Artist in Residence Week 9: Finalizing Everything

Today is the day where I finalize anything that needed to be done that they may need for this site. Mostly some minor things such as adding some specific information in areas that were involved with accepting donations for tax purposes. some little tweaks here and there were made upon request but nothing to major that effects the overall functionality of the website.

One more time I had Gayle go through the posting process to show me that she had full understanding of the platform. I was there to help her out and answer any questions she had about posting or any of the other basic functionality that the website has. I walked her through most of the essential tools of the platform to help her fully understand everything.

Once that was finished and everyone was happy with what was done, we shook hands and we parted ways.

The overall experience at this location was rather unique. I was able to work in an environment with a completely different demographic than I was use to and was able to learn more about some of the history here in Saint Augustine and America as a whole.

Artist in Residence Week 8: Teaching the New Platform

This time around was relatively short. I had finished up everything I was working on and finalized all of the applications to the final version. Once I finalized everything I began to introduce Gayle to the new platform. She had requested I train the other volunteers on how to do this with a quick tutorial. I started by creating a new author account which just has the ability to post so that there is no risk in messing up the website's interface. I began to show them the posting process and how to navigate this new back-end interface. They sat back and took notes so that they can do this process whenever it is needed.

Next visit would consist of doing any last modifications that the location might need before we oart ways.

Artist in Residence Week 7 - More Outreach!

Today was a big day to really button up all of the things I was working on. After gaining access to the Twitter account I updated the profile photo to the new logo and proceeded to create an application. This app does the same thing as before, which is automatically posts content uploaded to the website to twitter. Now when a new post is added to the website the title and link to post are automatically shared to facebook and twitter.

Once that application was finished and functioning, I wanted to proceed with some work that some of the other volunteers started. The museum has been using mail chimp for a rather long time for their group emails. They wanted to connect mail chimp to their website and add a newsletter to the footer of the website so people can be informed with any email notifications they may have. This will, once again, further the outreach for any upcoming events or announcements.

Artist in Residence Week 6 - How'd we do?

Gayle came in much later and Floyd was in a meeting. I took this opportunity to run some analytics to see how our posting system was doing. I took a look at the google analytics for the page and due to our posts that were put onto facebook with our automated system we were able to bring in 163 page views which was the peak view count in the past 30 days. I was happy to see that this system was working well.

I thought that maybe if this is working this well on just a single platform, there may be some opportunity for even further outreach. I started looking into some of the other platforms that LMCC has a presence on. I came across their twitter, which has not been used in quite some time. I started looking into post automation for twitter accounts and feel that this would be a good opportunity to gain more exposure from posting on the website.

Once Gayle showed up I presented the numbers from the previous week's posts and she was absolutely thrilled with the results from just 1 post on this new platform. I then presented the idea for the same system but for the twitter account. She was definitely okay with this. She provided me the login information for the account before I left. The goal now is to update the twitter account to recent brand standards with updated information and setting up the post automation. Having these systems set up is extremely beneficial because LMCC can post news or events and it is shared on their social media pages for a broader outreach with little effort.

Artist in Residence Week 5 - Platform Setup

This week was VERY productive. Once I familiarized myself with the platform, that Visit Saint Augustine set up, I was able to begin planning implementing these new ideas and functions. I began by granting Gayle access to the website with a new user account. I was able to create a new page that is dedicated to displaying these news posts.

After creating the news layout I began to give the other volunteers a rundown of how to use the post platform. I walked them through the process and had them try if for themselves to help them become more familiar with the program.

Once that area was complete I installed a new application that listens to the site postings and will automatically pull the title and link and post it to facebook. After many hours of work and configuration I was finally able to have the posts automatically post to the LMCC facebook page. I introduced Gayle to this new functionality and she was absolutely thrilled to see that the facebook page could be active. She was even more impressed to see how many people began to interact with these automated posts. She has a lot planned for the future and everyone is sure this will help them gain more exposure through just facebook alone.

Next week we will be looking into adding this functionality into other platforms that LMCC are present on.

Artist in Residence Week 4 - I have access!

So going into week 4 I am greeted by Mr. Phillips. I chatted with him a bit about what my plans were in regards to the website. I informed him that I would like to set up the site so that they may begin uploading content. This way they will be able to inform the community of any events that are happening at the location. I also requested access to the LMCC facebook pages as it is terribly outdated and feel it needs a good revamp. Floyd seems very excited to start working on getting a new platform setup for them so that they may be able to get more connected with the community through an online presence.

I had a phone meeting with a man named Sean, who is the lead developer for visit Saint Augustine, so that I may be setup with an account to the Wordpress backend of the LMCC website. Sean was extremely helpful and was more than happy to set up an administrator account for me. From here on I was familiarizing myself with the configurations and frameworks that were included in the websites backend. After doing so I began brainstorming some ideas as to how I would go about setting them up with a proper solution that fits their needs. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to begin getting the word out. So I looked a bit into some post automation that would automatically post their web site posts and share it on their facebook account. This way they would just need to write the content once and it will automatically make it's way to the facebook page for others to see. I will soon be able to start setting up these features for them once I do more research and testing.

Artist in Residence Week 3 - Where is Everyone?

Going into week 3 was even slower than the last. Gayle and Floyd went on a day trip to Miami so there was nothing to do when I arrived. I gave gave Gayle a call to see if there was anything that needed to be done. She informed me of labels that needed to be formatted and printed onto label sheets. So for about 2 hours or so I worked on finalizing and formatting labels to sheet templates so that they could be printed.

They then had me go on a lunch break for a short amount of time. When I got back Gayle had emailed me a a document. This document was a brochure that LMCC was working with another designer on. She wanted me to look it over and give feedback on things that should be changed before finalizing the document for print. As you can see from the preview above, there was a lot of stuff that I had to say about it.