It’s crunch time. MLA headquarters staff are working hard to prepare the new MLANET for launch in September.
This week and next, the focus is on transferring 500+ individual pages from the current MLANET to the new site. We’re rewriting our web pages to focus on the information members need most, so that every page makes it clear “why you should care.”
With other parts of the project, we’re using the “divide and conquer” strategy. Individual staff members are becoming experts in areas like web forms, the online store, and transferring member records (this transformation also includes a new association management system, the database that houses our member directory and all of MLA’s back-end membership information).
- Chao (not pictured) and Maria are delving into the intricacies of web forms for awards applications.
And let’s not forget the section sites, all of which will be hosted in the MLANET communities area by the end of 2015. 18 sections have completed inventories of their web pages and files in preparation for launching their new community sites in September. Headquarters staff are busy transferring this content and making sure it all fits together in a way that makes sense. Two “early adopter” sections, EMTS and NAHRS, have provided invaluable feedback on section communities.
What does all this mean for members? Some of the first changes you’ll notice on the new MLANET are the online forums and your “My Page.”
Online forums are a new way of accessing e-mail lists. You can still receive email lists in the ways that you always have, but you can also access your email lists online, in a way that makes it easier to follow multiple conversations and to see the thread of a particular topic. Over time, these forums will become invaluable bodies of professional information.
Your My Page includes your profile information, which you can customize to a much greater extent than on the current MLANET. You can make connections with colleagues, collect badges, and include things like feeds from your social media profiles. Your My Page also offers easy access to the sections, committees, and other groups that you’re part of, all in one place.
Watch this space for much more on the new site as we get closer to launch!
The world from behind multiple computer screens.
