Ad Hoc Tech Committee

Ad Hoc Technology Awareness Committee Report 2015-04 We had a committee meeting on 2015-04-06 to discuss the recommendations and observations assembled from many sources over the past months, regarding how businesses and organizations should use new and emerging technology (mostly social media) to improve the way they attract and maintain new clientele, and specifically how we should use these ideas to help the Folk Project. Our intention was to prepare a final set of recommendations to submit as a final committee report to the board. However, the initial format chosen for the report and presented at the committee meeting was not considered clear enough and a revised format was requested, one that emphasized the recommendations first and provided support for them afterwards instead of the other way around. In addition, it appeared that some important tools and platforms needed to be revisited and given new prominence. As a result, the final report of the Ad Hoc Technology Awareness Committee is not ready for this board meeting. After working up a rewrite, we have every hope such a report will be ready by the next board meeting. However, some of the committee discussion touched on matters that are beyond the scope of the committee itself and are better addressed by the full board. It would probably be helpful to bring such topics up for board discussion early, so that board members could begin thinking about the issues raised. For example, regardless of the final mix of social media to be adopted by our organization, one likely recommendation from the committee is that whatever channels and platforms we use be consistently branded with the Folk Project logo. This used to be a recurring mantra from the Publicity Committee, requesting that our activities display the logo at all our events and on all our announcements, to let our customers know the extent and quality of our efforts, and to lend luster to any new activities we might undertake. However, it appears we have fallen away from this mantra. We are not consistent in our branding anymore, and it may be unclear what the Folk Project logo actually is these days. Should we be clear about our branding and what our logo is? Another likely recommendation is that, whatever the mix of social media the Folk Project ends up using, those channels and platforms as we use should be registered by and controlled by the Folk Project itself. This would make it easier to shift running such channels to new champions should the need arise. However, this brings up the interesting fact that there is a Yahoo group called the “New Jersey Folk Project pot luck group” that currently has nothing to do with our organization. Originally, it did, since it was set up by Gwen Orel, our Special Concerts chair at the time, but when she left she took the group with her. If we had the above policy in place today, such a thing would not happen.

Food for thought. Let’s discuss. Sincerely,

George Otto ------------------------------------------------------ Committee members: Core Group: this group consists of members who are interested in addressing the broad issues of our charter: Lori Falco George Otto Chris Riemer Mark Schaffer Jean Scully Support Group: this group consists of members interested in participating when their area of interest was discussed or expertise was needed (others to be added as needed): Joanne Cronin Allan Kugel Cecilia Rowedder

George Otto (908) 604-4623 GeorgeOtto@mac.com ------------------