After passing a two-hour interview, I've officially joined the Orléans Festival as "Director of Social Media" :) There are undoubtedly other people on the team who will have a better handle on messaging/marketing and I can contribute a strong techincal presence in terms of analytics, proper web design and maybe mobile apps.

Last year, Lisa and I attended (briefly) and were a bit disappointed. All we saw were some people selling arts/crafts, a few food stands with orange juice/coffee/hot dogs and a bouncy castle area for the kids. It turns out there were actually many more events taking place — but somehow we missed that. Even discovering the Festival existed was a total fluke from walking by a few signs near the YMCA earlier that week.

So we are really looking forward to helping out :) We like the idea of a strong, vibrant community and given how well the Shenkman is doing, Orléans could could really be the arts centre of Ottawa/Gatineau and surrounding area.

After a quick scan through the current situation, a few of my goals for this year (in order of importance) are:

  1. Create a structured solution for document storage, email accounts, website code, etc so that anyone can take over/expand in future years without having to wait for external resources.
  • Make the website responsive/adpative and easier to maintain (specifically the bilingual requirement).
  • Collect analytics as a baseline for future years. Who is visiting our website and via what medium? Are Facebook and Twitter helping us?

I thoroughly enjoyed my previous volunteer experience creating a customized database solution for Teenage Care between 2005-2008 and look forward to this being equally fulfilling!

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