we are leaning towards phpBB.

Katherine:

• I'll be going through current content and condensing it down. I shall fix current spelling/grammar mistakes, and basically make the whole site more readable. At the moment the home page has paragraphs which are way too long and distract from the main message. I shall also separate the latest news from the centre introduction.

• The most important part of the whole project however is making sure the North Shore Women's Centre staff are able to update the website themselves. There is no use in us changing the CMS to something more accessible if it makes no difference. My main task will be to liaise with the staff to teach them the ins and outs of the system. I have also begun to put together a step-by-step guide to using Silverstripe and have planned a meeting with them for next Thursday, in which we have dedicated a whole hour to going through such processes as sending a newsletter, adding a new page, adding to an existing page, using links and anchors, etc.

• We hope to make a huge difference to the way the centre currently uses digital tools and allow them to update their own website with anything at anytime.

-Aurelie

Mid-Challenge Review - the first week.

Wow, what an interesting week. I don't think any of us could have predicted how complicated projects can get! To be honest, we are quite behind on our brief but are planning to catch up over the weekend, with an intensive team meeting Saturday night to review our brief and make any changes that need to be made (+ possibly add a video of our new directions, if there are any).

The week so far... many highs and lows but we are hoping that it will stay high from now on! After the meeting on Monday, the trustees took forever to go through the approvals process for our logo, this was complicated by the fact that another person had also presented logo concepts to the centre. A couple of days later and still no definite answer, then finally on Thursday we receive news that the other person's logo was chosen! Needless to say we were all quite shocked and a little bit upset. As the process had been taking so long we had started on website design, but now we would have to start all over to fit in with a new logo.

To cut a long story short, there had been MAJOR miscommunication within the staff at the centre, and the wrong message got relayed to us: The trustees loved our logo, they simply wanted a fuller-figured woman in there somewhere. So we lost quite a few days waiting for approval, and we went through one day of complete confusion, but from today onwards we will focus on the task and hopefully get it all done on time.

So to recap: Logo approved, website designs almost ready to be sent off for approval (hopefully that won't take too long), all content from current site has been migrated to new CMS. Tonight we are starting on the badge and doing more research on the forum, so that tomorrow we can deliver to you a fresh look at our brief.

This is the final graphic for our logo. Unfortunately Blogger keeps inverting the colours (it is normally cream and burgundy) but I'm sure you get the message :)

It's Miles' design and he is quite proud of it. It basically encompasses all that the North Shore Women's Centre is about: things like diversity, empowerment, support, teamwork, etc. while at the same time bringing a fresh, modern look to the centre's image.

There will be things and stuff...

Aurelie didn't mention the most exciting bit...
Yesterday while we were across the bridge Aurelie and I got a bit sidetracked while looking for a petrol station and stopped at the Glenfield Salvation Army. What a treat that shop was. We spent $30 and between us we got shoes, bags, a leotard, a skirt, a top, a japanese book, a Hanson tape and the most important our digital fix mascot! I will put a pic on here later but so you don't die from the suspense its a Barney soft toy...amazing
The team meeting last night was great and very productive. How information flows in a website is a crucial aspect...its not all about looking good. But it helps haha
We should get the go ahead on the logo and colour scheme later today or tomorrow and then we are set.
And Aurelie was overreacting we had heaps of petrol!!
Katherine

Logo approval and the first of many technical difficulties

Yesterday afternoon (Monday 28th), Kat & I trekked out to Glenfield to meet up with Kaira to present our final logo options to her for approval. Miles had done a wonderful job and I found the logo to be simple yet very effective at putting across the message of diversity and interdependence.
This time we knew our way there (vaguely, still had a couple of looks at the mapbook), however, the petrol light was on the whole way and would beep at us every now and then. I was a little concerned we were going to break down in the middle of the northern motorway.

We were introduced to Cathy, the NSWC web-person. We discussed the logo at length and decided we would mock some up using more red and playing around with type layout.

Later on in the evening, after topping up on beers and picking up some Thai takeaways, we had a very long team meeting, at times productive & sometimes frustrating. We were very keen on producing a really cool website for the centre but decided that usability was a more important factor. We needed our website to be done in a way that ordinary staff the the NSWC could update it themselves. In the end we decided to try out a NZ application called Silverstripe. We are having trouble downloading it though (silly open source geeks making things complicated...) but if it doesn't work we might resort to just using Wordpress.

Tonight we will mock up a few website design options and pass them onto the centre for approval, and hopefully decide on the way we will implement that design. It is also unfortunate that we still do not know whether their current hosting system supports php. I hope all this will be sorted out by our next entry!

Task 3 coolness

Team Name

Digital Fix

The organisation

North Shore Women's Centre

Mission/Vision (of organisation)

There is still a need for women to have a place to challenge the assumptions and promote debate, in order to better the lives of women. Our vision is to provide services which enable women to empower themselves to lead fulfilling lives.

Identified Goal (of yMedia project)

To help the women's centre reach and engage with a broader audience - especially young people by having a larger digital presence and a more interactive, stylish and helpful website. Adding more interactivity will hopefully attract people to become more involved in the cause, especially discussing contemporary issues of gender inequality.

Current barriers/difficulties in achieving this goal

A lack of understanding about digital media within the organisation. A large part of the project will involve teaching the NSWC staff how to use the technology implemented on their own website. All of them are very passionate about their cause and have to much to say, they simply need the skills to be able to turn those opinions/knowledge into instant posts on the website.
Another barrier is the fact that the organisation has a very involved board of trustees with very strict guidelines. If they do not like a particular aspect of the project then it will not go ahead. This could easily lead to wasted time, and therefore clear communication between Digital Fix and the NSWC is absolutely crucial to a succesful project.

Typical client/Target audience

Women. One of the main ideas the NSWC has tried to get through to us the the importance of diversity. They are very adament that no-one can be left out. Whatever digital solutions we implement will need to attract a diverse range of women. This could be construed as another difficulty in achieving the goal, but we look at it more as a challenge. We realise the importance of reaching out to as many women as possible and the reasons why.

Possible/discussed digital solutions/options

Social networking sites, website forum, interactive form for signing up to classes and the e-newsletter, a brand new look for the website included in a rebranding of the entire organisation.

Evaluation of solutions

The NSWC had already decided that a rebranding of the entire organisation had to be performed and are very excited about it, this is one aspect of the project they had already been thinking about before meeting us. From our point of view the interactive side is equally important, making the site more useful to get people to visit the site again and again. Finally, we will look at ways to advertise the NSWC and it's website through the idea of an icon which people can put on their websites as a sort of 'badge' to say they support the centre, and also via social networking sites + "the word of mouth" effect they produce.

Proposed solution

Our final proposed solution involves first the rebranding of the website and the organisation itself. We will endeavour to create a logo and font/colour combination which attracts as many women as possible and creates a sense of diversity around the NSWC. We shall present the centre with many concepts from which the trustees can choose from as soon as possible so that we can get the project underway. After a choice has been made, one of our team members will focus on design while the other two find solutions to the aspect of interactivity. Once we have worked out what we need, we will again communicate with the centre about the structure of the site, and how the new interactive elements will fit in with existing content. One member will also focus on possible ways of advertising the NSWC digitally.

Focus of solution

The overall focus of the whole project is to create a website which will incite women to be informed about contemporary gender issues, and also show them ways in which they can empower themselves through courses etc. By creating a website where women can share opinions, sign up for courses, and hear latest news from the North Shore Women's Centre, we will make it easier for them to help themselves. Of course, a website is useless if no-one knows it exists, so it is important for us to get to where women already converse and that is on social networking sites. Many women also have blogs, and we will encourage them to place an icon there to inform other women that this website exists.

Design approach

Elements - A diverse range of women. We have come to an agreement that the new 'brand' design for the centre needs to refer to different cultures/ages/occupations of women. We have discussed ways of achieving this and have decided that either silhouettes or profiles would be effective. After extensive research we have agreed on a tangent for logo concepts to go on, which involves flower imagery and women silhouettes as petals. Other design elements which has been discussed is the colour scheme, at which point centre members explicitly stated they did not want too much pink in the design, as this is one of the main problems with the current design.

Look/Feel - An important factor of the project is that the site needs to feel welcoming to a diverse variety of people. Therefore the design will be very clean and simple, and will be implemented in a way so that it does not alienate the current users of the site, but it also invites younger people and others to become part of it.

Scope of work (work that will take place)

Design: New logo; colour scheme; fonts; website; business card; pamphlet; , Usability: New domain name + redirection from old domain name; forum; application forms online; opportunity for staff to update website e.g. latest news section, Advertising: Social networking; website badge/icon,

Outside of scope (work that won't take place)

Video, Internal operations, content,

Technology to be used

Photoshop, Illustrator, Forum software, Facebook, Bebo, Myspace, Blog, RSS?

Proposed structure

There will be things and stuff

Timeline Dates

Logo concepts will be presented at a meeting on Monday 28th of July and one particular logo will be chosen. From there Miles will continue designing a concept for the website, the business card and the pamphlet.These will be presented via meeting or email by Friday 1st of August so that a final copy of each is finished by Sunday 3rd. At the meeting on Monday, we will also discuss the research done into the possibilities for forums, online forms for courses, and the blog icon idea and get an ok on all of those. Aurelie and Katherine will then attempt to implement the forum by Sunday 3rd and the online form by Wednesday 6th August, seeking help along the way from digital media tutors if absolutely needed. The icon imagery will be created by Miles by Sunday 3rd at the very latest, as a version of the NSWC logo. The icon will need to be distributed as quickly as possible as it is a viral idea and will hopefully spread exponentially. It will start with 3 or 4 blogs from people we know, and we predict it will be taken up by people reading those blogs, and so on and so forth. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will be used to finish off anything that has run over time, and fix up any glitches within the code etc. These days will also be there to showcase the project so far to the NSWC staff and have their input on any possible changes. Once all is done we will dedicate a day to teaching how to use the new site elements and possibly even write a summary manual in case they forget. However, all along the way we will endeavour to use the simplest technology available for all our digital solutions, so that the NSWC staff can learn to use it instantaneously.

And the Challenge begins...

Thursday afternoon was very exciting. I already knew exactly where the Microsoft building was and Miles Katherine and I walked there together from uni. We were a little early and could possibly have used some extra planning time but got coffee instead. All wired up and ready to go we went up the lift. I'd never been inside and wasn't sure what to expect, but we spent all afternoon commenting on the 'organic' shapes, how spacious it was, and the creativity of the architect/interior designer (probably should've taken some photos!).
Heading down the hall towards the briefing room, my heart rate increased and I really couldn't wait to jump right into the project.
Those 3 hours were incredibly productive. Digital Fix and the North Shore Women's Centre were bouncing ideas off each other and we learned even more about where the NSWC is coming from, getting some important insight and detail into their philosophies and ideas on feminism.
We went through the project brief together and spent a good deal of time discussing concepts for the rebranding of the whole organisation. We are very lucky that the NSWC are so eager to change their whole image as it will help in attracting fresh people to their website.
Later tonight we will post a video version of our project brief, for your viewing pleasure :)

The last post before the real beginning, woohoo!

Now both Katherine and Miles have already written their impressions of our first meeting with Kaira, the manager at the North Shore Women's Centre (from here on in referred to as the NSWC), but everyone knows that Ihave to stick my 2 cents in :)

I just have to start off with how excited I was on our way there, I really couldn't wait to see what Kaira was like and to hear what the NSWC was all about. I'd already read the mission statement on their website, but listening to someone actually within the organisation and getting to ask about anything and everything was quite great! It turned out we did quite a bit of talking too, and Kaira wanted to find out all about us. She was really lovely and I can tell that the 4 of us will make a fantastic team, and it'll be awesome for us to teach her our digital ways.

It immediately became apparent that the NSWC is quite a small organisation in terms of employees, which is why increasing their online presence will be dramatically important for them and their influence, because it's such an easy/cheap way of getting to their target audience.

The NSWC was our first choice, and I'm so glad we got them. Kaira is so open-minded about everything and willing to try everything. She is already full of ideas, and willing to work around other commitments (including, of course, her work at the NSWC, and her kids), to give us as much assistance as we need. It's so important to us, because there is no point in our trio creating all these tools for the centre if we haven't taught staff how to use them!

Incidentally, we will need to work very closely with the NSWC, as any changes to their website, colour scheme, logo, or anything related to the project needs to first be formally approved by the board of trustees of the organisation. We understand these formalities, as this is an organisation with a lot of history behind it, and we wouldn't want to break too many traditions... but definitely bend a few!

A significant challenge the NSWC faces is the lack of interest in gender equality issues these days. Most young women think take some of their rights for granted. It's not like in the 80's when the NSWC was founded + the feminist movement was alive and strong. These days young people don't even know that, for example, British politicians recently voted on whether to reduce the allowable time limit for abortion from 24 weeks down to 20. Thankfully most of them opposed it, but what happens if the conservatives come to power? Basically, young people need to be informed on these issues, and we will help the NSWC get their message out through the wonderful magic of the internet.

At 40 years old, Kaira is the youngest member of the NSWC staff, and she acknowledges the help they need in the digital arena. Though none of us three are specifically competent at things to do with the web, just by being generation Y'ers we have precious knowledge to share that we didn't even know we had! After finding out more about each other, the conversation quickly turned to things to do with the challenge, and everyone had so many great ideas. I am so looking forward to putting pen to paper tomorrow and coming up with a definite plan.

The Meeting

I suppose I never really thought about being apprehensive about working with a feminist organisation but even if I had been slightly nervous, Kaira (the manager of the North Shore Women's Centre) made us all feel very comfortable (even the engineer). A warm smile, friendly manner and comfy seats set a good scene for what proved to be a very productive and exciting half hour!

The centre has three main services that they offer; counselling for a range of issues, information on many topics and various classes/clinics.
Now they want to reach out to a younger audience, some of whom face challenges like teenage pregnancy and eating disorders. Which is where we come in, helping them get a more assertive digital presence so that 'generation y'ers can more easily get through to them via our natural medium: the internet.

Time to get to work

Foreword

So... On Monday afternoon Aurelie, Miles and I (Katherine!) left the city to visit the greatness that is the North Shore. Having no idea where we were going I was pretty impressed with Aurelie's map reading skills and we managed to get lost just once and arrive at the North Shore Women's Centre only 15 minutes late. We were greeted by Kaira the manager of the Centre and immediately felt right at home- even Miles, they aren't that exclusive haha.
Anyway...
The North Shore Women's Centre was officially established in 1987 (21 this year!!) as the Glenfield Women's Health Cooperative but in 1991 became a charitable trust working with women from all over the North Shore, hence the name change. Currently the centre has 5 staff and 3 contractors and is governed by a Board of Trustees who don't work there.
The North Shore Women's Centre exists to empower and enable woman to live to their full potential. They do this by providing a range of services for women of all ages including information, referral, support, counselling and legal advice as well as fun things like massage clinics and book clubs.
Even though the centre is for women of all ages the North Shore Women's Centre are finding it difficult to appeal to younger people. Kaira says that "While I agree that since the start of the feminist movement more choices are available for women, there are still inequalities between the genders" therefore young people are taking the rights fought for decades ago for granted and not challenging their current role in society and the inequalities between genders. It is our mission to help them to get noticed by people our age and younger.
We left the meeting full of ideas and super excited about the next two weeks!
It all starts tomorrow....

Introductions

The main objective of this blog is to keep track of the team Digital Fix in the 2008 yMedia Challenge. The yMedia Challenge is a competition running from 28th July to 8th August. It's about connecting tertiary students with community groups through media and technology to create a new, or leverage an existing, low-cost digital presence for the community group.

Digital Fix consists of me (Aurelie Rivalant), Katherine Gibb and Miles Mason. Together, we will be helping out the North Shore Women's Centre.

We will take turns updating this blog to show our progress. Our next update will be up before the 23rd and will describe our discussion with a North Shore Women's Centre representative. It will detail what the organisation is about, its purposes/audiences/challenges, and hopefully start to identify ways in which they would most like us to help them.

Digital Fix has started up a facebook group and, if you are a facebook member, feel free to join + invite all your friends! If you are not a facebook member, then don't hesitate to join facebook just so you can join our group :) We will soon get around to creating relevant groups on the other major social networking sites Bebo and Myspace. Please leave a comment if there is a networking site you are part of which you feel we should add a group to.

In the meantime you can simply show your support by spreading the word and telling all your friends about our cause. Thanks for all the support!