I’ve recently begun exploring microsites and how organizations, particularly nonprofits, can take advantage of them to highlight resources or projects that merit specific attention beyond their primary websites. I started to write about microsites here (“The Skinny on Microsites”) and hope to continue investigating the many uses of microsites, their benefits, and challenges.
I am curious to learn more about microsites from the perspective of technology stewardship and community. I suspect it varies from community to community, based on internal structures, target communities, organizational size, and overall objectives. Below are a few questions floating around my head:
- What is the decision-making process involved in determining whether a microsite is appropriate for an organization?
- What are criteria for deciding which project or service merits its own microsite?
- What infrastructures need to be in place to support success?
- How is success defined and what are benchmarks for determining these successes?
- What does technology stewardship look like in a microsite world? Who is responsible for what? Do microsites require extra staffing? Or do they tap into different configurations of current staff expertise?
- How can microsites establish / strengthen / grow / distill community both within an organization, and among its broader membership? Can they detract / distract from the big picture?
- To what extent, if any, do organizations explicitly recognize the role of community management as a valued identity and guiding force in the development of microsites?
Ideas and resources welcome!