ON articles on the web

username said:

this is heresy, but i say turn the web team loose, and see of the magazine can keep up. our current model is to slow the web-based stuff down to the pace of the magazine. that's not an accurate reflection of how the world is moving, and where this club needs to be to be a part of the future, as opposed to a relic of the past.

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What he said!

Hey guys, just think, when we get 38000 members online, we will have the pull and the ability to get things done really fast.
I figure since the forum is viewed by everyone who browses BMW motorcycles, membership should increase due to its existance at a very rapid rate.
Since it is only members that get to see the magazine, it doesnt really help in recruiting new members. One day the powers that be will realize that and we can have meaningful content here.
I hope the ON and the forum will be able to work together to provide the best information to the members and we can have upgraded technical sections here, as well as up to date product reviews for the membership to utilize when considering a purchase.

lorazepam said:

Since it is only members that get to see the magazine, it doesnt really help in recruiting new members.

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Not 100% true, Loraz. The magazine gets passed along pretty well, and non-members see it and are impressed. As an ambassador, I get three copies a month in addition to my member copy... and I give those to people at local club meetings... and leave a copy or two sitting around at TWO and the Blue Ridge Motorcycle Campground.

That said... it isn't the magazine that sells the BMW MOA... or our web site. It's the information *in* the magazine that's of value. And the community of riders, as manifested in rallies and this forum.

Certainly, there are plans to synergize our media at some point in time in the future. That was the vision when the Board was presented the proposal that got this all started two and a half years ago.

Two points:

1) the BMW MOA is not a magazine subscription
2) give the web site equal access to the information the BMW MOA receives and watch this sucker drive the value of the community experience.

THAT is what will make our membership ranks increase at a rapid rate.

Ian

can we get a firm schedule for these implementations???
"soon", is kinda vague, and allows for interpretation.

Mark11LT said:

Here is a naive question,
Is there an anti-forum/website agenda from the ON powers (from what I've heard the real power brokers in MOA) ??
Michael's comments just reflect that view to me?
Are they afraid of being subjugated, passed by?? why isn't the website receive equal billing? press kit released here?
As I've said before,
Most recently to Mr. Gore, nice invention but it won't last. Me and Gutenburg agree the printed word is the only thing that will last.
mark

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Mark, I'd like to address your questions:

1) There is no anti-web agenda in the management of the 'MOA - period. Quite the contrary. Read the minutes. Over the last three years I've been on the Board, the web and the integration of the two media have been the single biggest projects from both time and money. I can say that everyone on the current Board is fully in support of all our efforts to expand the web site, and I know many of the candiates running are as well, first of all me, but also Dave and Brad, whom you all here know.

2) The only "power brokers" in the 'MOA is the Board of Directors. All employees and contractors report to Ray Zimmerman, and Ray reports to the Board. If there's a "problem" we fix it. The "old days" of secret clicks - if that were ever true - are long gone. You don't think so, come to the next Board meeting. It will be in St. Louis, May 7th.

3) Unfortunatly, not every idea for web use is a good one. Not every bright light in the night sky is a UFO, or proof of the, and not every canded comment (read: negative) on a specific web suggestions is proof of an anti-web conspiricy.

There seems to be the idea here on the forum that just because everything anyone can think of doing with or adding to our web site hasn't already been done that is proof of a conspiricy. Just ain't so, folks, and I think it's a little short sighted to attack the people who have put in so much of their free time to help us get where we are, especially with unsupported allegations. You'll note that no one among the web team volunteers is making those accusations. Wouldn't it make sense that if they felt there were an anit-web plot we'd be hearing from them?

We're all wanting the same thing and are equally frustrated that more hasn't been done yet, but it will happen. It's the single most important thing for the future of this organization, and I think everyone knows and supports that.

Thanks for your time.

lorazepam said:

One day the powers that be will realize that and we can have meaningful content here.

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i've been giving folks the benefit of the doubt. this was my mindset for the past when i've been hearing about changes coming "real soon." see my post here where i asked greg feeler for some specific milestones, dependencies, and a list of who is specifically accountable, and his reply (directly below it) says a bunch of nice things, but fails to answer the question, except to say "within the year." well jeez, that was the answer last year. this is pretty typical of things thus far. there is an accepted notion today that because MOA is a volunteer organization, that it is unreasonable to establish accountability for project status and completion. i think this is baloney. i agree that there may be project slippage because someone would rather go riding than do work for the club, but i think the milestone and accountability should exist and that slippage should be shown. and if a particular volunteer shows lots and lots of slip, and not a lot of progress, i think that an honest discussion can be held, and work can be done to partition the task to more than one volunteer, or a new volunteer can be recruited for the task.

hence my feeling is that the "powers that be" will not wake up to this if they havent already, and i am a big fan of them becoming the "powers that were."

username said:

i've been giving folks the benefit of the doubt. this was my mindset for the past when i've been hearing about changes coming "real soon." see my post here where i asked greg feeler for some specific milestones, dependencies, and a list of who is specifically accountable, and his reply (directly below it) says a bunch of nice things, but fails to answer the question, except to say "within the year." well jeez, that was the answer last year. this is pretty typical of things thus far. there is an accepted notion today that because MOA is a volunteer organization, that it is unreasonable to establish accountability for project status and completion. i think this is baloney. i agree that there may be project slippage because someone would rather go riding than do work for the club, but i think the milestone and accountability should exist and that slippage should be shown. and if a particular volunteer shows lots and lots of slip, and not a lot of progress, i think that an honest discussion can be held, and work can be done to partition the task to more than one volunteer, or a new volunteer can be recruited for the task.

hence my feeling is that the "powers that be" will not wake up to this if they havent already, and i am a big fan of them becoming the "powers that were."

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With all due repect, I think my answer to your earlier question did provide a lot of information. Read it again. We were working on getting the on-line secure services running last year and that didn't get stable until into the winter (read: December of '04). As I said, that took a lot longer than expected (by months). But, that had to be done before work could start on the site split. Although that work may not be important to you, it is for a lot of members: over one-third of renewals are now done on-line, saving a lot of time and expense in the head office. It also supports on-line rally registration for us (the 'MOA) and we're looking at ways to use it for Chartered Club rallies.

The web team is divided into groups, one technical and one for content. I have given you as much detail as I can without being misleading. I can't speak in detail for the actions of the Web Technical Team - they are the ones directly responsible for working on the site split - as I said in my referenced answer to your earlier questions. As I know you know, Dave Swider is the Web Tech Team Manager - questions about this area should be directed to him.

As for publishing a list of names of who's doing what, that would seem to be an open invataion for personal attack if the history here is any guide. As I've tried to explain and answer questions, it seems if some don't like the answers or there is a difference of opinion, the result is often reckless charges or personal attacks.

The general idea that there is a lack of support for the web on the part of anyone currently working on the web site - or anyone on the Board - is, to quote you "balony". It's been said, and said again, by many - not just me - that a lot of work has gone into the foundation for the new web site. It's just not visable. So vote for who you will (although I have to say it seems a strange proposition to be voting againt someone who supports what you want done).

Thanks for your time.

answers?? where are the answers lots of sidestepping as far as a schedule goes.

once again, how can I help?

Greg Feeler said:

3) Unfortunatly, not every idea for web use is a good one. Not every bright light in the night sky is a UFO, or proof of the, and not every canded comment (read: negative) on a specific web suggestions is proof of an anti-web conspiricy.

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Greg,

As a VP candidate would you care to tell us which ideas for web content you believe to be good and which ones are not? Then add what time table you believe is appropriate for start-up.

Dave,

Feel free to add your VP candidate two cents as well. (If it's allowed...)

MarkF said:

Greg,

As a VP candidate would you care to tell us which ideas for web content you believe to be good and which ones are not? Then add what time table you believe is appropriate for start-up.

Dave,

Feel free to add your VP candidate two cents as well. (If it's allowed...)

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Yes, I would love to. Part of why I want to run again is to finish this specific work. I'll put something together and post it in a few days in some kind of "statement" format. There will likely be questions I'm sure, but I don't want to get into a pissin' contest with or against Dave or anyone here. I appreciate input from members and I respect Dave for wanting to serve on the Board.

Getting the membership database to talk with the vBulletin database is proving to be very difficult.

At this point, this is the hold up. We've had a vendor working on it for a couple months with limited success. When this is complete, we'll be able to get the site split done and roll out the content we've got planned.

I know, I know, it's been taking forever. I'm at least as frustrated as anyone else. We've considered dual log ins. We've considered a funky scheme where you long in via the forum and it reveals new stuff on the MOA site. Ultimately, the easiest way to deal is with one unified log in that will present both the member content and perform the forum log in function. As the guy that gets all the help messages for the forum, there is considerable and understandable confusion on the part of members that assume one log in will work on both the e-commerce pages and the forum.

The complicating factors are that we have iMIS on one side, which serves to operate the membership database and runs in some locked down Cold Fusion templates. On the other side we have vBulletin, which runs on top of MySQL. We have to get these two disparate data structures talking with each other and this chore is presenting considerable challenges. We've contracted with the folks that do our iMIS implementation to help us and they've been at it for a while.

This isn't as simple as throwing up some html and calling it a day, it's a major and final piece of the infrastructure changes that have been going on for a year.

So there's your hold up. It's all about development and data structure integration, not some conspiracy. There's complete buy in from the Directors to make this happen with all due speed.

KBasa said:

The complicating factors are that we have iMIS on one side, which serves to operate the membership database and runs in some locked down Cold Fusion templates. On the other side we have vBulletin, which runs on top of MySQL. We have to get these two disparate data structures talking with each other and this chore is presenting considerable challenges.

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This was exactly the subject of the meeting I held with the vendor (assuming these are the same people now as the ones I met with then) back in June of 2003.

Sorry to hear that it's a tougher integration issue than expected. Quite frankly, I left the meeting thinking that the vendor wasn't going to be tasked with solving the problem.

Ian

Visian said:

This was exactly the subject of the meeting I held with the vendor (assuming these are the same people now as the ones I met with then) back in June of 2003.

Sorry to hear that it's a tougher integration issue than expected. Quite frankly, I left the meeting thinking that the vendor wasn't going to be tasked with solving the problem.

Ian

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It's a different, and better vendor.

Does iMIS still suck? (in the non-YB sense of the word...)

Ian

It's not great, but it's not painfully awful, either. It's biggest drawback is lack of flexibility. You can't really do much to customize thier templates, which is why the Country Store looks like it does.

Greg Feeler said:

With all due repect, I think my answer to your earlier question did provide a lot of information. Read it again.

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i know you think that. you thinking that you have provided a useful response to my question is what concerns me. that's all i'm saying. i'm fine with you thinking that, so you don't have to defend it further.

Greg Feeler said:

As for publishing a list of names of who's doing what, that would seem to be an open invataion for personal attack if the history here is any guide. As I've tried to explain and answer questions, it seems if some don't like the answers or there is a difference of opinion, the result is often reckless charges or personal attacks.

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if my boss asks me to do something, and then he comes by and wants to know if i've done it, it is not a personal attack. if i say, "boss, it ain't done, because of X, Y and Z and i expect to have it done by DATE" then that's ok. if i give him that line over and over, i get fired. ultimately, i have to deliver. along the way i need to convince him that i know what i am doing, and that i give him useful status information.

why divorce oneself from intelligent business practices just because it is a volunteer organization? in both situations, the goal is results.

personal attacks are not condoned on this site, the mods would step in and clamp down on that crap in a heartbeat. threads get locked when people cross that line, and that line is well-established in here. so i dont think that is a valid concern for a lack of transparency with regard to roles, responsibilites, and deadlines.

i'll say this, if people don't want to be judged in public by their peers, they should not take public positions of responsibility, whereby people endorse you via voting. there's some heat/kitchen thought coming to mind.

Greg Feeler said:

So vote for who you will (although I have to say it seems a strange proposition to be voting againt someone who supports what you want done).

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it isn't strange at all. support is a necessary but not sufficient condition to earn my vote. i can get support from a jockstrap. anyone can nod their head, "uh-huh, yup, we gotta do that." however, support doesnt get stuff done. (i *support* having clean dishes, but i have to *wash* them to have any.) hence DOING something to move the club forward in its use of the online world to attract and enthuse a younger membership are what earn my vote. that means having a much more open mind regarding the use and content of the website. that's been lacking in this organization. simply by the fact that we are having a conversation like this in 2005, and not 1999, proves that. we're already late, we're behind, and other web resources are going to occupy the minds and time of BMW enthusiasts. given that the club membership average age is increasing faster than time is progressing, i'd say that something needs to be done.

the future ain't what it used to be, and it's coming. it's up to us to either have a future-focused group of leaders, or a bunch of folks pining for the old days.

username said:

it isn't strange at all. support is a necessary but not sufficient condition to earn my vote. i can get support from a jockstrap. anyone can nod their head, "uh-huh, yup, we gotta do that." however, support doesnt get stuff done. (i *support* having clean dishes, but i have to *wash* them to have any.) hence DOING something to move the club forward in its use of the online world to attract and enthuse a younger membership are what earn my vote. that means having a much more open mind regarding the use and content of the website. that's been lacking in this organization. simply by the fact that we are having a conversation like this in 2005, and not 1999, proves that. we're already late, we're behind, and other web resources are going to occupy the minds and time of BMW enthusiasts. given that the club membership average age is increasing faster than time is progressing, i'd say that something needs to be done.

the future ain't what it used to be, and it's coming. it's up to us to either have a future-focused group of leaders, or a bunch of folks pining for the old days.

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Ok, let me rephrase - it would be strange not to vote for people who were WORKING on improving this web site before the forum existed which now gives you a venue with which to hold this discussion.

I wasn't on the Board in 1999 - that was a different group of people who were at that time working to setup the Executive Director position - a very major step for this organization. But since I have been on the Board my major work has been to push this project, which has involved a lot of "clearing the brush away" before we could even get started.

Apparently you have a much different idea of how to work with volunteers than everyone else who's been involved with this. As I've said before, I manage technical projects for a national company for a living (read: bike payments ) so use schedules and accountability on a daily basis. But, I get paid for that as does everyone else on the project. Volunteers don't.

We have a long tradition and a strong committment to volunteer labor for everything we can. As the 'MOA changes, that may change. But, you have to move carefully when starting to pay money to "professionals" for services that often-times even more qualified volunteers are alreading providing for free. We have a professional staff for the print media and may have to do so for the web - at some point. However, it's the collective judgement of the Board and the volunteers that it's the best approach right now to use the volunteer system during the major changes to the web site and as we "integrate" the print and web.

This is motorcycle club -first and foremost it's about riding and having a good time. That's not to say good managment practices don't have a place - not at all, but there has been so much to get into place for the chages we have in mind that the key focus was on the next objective in our path at a given moment. Dave Swider made an excellent post about the problems with the single login. A detailed long range schedule would have been pure fantasy up to now.

However, we are getting to the point where schdules are going to have a place. I've been asked to post my ideas, which I will do in a few days. Yes, from some perspective the 'MOA is "behind", but it is exacly the people you are questioning and doubting who have turned this ship around so recently. It's not just unfair to blame them for not being on "schedule" - it's wrong.

KBasa said:

Getting the membership database to talk with the vBulletin database is proving to be very difficult.
I know, I know, it's been taking forever. I'm at least as frustrated as anyone else. We've considered dual log ins. We've considered a funky scheme where you long in via the forum and it reveals new stuff on the MOA site. Ultimately, the easiest way to deal is with one unified log in that will present both the member content and perform the forum log in function. As the guy that gets all the help messages for the forum, there is considerable and understandable confusion on the part of members that assume one log in will work on both the e-commerce pages and the forum.

The complicating factors are that we have iMIS on one side, which serves to operate the membership database and runs in some locked down Cold Fusion templates. On the other side we have vBulletin, which runs on top of MySQL. We have to get these two disparate data structures talking with each other and this chore is presenting considerable challenges. We've contracted with the folks that do our iMIS implementation to help us and they've been at it for a while.

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You guys have most likely already thought of this, and sorry if I don't use the correct verbage.

What about a single log-in using the iMIS database (which I believe is SQL, and is more of a contact d-base not really set-up for this sort of thing??), which then allows members to access to members only info. Within this members only info area, we could have all the features we have spoken about, and a link to a members only forum. Or just a simple posting area for classified?
From what I hear is that the vbulletin (mysql) and the IMis database don't mesh. So leave this forum alone and just make changes to the website, and maybe add another forum for classified type stuff.
Dual log-ins suck, but at work I log into 4 different programs using different passwords??

mark


P.S. Greg, and all the webguys I also agree that the things discussed here should not be viewed as personal attacks. Just people pushing and prodding (ok??)

Mark11LT said:

What about a single log-in using the iMIS database (which I believe is SQL, and is more of a contact d-base not really set-up for this sort of thing??),

~~~ snip ~~~
Dual log-ins suck, but at work I log into 4 different programs using different passwords??

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Actually the problem is that iMIS is a ColdFusion engine, and it is also a few versions behind. The iMIS engine was purchased as a membership and eCommerce gateway. The cookie used iMis and ColdFusion is not the same as the SQL cookie used by the Forum, nor is there an easy translation tool.

There is also lots of other stuff going on at greater speeds that are not always apparent but are part of the teams' work. There is stuff like the weekly club listing updates, Heard on the Road on a monthly basis, When and Where monthly, Mileage Contest form, Meeting Minutes, Rally 2005 updates, content updates such as BMW MOA at Cycleworld, the video from Corbin Ride On at Spokane...

So there is lots going on that is not always seen.

But this issue with trying to get the website split has been a puzzler for much of the team for a while. I have even cheated and asked the team at the office that is migrating from MAPICs to SAP (IBM AS/400 mainframe to Windows Server) Seeing that team which is a consulting staff of eight working full time and it is behind schedule as well. Some of this stuff just takes times.

None of us are resting on our laurels, but at times there are just plain stumpers.

Hey now,

If you don't mind I will touch on a bunch of the issues / comments that have been raised here.

For background when Ian went out looking for the software that we would use for the forum the idea of a memberÔÇÖs only site was in the very early stages. This was driven by some of the rules regarding rights of publication, copyright etc. were material that had appeared in the Owners News could not be released to the general public.

Ian selected V Bulletin which we have all seen is a fantastic product. The idea was pitched to the board that we were going to have the rally discussion board run year round. We really didn't get into concepts like the clubhouse, campfire or tech pages.

Going back a bit further when I first joined the MOA board I was put on the Communications and Marketing committee. One of our tasks was to generate a proposal for using our member database for securing some part of our website. With about a month before the meeting the committee had yet to do much on a proposal and there was discussion of tabling the project to the May meeting. I did not want to do this because we really don't get much heavy lifting done between May and October, with the rally and riding it is difficult to get folks to spend a few hours a day working on a web project.

I contacted the vendor and discovered that not only had the software not been kept current but our current version had a hard limit of 40,000 records. IIRC we were around 34k in members at the time so this was something that could become a critical issue. We also were informed that the latest version incorporated secure services, utilizing plug-ins or modules to handle activities such as member join and renew, country store and event registration. What I didnÔÇÖt do was spend a lot of time on how the two databases would communicate with each other as we were focused on secure services and getting online rally registration ready and the join and renew modules working properly. Generally speaking getting information from a SQL database is not too difficult. I also had some assurances from the vendors regarding our plans for a site using the db for authentication so we could have a memberÔÇÖs only area and felt cautiously optimistic about our plans.

During this time the C&M committee started studying what a split site would look like and what content would be for members only. Shortly before the May meeting I submitted a rough template of our current content, added some archives and presented it to the C&M committee as an example of a split site. This is the only example ever generated and if we split the site tomorrow this is what we would use. Some would suggest we wait to split the site until the template is updated; it is this kind of ying and yang that has at time prevented forward motion.

During the time from when the board approved the upgrade and we introduced the secure services the office hardware was also upgraded. All of this work was done by paid staff or contractors under the direction of our Executive Director, Ray Zimmerman. There were a few vendor generated surprises, and a little bit of scope creep. There was point when the project was a bit stalled. I had a frank and candid discussion with the vendor which got us moving again however we had to switch vendors. We are much happier with the performance of our current iMIS vendor.

On the volunteer side the forum was humming along and we were very pleased with how things were going. From the forum we had a track day planned, a new club formed and many friendships made which after all is the cornerstone of our purpose. What we didnÔÇÖt have was new content or a plan for keeping the site current and fresh, even though we have a tech team consisting of seven we never got anything to post other than monthly updates to the page that teases on the upcoming Owners News.. There were plenty of people focused on some of the big picture ideas suggested by Ian however under the structure in place an article on the 2004 Boxer Cup series festered on the front page for almost a year, or seven months after the event and series had been cancelled. While having new model press releases or insider information would be a great thing to have we have been struggling for any new content; this is why Dave and I set up the deal with Smugmug and the picture of the week, to provide a member benefit for our on-line members and to rotate something new on the home page.

Our tech team generated a new look for the site, simplified navigation and prepared the foundation for a much larger site integrating much of the ideas discussed here. Along the way we often thought we were close to having the security issue licked, more often than not someone would proclaim that we were ready or about ready to rollout a whiz bang feature before all the research on how to make the whiz bang was complete, call it over- enthusiasm. From a technical stand point we demonstrated an example of a split site at the last board meeting in St. Louis and while I can not give an exact date we are close to having the interface in place between the member data base and the forum. As Dave Swider pointed out the million dollar hurdle is getting the forum data base and the member db to authenticate against each other. Our goal is to have a single username and logon for the forum, member area and secure services although you will probably have to re-login for the secure services. Any other solution we looked at gets real sloppy from both the technical and user standpoint. We experimented in a test environment using only the SQL db, however we ran into problems modifying the proprietary code of the iMIS system.

So where are we today? We have a great forum and a pretty good secure services site. Our website has a good look and feel for the infrequent or first time visitor but gets very stale very fast. We are working on resolving some issues of content and the division of information between print and the web and I expect some major progress in this area going forward but we must improve our process of generating interim content. We have paid staff working on the connection between the data bases and I also expect some progress in this area but I am not sure how quickly it will be. We purchase time from the vendor in blocks and right now the priority is making sure everything is in place for rally pre-registration which opens in just a few days.

Does the current board support the website and the forum? I would say absolutely yes. While some of us spend a bit more time on the forum, you can rest assured that those members of the board you donÔÇÖt see posting are reading.

Best,

Rob Nye
Secretary BMW MOA
IT Manager (Global)
B+H Ocean Carriers Ltd.
Proud to move oil