On Oct 11 00:42, Jean F. Quéralt via Npoc-discuss (npoc-discuss@icann.org) wrote:
Dear all,
Following today's call please find the following summary of what was discussed on Point 1 concerning the possible adoption by NPOC of some platforms:
Proposal
Following the conversation we had during the NPOC EC Meeting of 10th October 2022, it would appear that we have 2 scenarios to consider:
Note: Privacy considerations are taken for granted across this text. The platforms hereby discussed at at least GDPR compliant.
Well, yes, although as they are only software, their GDPR compliance would depend on the installation and setup. That is, if we host them ourselves we'd have to take care of GDPR requirements by ourselves. Which is not quite trivial, however well the software supports them. There're also other regulations and directives and also non-EU laws that'd have to be considered.
Note 2: An assumption is made that NPOC scheduling its own SocMed posts does not enter in conflict with existing ICANN policies. Please let me know if that is not the case.
As long as we don't claim ICANN endorsement we can do pretty much anything we want in social media. In some instances we might need to have an explicit disclaimer somewhere to make it clear, that's it.
Note 3: Please find the description of the platforms at the end of the text.
A) Already existing members of NPOC
This scenario considers how to better engage with the existing member base.
It would appear that NCSG has a CRM that only its EC has access to.
Yes. CiviCRM. But there's no technical reason why it could not be used by NPOC as well. It could be configured so that NPOC EC (or whoever NPOC delegates to the task) can only see and handle NPOC members there. In practice, it would obviously need NCSG EC approval (I don't think that'd be a big problem) and some amount of work, possibly a lot, on the technical side (CiviCRM is powerful but also complex, not always easy to configure for unusual situations). But given that it already has all the data about NPOC members, it might be worthwhile to investigate its possibilities.
Potentially usable software
- *Matomo*: Obtain understanding on the use of NPOC's website - *VBout*: SocMed automation - *Hexowatch*: Monitor changes on relevant websites
(I understand none of this enters in conflict with ICANN's policies and procedures)
No conflict *if* we undertake to maintain and manage them ourselves without any support from ICANN staff. Given that we can't even manage our regular mailing lists on our own, they're hosted at ICANN's Mailman (unlike NCUC and NCSG's) and administered by ICANN secretaries, I'm not sure we'd be wise to commit to that. Comparing experiences with NCUC and NCSG (who, as noted, are much more independent from ICANN here) might be a good idea. (I know a fair amount of their IT setup, as it happens.) And maybe start by considering how easy it'd be to take over our own mailing lists, so that we could at least update them ourselves even when ICANN staff is on vacation.
*Questions:*
Are the existing listservers able to provide templating and more visually compelling emails?
CiviCRM certainly is (not saying how easily). Mailman, not so much (especially since current ones we use are Mailman version 2).
B) New members that NPOC would like to bring in
This scenario considers how to engage with new organizations/individuals to expand the existing member base.
Potentially usable software
- *Corteza*: Keep a database of prospect organizations & individuals for NPOC (essentially Leads) - Once joined NPOC it seems that the way to go would be to delete the Lead from this CRM and use NCGS's and ICANN's listservers
Yes. It'd be an extra step. It should be possible to automate it to some degree, even if it might not be quite trivial. Of course this is also something CiviCRM could do as well.
- *Matomo*: Obtain understanding on the use of NPOC's website - *VBout*: Both EDM & SocMed automation - *Hexowatch*: Monitor changes on relevant websites
(I understand none of this enters in conflict with ICANN's policies and procedures)
No, with the caveat about staff support noted above.
Proposed Platforms
I won't comment on these now, just noting one key thing:
Time to configure: Will vary as decided scenario
That variation and consequently the time may be quite significant. Also, we'd need to consider long-term maintenance. I'm pretty sure we won't have enough volunteers within NPOC membership to manage any of these for long. I'd love to be proven wrong there, though. How many people do we have who think they both technically could to do this kind of thing and would be able and willing to commit time to do it for several years to come? Otherwise, we'd have to consider commercial support. We might be able to get funding for that from ICANN, but we'd need a pretty good idea of the availability and cost of such support. Either way, such a project would require considerable amount of time and commitment from NPOC ExCom, too. I would advise against being too ambitious. Start with the low-hanging fruit as it were. Say, Social Media automation - simply some tool to automatically copy postings to a number of platforms would be helpful. -- Tapani Tarvainen