The deadline for communities to apply for the Pacesetter Award is Tuesday, 25 March. The Pacesetter Award recognizes the successful implementation of a single beneficial innovation that may be implemented by other STC communities, as opposed to the overall evaluation that takes place for the Community Achievement Award. In the next few weeks we'll be highlighting a few of the communities that received the Pacesetter Award last year with a Q&A with community leaders.
The Carolina Chapter received their Pacesetter Award “for developing a mobile application that enables pervasive and updated communication to mobile device users while promoting both the STC Carolina Community and the Society.” Rick Sapir talked with us about the chapter earned the award and what it meant to the community. See the STC website for more information about the Pacesetter Award, and then apply for your community today!
Can you expand a bit more on what your Pacesetter Award was for?
Our 2013 Pacesetter award was “for developing a mobile application that enables pervasive and updated communication to mobile device users while promoting both the STC Carolina Community and the Society.” You can obtain and learn more at http://stc-carolina.org/Mobile+App
What gave you the idea?
Well, I've always felt that the the Carolina chapter has been a technological leader within STC. For example, we began using using a wiki-based website several years ago to enhance collaboration among our members; we have been (live) webcasting our monthly meetings for several years in order to better serve our members; and we were the first community to publish an ebook version of our newsletter. I had been playing with mobile apps on my own for a while, and thought that having an app for our chapter would be another feather in our cap. Also, it is pretty cool!
What kind of work and/or planning was involved?
As chapter webmaster, I'd been playing with new technologies for the chapter for quite some time. I had started experimenting with creating an app to syndicate our website information to mobile devices (in addition to simply creating a mobile-friendly version of the site). The goals were to:
- give the chapter additional visibility
- give our chapter sponsors additional value
- make it work seamlessly with information from our website (so that there was no additional maintenance or upkeep required).
At one of our monthly meetings (http://stc-carolina.org/Making+Mobile+Apps), we formally introduced the App and then I walked through the process of how to actually create a mobile app, using the Conduit platform.
How can other STC communities apply this idea to their community?
It should be pretty easy for communities to use a similar model to create their own apps in order to syndicate their website content. Of course, this requires that the community have vibrant website to begin with! At Summit 2013 there were several sessions dealing with mobile apps. There are lots of platforms that can be easily integrated with your existing website.
Why do you think a community should apply for a Pacesetter Award?
I think the Pacesetter awards do several things for communities. Not only does the award validate that your idea or program was truly useful, but it also provides a template that other communities can follow. I love seeing what other communities have done, and trying to see how we can take those ideas and use them in our community. If you're looking for new ideas, the Pacesetter Award winners should be among the first places to look. Plus, it is a great way to make your community stand out from the pack.
Anything else you'd like to add?
Just wait to see what we've got planned for 2014!