Post date: Jul 06, 2018 4:21:18 PM

July 5, 2018 (7:30 to 9:00); 25 Center Avenue, Morristown, New Jersey
Present (Committee Members): Lori Falco, Paul Fisher, Chris Riemer (Scribe), Robin Schaffer (Chair), Jean Scully

Getting Started

There was some preliminary discussion around logistics, and Robin thought it would be great if we could see a graphic presentation of the mailing list architecture. Something in a spreadsheet format, with names in Column A, additional columns for each list, and an X mark to show to which lists each person was subscribed. As our Constant Contact expert, Lori thought that might be possible but it wouldn't be easy. It would require a data export and a lot of brute force manipulation.

She also reminded the group that our work in electronic communications policy has its roots in the development of a privacy policy in 2011. The committee that took on that task, also chaired by Robin, eventually morphed into the electronic communications activity that is today managed by Lori, as part of the Publicity Committee.

The Mission

Robin wanted to clarify the mission for this group, by answering the question "What are we trying to do?" Lori then recapped the events that led president Steve Humphreys to call for the committee's formation.

The gist is that Open Stage chair Mitch Radler wants to use email lists that are "owned" and managed by other venues, even if those other venues object. He believes the Board has directed him to "cross-pollinate" the Folk Project community, and sees his use of other venues' lists as a step in that direction. The other venues believe that Open Stage is only annoying their subscribers by sending too many emails with content that's outside the subscribers' areas of interest. And Lori has observed a spike in both unsubscribes and spam complaints, which she attributes to inappropriate email use by Open Stage. (She had gathered some recent statistics, and walked us through them. See attachment below.)

That led to a question that we were still mulling over at the end of the evening. It had to do with scope. Have we been chartered to rule on the current Open Stage problem, possibly update the existing email policy, or consider the big picture of how electronic communications serves the larger organization?

The Bigger Picture

As a relatively recent director, Paul asked if we could give him a bit of history. We certainly could.

Jean remembers that in her early days with the Folk Project, "everybody did everything." So the people in the Minstrel audience, were also there at Special Concerts, and on the dance floor at Swingin' Tern. As the organization has matured, the audience has become Balkanized, and the sense of community has suffered as a result. She thinks communication is the thing that could help break down some of those cultural silos and take us back to the way things used to be. The current problem has cast a light on this issue, so she thinks the larger mandate would be worth tackling.

Chris and Lori acknowledge the truth of that, but also felt addressing it would be a huge undertaking. It's not just about email lists, since it touches on the website, the newsletter, social media, Meet Up groups and everything else. Email is only part of the picture. Lori is not really happy about the inconsistent branding across these channels but doesn't think we have the resources or the organizational model we'd need to address it. She's also not happy about the lack of Quality Control, given the distributed authorship of Constant Contact. But one of the reasons the email lists are somewhat disjointed is because the organization is as well. The venues have a great deal of autonomy and tend to do things their own way. Another is because we're running a lot more events than we used to. It's not like it was in the days of Folk Phone.

Considering Personas

Robin talked a bit about imagining the different personas that form our audience. There's an obvious sub-group of dancers, and there might be uke people, and jazz people and everything-but-dance people, as well as a broad population of omnivores who are happy with the broadest participation and communication.

Lori felt another dimension in audience segmentation might be defined based on performer quality. Much of what we do involves people sitting in an audience; some are happy with local amateur talent, others only want to see the higher-ticket acts (something we described as The Sanctuary audience).

Jean wondered if some kind of survey would help us better understand this territory, something that we could do through Constant Contact. A good thought, but one not developed further this evening. Robin also felt understanding what the personas were after would be important. Lori thought that could be two things. Some folks just want an occasional night out, others want to feel part of a community. Some both. She and Jean also felt we've been hurt by the disappearance of the Minstrel's traditional post-show gathering, organized for many years by George Otto. Chris agreed.

Short-Term Fixes and Ideas

Getting back to infrastructure, we spent some time talking about immediate email enhancements.

Paul suggested that we modify the way we send the Minstrel Gram, so that in weeks that contain an Open Stage, it be given a clear Open Stage flavor but without losing the Minstrel brand. A kind of "enhanced Minstrel Gram." (Currently, people get two emails in that week, one from Mike and one from Mitch.) In the PDF attached below, there are three parts, a banner, a body and future events. So for Open Stage weeks, we could enhance the banner with an Open Stage treatment, let Mitch own the body and let Mike provide the future events. That would combine what are now two emails into a single mailing that delivers everything Mike covers and everything that Mitch covers.

Chris also suggested that the email templates could be designed to include a sidebar of standard content, including a link to the email list sign-up page: "If you want to know about other things the Folk Project is doing, you might want to sign up for these other lists." (A copy of that sign up page is also attached at the bottom of these notes.) He added that this is the model for both The Washington Post and The New York Times. They both offer an assortment of newsletter options, and let subscribers click to select the content that's meaningful to them. That's why he feels strongly that we need to resist pressure to allow (for example) the use of the Uke Fest list by anything that's not related to Uke Fest. That's unsolicited commercial email, otherwise known as spam. No getting away from that. Robin felt the subscription page should be easier to find at the website. Lori agreed and said the web team was working on it.

Chris is wary about taking on that bigger picture objective, but pointed out that Mitch's objective should be our objective as well. He wants a killer Open Stage event, and that's something that serves all our interests. Perhaps we should look for ways to help him "build his tribe," in Jean Scully's words. What he really should want is not just more email addresses, but better email addresses, and we could outline a program aimed at that end.

There was some discussion as to whether it would make sense to get Mitch into the discussion directly, or to lay out some ideas to present to him first. The opinions were divided on that point; Paul and Lori favored some prep work before getting Mitch into the conversation.

Wrapping Up

Robin felt we should reflect on tonight's discussion, particularly as it relates to the scope of this committee's mandate. Do we want to solve the problem in front of us, or use that as an opportunity to address the larger question of Folk Project communications.

Stay tuned.