Information Management Committee

Note: Split Information about social media used by EBC to IMC_Social_Media_Integration. This page should only describe the commitee work.

Information Management Committee 2011-2012

• Chair: (name)
• Members:
  • (name)
  • (name)

Topics of focus

• Brief point form summary of major focus
• topic
• topic

Terms of Reference

• The Terms of Reference (TOR) is used by a committee as a tool to help it guide its own direction, as well as to make clear its powers, boundaries, and role within the broader organization. It should answer most general questions that would arise during its work regarding the committee's relationship to the rest of EBC's governance structure. (e.g. does the hiring committee directly make job offers, or does it simply make hiring recommendations to the Board?) It should also answer, "what will this committee accomplish, what can I do as part of this committee, and why do we want to do this?"

• The TOR must be clear, specific, and tangible. The purpose of it isn't to be a meaningless form: it should provide clear guidelines and measurable goals.

• The following questions are examples of the kinds of considerations to make. The TOR doesn't have to answer every question, or go into every detail, nor are the questions exhaustive.

General Purpose

The raison d'être for this committee?

Key Duties and Responsibilities

Level of Authority

• Is the committee's work public-facing?
  • Can the committee make decisions regarding public-facing matters?
  • Is board approval required?
  • Publications, blogs, and public representation?
• What authority does the committee have to make decisions involving cash? Limits, thresholds?
• What powers regarding privacy, security?
• Access to member information?
• Can the committee enter into contracts (verbal included) on behalf of EBC?
  • What kind?
  • Board approval required?

Reporting Relationship

• Who will submit reports?
• How often will reports be made?
• When will they be submitted?
• How will they be submitted (written, oral)?

Composition and Appointments

• How will the chair be nominated?
• Who will select the chair from nominations?
• Who should be ex officio members?
• How will members be selected?
• Can the chair appoint members?
• How many members should there be?
• Who should individual committee members represent? e.g. 1 person from the mountain biking community, 1 person with urban planning experience, etc.

Meetings

• How frequently will the committee meet, at minimum?

Resources

Financial

• How much money, and over what time period, will the committee need to complete its goals?

Staff

• How many volunteers will be needed?
• How many hours of volunteer time?
• What are the key volunteer roles?

• What kind of paid staff time is needed?
• Are paid staff required for meetings?
• How many hours of staff time is needed?

Specific Annual Objectives

• Goals with numbers, dates (e.g. 200 new members by June 2010)
• Goals made measurable (e.g. 20% improved BikeWorks user satisfaction, measured using a survey developed by the committee)
• Reason for prioritizing of these goals, if not clear

Reports and Target Dates

• e.g. user satisfaction report published one month prior to the AGM

Review and Evaluation Process

• How will progress and projects be evaluated?
  • When?
  • Who?
  • How often?
  • Using reports?
  • How will stats be collected?

Approval Date and Review Date

• When was this TOR approved by the board?

Meetings

Meeting Minutes

• Committee Name Minutes November 2011
• Committee Name Minutes December 2011
• Committee Name Minutes January 2012

Information Management Committee 2010-2011

• Chair: Chris
• James
• Brett
• Monica
• Olivier
• Axel

Topics of Focus

• membership database
• maintain archives and file security
• integration of website, google calendar/docs, facebook, twitter, other community calendars/social networks
• wiki maintenance
• migrate mailing list
• point of sales

Archives and File Security

Nothing to put here at the moment except a link to the Document Storage Policy.

Websites and Social Media Integration

Websites controlled by EBC

EBC controls the following websites:

• http://EdmontonBikes.ca/ The main Edmonton Bicycle Commuters website/portal.
• http://CycleEdmonton.ca/ A non-partisan advocacy page.
• http://DingDing.ca/ Promotional website. Initial AD campaign donated by DDB

Do we want to make Mobile/low-bandwidth versions of the above pages? Will these be generated automatically from the same content as the main page?

We should keep a list of websites we really should be linking too, especially if a cross-promotion agreement was agreed to.

Social Media Used by EBC

EBC has always made extensive use of social media. It is how we get our message out on such a low advertising budget.

Information Tables

During the summer, we try to maintain a presence at many festivals and events. Information tables typically include the following media:

• Banners with our name, logo. We also have a banner briefly describing what we do (the stand is broken for that one).
• Glossy Brochures describing what we do, and including a registration form. (expensive)
• Business Cards with our contact information. (website/e-mail address and Bikeworks Address/phone number)
• Cycle Edmonton Bike maps. This year they were kind of out-of date. It appears the City is in the process of developing a new, streamlined map.
• Bikes on Buses Brochures from ETS.
• Several issues of Momentum Maganzine.
• EBC Badges (for sale)
• On occasion we stuck "complements of EBC" stickers on the Cycle Edmonton Map.
• This summer we also offered free minor bike tune-ups at some events. Major repairs should be referred to Bikeworks or a commercial bike shop.

Newsletters

In the past, we mailed out paper newsletters. These were canceled in an aborted attempt to move to a "newspaper" format. In recent years, the mail-out happened bi-annually.

Currently, we send out newsletters by e-mail monthly. As of November 17, 2010, we started using MailChimp. The November, 2010 e-mail included link tracking and a web bug. This was so MailChimp could provide lots of fancy charts.

The December newsletter dropped the one-pixel web bug and moved to a different, more transparent kind of tracking link. The string "?utm_source=EBC+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9b7fe86a0c-&utm_medium=email" is appended to all of the urls. That string will show up in the server logs of servers controlled by EBC and third-parties alike. PHP and CGI scripts not expecting that string should ignore those fields if properly written. It appears that string does not store enough information for per-user tracking. On the other hand, the 25 digit hex string stored in the image urls does appear to store enough information for per-user tracking. Readers can be assured that it is not tracking them specifically since the string "90810127c168b11d15b5444f4" is only used to identify images from EBC. The number of opens (assuming the display of images) can still be counted.

Event Participation

Sometimes we participate in an event or put one on ourselves to raise awareness about our organization.

• We are an active participant in the Bikeology Festival
• We usually have a "flotilla" of bicycles during the Silly Summer Parade put on by the Old Strathcona Foundation.
• At the 2010 folk fest we attached handbills to bikes in the area. We noted grievous repairs needed at that time (The was a checklist on the handbill).
• Currently, we are asking for bike art submission by distributing hand-bills at various events folk-artists are likely to attend. Events we would still like to visit in the next two weeks (Early Dec, 2010) include the City Centre Winter Market In Churchill square and Butterdome Craft Fair at the UofA.

DingDing.ca stunts

In addition to the Web design, the DingDing.ca campaign included:

• A picnic set up at events featuring a lone bike sporting a DingDing.ca sign.
• Buttons including white "DING DING ca" and green "Ring my bell. dingding.ca"
• Plain white business card with a cryptic phrase like "Zero Interest in speed dating," with a dingding.ca mention.
• Plain white T-shirts with a saucy message, and link. I think "Ring my bell" was the most tame, but I don't recall the others.

Facebook

EBC has a Facebook Group which is now depricated; though many are still subscribed.

EBC has a Facebook fan page which is better suited for larger organizations, but does not allow you to push event notices.

EBC also has a Facebook Person to do things that a fan page can't.

Twitter

EBC has a Twitter feed.

Google Apps

• Currently, EBC has a public Google Calendar.
• EBC has the following public mailing lists/google groups:
  • EBC Members Low-volume mailing list
• EBC has the following private mailing lists (aliases are @thisdomain.ca):
  • EBC Advocacy mailing list for the advocacy committee. (Alias: ebc-advocacy)
  • EBC BikeWorks mainly BikeWorks Volunteers. (Alias ebc-bikeworks)
  • EBC Board mailing list for board members. (Alias: ebc-board)
  • EBC Core Higher volume mailing list; receives inquiries from the public as well (alias: info). Keep in mind only designated people and the president or vice-president of EBC should respond directly to such inquiries. Discussion on the list is still valuable and encouraged. See the Official Spokesperson Policy for more information.
  • EBC Employees mailing list for staff members. (Alias: ebc-employees)
  • EBC Volunteers includes anyone who checks off that they are interested in volunteering on their membership registration (some have done the basic orientation, some have not). Generally used to send out volunteer opportunities. (Alias: ebc-volunteers)
• EBC also uses some Google apps internally.

Broadcast media

Broadcast media used by EBC includes:

• Posters used to advertise events and workshops.
• An RSS feed.
• The DingDing.campaign was supposed to include some Ad-buys sponsored by ddb.

Wiki Maintenance

Does the Official Spokesperson policy apply to this as well?

Terms of Reference

General Purpose

To manage the technical infrastructure for EBC, enabling non-technical users to fully-utilize our resources and manage information. This includes setting up and managing physical infrastructure at BikeWorks, managing the backend of our internet presence (e.g. setting up, configuring, designing and maintaining things, but not being responsible for actual content). Specific work includes:

1. selecting and deploying new technology (hardware and software)
2. analyzing online security
3. ensuring EBC documents (both public and private) are organized and accessible
4. maintaining BikeWorks computers
5. setting up remote access for financials
6. setting up an online payment system for memberships
7. developing and deploying new point of sales system/membership database
8. migrating primary EBC website to new platform (Wordpress)
9. online event registration/payment
10. selecting and configuring in-house newsletter software
11. maintenance of Google and social media presence
12. managing EBC e-mail accounts (aliases, groups, gmail, calendar)
13. "subletting" space on webhost to generate revenue
14. collecting digital images for EBC use
15. maintaining websites (stolenbikes, brb, cycleedmonton, edmontonbikes, ghostbikes.org, bikecollectives.org)
16. analyzing data (e.g. membership data, climate data)
17. some amount of data entry
18. monitoring and archiving media
19. manage hosting and domain names
20. developing new online resources (e.g. trail condition reporting service).
21. Documenting where and how information is stored in the organization.
22. Audit IPv6 compliance

Key Duties and Responsibilities

Level of Authority

Much of this committee's work is very public-facing, and may be the first interaction people have with EBC. Any major, public-facing changes, therefore (such as a website redesign) should be passed before the board for review, though decisions can be made by the committee without a board vote once a reasonable amount of time has been given for review (unless the board indicates otherwise during this review period).

Decisions involving a significant new financial cost or liability to EBC must first be recommended to the board for approval.

Decisions involving significant privacy or security concerns must also first be recommended to the board for approval.

Reporting Relationship

The chair of the committee shall submit written reports to the board prior to each board meeting.

Composition and Appointments

The chair will be selected by the board of directors based on open nominations. The chair may appoint anyone to the committee. The president and executive director are ex officio members.

Meetings

At least once every 2 months.

Resources

Financial

$210/yr for hosting, $50/yr for domain names, $150/yr for infrastructure

Staff

Volunteers to do:

• web development
• systems analysis
• data entry
• IT support
• statistics
• security analysis

Support from the Treasurer and Secretary in ensuring digital copies of documents are properly archived, and that significant paper documents are digitized and/or copied to microfiche (where it is likely to be useful and reasonable).