On September 13th, our group had a great meeting with our contact Rachel Stanley at the Civic Center for Innovation.
Over all the meeting went very well. We were given a tour of the space which included Creative Loafing, The Iron Yard and A3C. The building itself is the original building for Rich’s Department Store.
A big take away from the meeting is that they want their email and website to be more user friendly. By user friendly I mean the user can easily find why they are either looking at their website or reading their weekly news letter. Since part of the our set of deliverables is a website re-design, I spent time researching their site and found it to be a little clunky. Not that it did not work effectively, but they are trying to display massive amounts of information in a way that isn’t too efficient. From our meeting, something they would like to change is that when a casual visitor finds the website they can easily find basic information. On the flip side of that they would like existing members to be able to easily navigate the site so they too so can find the information or services they may need as they continue in their work with CCI. For example, some users may want to just find the price for a co-working space, but not necessarily a list of the different initiatives CCI is apart of.
Having reflected for a few hours as to what CCI wants for their website, to me, they want to make their experience easier and more user friendly without losing any of the information. While there are other co-working spaces in Atlanta, CCI is involved in many things that other co-working operations are not, civic minded entrepreneurship/mentorship being one of those. Their services on top of their co-working are aspects of their mission that are ownable and differentiate them from similar competition. One of our biggest tasks will be re-packaging their information in a way that is easier to access for as many audiences as we can.
As far as their email system is concerned, there is some work necessary to condense it down. The current newsletter that is sent out every Tuesdays is a constant downward scroll of information. She admitted that it was too long but also that it wasn’t fluff either. The information was pertinent, but could perhaps be packaged differently. During the meeting I mentioned the idea of perhaps segmenting their email by sending certain information to certain members. However, Rachel mentioned that they had tried that before and that it had proven to be too much work. So maybe there is a way in which we can make that easier if we are going to help them segment at all. In general we know that we need to find a way to make the emails more succinct and easier to read. Some members may only be interested in reading 10% of the newsletter, but also still depend on it every week. Maybe some of our job will be to make sure that the 10% user can get their information quickly.
The flier I think will be an interesting part of the project as well. Currently they use a simple print out on standard printer paper. They look cheap, like they just printed them out last minute. I know that’s not the case, but that is usually the feeling I get when an organization like this with thought out branding produces a flyer on normal printer paper. They would like something small that is not only easier to hand out but display and keep as well. She mentioned that she is open to anything whether that be a post card or a traditional tri-fold brochure. However I spoke with the person most in charge of in the field outreach and he said he would be interested in either a tri-fold or postcard as well. But we agreed that the postcard was not only easier to transport and distribute, but also for the user to hold on to and keep. A thicker card stock would also help in that regard as well. I also discussed with him the possibility of 3 types of cards for 3 main types of events so we were not trying to cram their entire website into a post card. One could be more for coworking info, non profit services and other programs. But 3 that spoke to a large swath of what CCI does.
All in all I believe we had a great meeting. I’m looking forward to getting started!
