Branding/Meeting Notes 2017-03-13

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Branding

Date
Monday, 13 March 2017
Event Announcement
https://www.meetup.com/NetSquared-Kitchener-Waterloo/events/237778855/
Location
Steve Izma's house, 35 Locust Street, Kitchener, Ontario Map

What's your brand? Do you have a brand? How do you choose a brand? Is branding important for NonProfit organizations? What is the value of a good brand? What is the cost of a bad brand? Have you ever changed your branding? How much work was it for the SysAdmins? Did you have re-do the Web site? The e-mail addresses? Business cards? Letterhead? What legal considerations are there for choosing a brand?

Bob and Marc have the questions, together all of us have the answers.

See you at the meeting!

--Bob and Marc


Meeting Notes

This meeting ended up being more about our own re-branding needs, and the business of running KWNPSA as a non-profit organization. We'll have another session in the future on Branding to discuss the experience and gather the advice of other organizations.

  • We started with a discussion on the different syntaxes used in markup languages, eg. Markdown, Mediawiki, PMWiki, MoinMoin...
Hosting Services
  • Many Non-Profit organizations are migrating from CCj/Clearline (Steph Smith, Cedric Puddy) to IndieServe (Mark Steffen)
  • Marc Paré will take over the hosting for KWNPSA
    • Marc is currently using 123EHost.com
    • This is for the interim, until Marc has his own server set up
    • The hosting OS will be Mageia
  • Mailing Lists
    • Steve Izma will be the Mailing List Manager
    • We currently have our Discussion and Announcements mailing lists on CCj/Clearline
    • Steve will look after the mailing list migrations as soon as Marc has Mailman set up
  • Wiki
    • Mediawiki is being used by everyone at this meeting,
    • Currently being hosted at http://sobac.com/kwnpsa by Bob Jonkman
    • Will be migrated after Marc has set up the Mageia server
Sponsorships
  • CIRA - Has provided $100 for the previous and this meeting.
  • TechSoup - provides low-cost Microsoft licenses to Non-Profit organizations
    • NetSquared (part of TechSoup) is an umbrella group for Non-Profit organizations' IT staff
      • If we get a venue without A/V facilities, can NetSquared sponsorship provide, say, a projector? Marc to ask Eli...
  • Microsoft
    • We will gladly accept Microsoft sponsorhip and host an evening dedicated to Microsoft products
      • Perhaps have as a guest speaker a product specialist from Microsoft?
    • We will continue to focus on Free Software / Open Source solutions at other meetings
  • Google
    • Apparently Google is a sponsor or a member of NetSquared
      • but we have not seen support from our local Google office, eg. request for a venue
Formalizing the KWNPSA group
  • The formal structure of the group will consist only of a Treasurer
    • Marc Paré will be Treasurer, will take care of any finances received from sponsors, donations, &c.
    • Funds received from sponsorships &c. will be used for venues, hosting costs, domain name costs.
  • Bob Jonkman will ask Eli van Giessen to re-brand the meetup.com group as KWNPSA - Kitchener Waterloo Non-Profit System Administrators -- a NetSquared Group
Marketing KWNPSA
  • Business cards?
    • We need someone to design a KWNPSA logo
      • The KW part is important to our geographic locale; highlight or separate KW from NPSA
    • Marc Paré has found with other organizations that business cards are just as effective as posters
  • Let more people know that KWNPSA exists
    • Marc has a list of local KW Non-Profit organizations List he has contacted about 100
Meeting format
  • KWNPSA has a collegial Round Table Discussion format, which suits Non-Profit organizations
    • Contrast this with formal presentations at KWLUG
    • or the social restaurant meetings of KWVoIP
Mailing Lists
  • How do we deal with badly configured MUAs (Mail clients) that try to reply to the Announcements list?
  • Do we need two separate lists?
    • Steve Izma will investigate the use of "child lists" in Mailman
    • "Child lists" will allow "Discussion" to receive "Announcements" so people only have to subscribe to one list
  • DMARC problems
    • Steve will activate "munging" on Mailman so badly configured mail hosts like Yahoo Mail will accept messages
  • We will have KWNPSA branded e-mail addresses
Wiki
Branding
  • Description of group: Resource Group for Information Technology in Non-Profit Organizations
    • Similar to a Mission Statement, if not identical
    • Also the Vision -- use one phrase for all
    • We will refine this description on the Discussion List with other members
  • Are we KWNPSA or KW-NPSA?
    • It's a non-issue, we'll spell it out in full on posters and whenever we make announcements
    • Let's see what the Business Card designer does
Venue
  • Marc Paré will pursue Communitech and the Downtown Community Centre for "venue sponsorship"
  • A venue at Google may not be possible (high security facility)


Meeting notes taken by Bob Jonkman.

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