Council Meeting Management Solution

  

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How to Bring your Board/Council on Board

A big part of my job is to help staff at the hundreds or organizations we work with who are faced with the task of gathering information for a Council or Board and gain their support for an initiative to use the CivicWeb/AcademicWeb software in their offices. For many of the staff that I work with, communicating the benefits of a software solution which is targeted at improving efficiencies in the office can be somewhat of a challenge. While I have yet to come across a silver bullet, I have compiled a few success strategies which some organizations have found to work for them, hopefully something here might help you as well as you write your reports to justify purchases of any kind to your Council/Board/Management Team.

Frame successful technology purchases in much larger context

• Ex:“yes, this will allow us to produce electronic agendas, but it will also help to streamline our ENTIRE meeting processes to help save staff time and eventually save money for the organization”

Powerful ROI must be clearly established - spending tax dollars wisely is always welcomed by public

• To assist with this point, we do have a Return on Investment exercise we can walk you through should you want to approximate time and dollar savings with the use of the Meeting Management Solution


Focus on service delivery protections & enhancements

• Ex: becoming more efficient will help save staff time and assist in lightening workloads

Don’t over-spend on large, traditional, expensive enterprise systems or “In-House” solutions

• With an “in-house” solution there is the added long-term cost of the hardware upgrades & maintenance, hosted solutions not only save the District money but also reduce the need for internal IT resources to get involved

Frame ‘what’s in it for me’ for Board and Constituents

• Ex: Board/Council will get their electronic agendas, usually faster & more consistent
• Ex: Organization will be making information much more accessible to the public via website by posting of electronic information
• Improve customer service to your constituents by utilizing the technology to make the organization more accessible and attentive than ever.

  - Tara Holdbrook, Professional Consultant