CMS Expo Learning &
Business Conference
What About Plone CMS?
Brett Wangman
President, The Center for Association Growth
brettw@tcag.com
www.tcag.com

Topics We’ll Cover Today
• Who Am I, Who Are You, Why Are We Here?
• Definitions We Need To Start With
• Real World Usage of Plone within Associations
– Small associations built entirely on Plone
– Large associations using Plone for public web site and
members only area
– Workflow intensive applications
• OPENAssociations
• Looking Forward
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Who Am I?
• Work (Currently)
– President, The Center for Association Growth (Association Management)
– Founder, OPENAssociations (Technology Solution Provider)
• Work (Previously)
– VP Communications, OutStart (e-Learning)
– VP Marketing, Participate Systems (Online Community Management)
– VP Marketing, Neodesic (CRM and Online Community)
– Advertising Director, Andrew Corporation (Wireless Infrastructure Mfg)
– Account Director, Zylke and Associates (Business to Business Marketing Agency)
• Education
– BA, English, University of Michigan
– MS, Managerial Communications, Northwestern University
• Personally
– Married, father of 2, live in Chicago
– Reading: 1) eMyth Revealed 2) Team of Rivals 3) Walking the Bible
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Who Are You?
• •
Content Administrator? Systems Administrator?
• •
Project Manager? UI Designer?
• •
Content Creator? Entrepreneur?
• •
Software Developer? Student?
• •
Art Director? Association Leader?
• Writer?
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Why Are We Here?
• Love for or Interest in Open Source
• Love for or Interest in Content Management
• Vested Interest in One or More of the Leading
Open Source Content Management Systems
• Love for or Interest in Associations/Non-Profits
• Looking for New Markets and New Customers
for Our Unique Skills
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Definitions
• Associations
• Association Management Company (AMC)
• Association Technology Platform
• Association Management System (AMS)
• Open Source within Associations
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Associations
• Official definition by IRS: “In general, an association
is a group of persons banded together for a specific
purpose.”
• Two main types
– Section 501(c)(6)
• trade associations, and individual membership organizations or
professional societies
• 86,054 trade and professional associations
– Section 501(c)(3)
• philanthropic organizations
• 1,010,365 philanthropic or charitable organizations
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Examples of 501(c)(6) Associations
• Legal Marketing Association (LMA)
• International Association of
Rehabilitation Professionals (IARP)
• Association of Strategic Alliance
Professionals (ASAP)
• Commission on Accreditation of
Ambulance Services (CAAS)
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Why Do People Join Associations?
• Education / professional development
• Information, research, statistics
• Standards, codes of ethics, certification
• Forum (face-to-face or virtual) to discuss common problems
and solutions
• Service / mission oriented – volunteerism and community
service
• Provide a community, network, “home”, identity, participation
* Benefits from ASAE web site
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Association Management Company (AMC)
• AMCs are for-profit businesses that provide professional
management and administrative services to associations.
• An AMC provides a centralized office that serves as the client
association’s headquarters.
• All overhead costs are then shared between the AMC's
various clients, increasing each association's resources and
capabilities without major capital investment.
• Due to the shared resources, specialists are drawn from the
personnel pool and are assigned on an as-needed basis.
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Association Technology Platform
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Association Management System
• An association management system (AMS) is a computerized
system which provides a non-profit organization basic
database features to run its operations, such as member
services, dues, event management, communications, product
databases and fundraising.
• Typically, an AMS will be linked to an association's public-
facing website so that members and customers may interact
with the association. These interactions may include
purchasing memberships, products, events, and more.
*Definition from Wikipedia
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Open Source and/or Free Software
Services Used Within Associations
• Content Management
• LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL/mSQL and
Perl/PHP/Python)
• Google Analytics
• Google Docs
• Email
• Others???
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Association Opportunities for Plone
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Public Web site - Associations
• •
Content pages Event Registration
• •
News Content Purchase
• •
Events Vendor Directories
• •
Leadership Featured content
• •
Education Offerings Advertising
• •
Membership Feeds
• •
Member Join Process Chapter sites
• •
Job Bank Search
• Audio and Video
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Members Only Area - Associations
• •
Member Directory Collaboration Center
• •
Document Repository Featured content
• •
Member Renewal Advertising
• •
Member Profile Feeds
• •
Committee Areas Chapter sites
• •
Members Only content Search
access
• Audio and Video
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Association Web Sites – Opportunities for Plone
• Small/Simple/Start-Up Associations
– Plone can meet majority of requirements
• Medium-Large/Established Associations
– Plone can deliver Public web site and private members
only area
– Plone can also provide Chapter sites
• Work Flow Intensive Applications
– Plone is the ideal platform for workflow and permissions
intensive requirements
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Small Association – Case Study
• Commission on Accreditation of
Ambulance Services (CAAS)
(www.caas.org)
• Launched July 2006
• Serves up all public pages
• Added Plone features include:
– Custom Skin/Template
– Custom content types
• News, Events, and
Agency Spotlight
– Plone Form Gen – Ask CAAS
– Google-powered Agency
Map
– SEO friendly pages
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Extending and Reusing Content Types
• Plone makes it
easy to extend
a content type
and then save
it for future
reuse.
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Building “Mini-Apps” using Plone Add-Ons
• Using a Plone
Add-On
module, we
built a very
handy
customer
support
application
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Plone is very Search engine friendly
• Maintaining a
simple industry
events calendar
on CAAS.org has
dramatically
improved our
Google search
placement
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Medium/Large Association – Case Study
• Legal Marketing
Association (LMA)
(www.legalmarketing.org)
• Launched August 2006
• Serves public and
members only area
• Serves 19 chapter sites
• Integrates with leading
AMS, including Single Sign
On and nightly sync
• Integrates with leading
social networking app
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Medium/Large Association – Public Site
• Custom Skin/Template
• Custom news, events,
member spotlight content
types
• Featured Content Portlets
• Plone Job Board
• Plone Get Paid
• Advertising delivery
system
• Vendor Directory
• Chapter Web sites
• News Feeds
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Medium/Large Association – Public Site
• Customized Plone Job Board has generate a huge ROI for
association
• Banner Advertising has created new revenue stream
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Medium/Large Association – Chapter Sites
• 19 Chapter Sites running
on single Plone instance
• Chapters share template
but feature region specific
photography
• Chapter leadership are
provided with
administrative rights to
their site only
• Real time Chapter
membership reports are
delivered directly through
the site
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Medium/Large Association – Members Only
• Member Directory
• Resource Library
• Personalized Portlets
• AMS integration
• Edit Profile
• Renew membership
• Event registration
• Leadership Network
• Committee “Team
Spaces”
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Medium/Large Association – Members Only
Member Directory
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Medium/Large Association – Members Only
Resource Center
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Medium/Large Association – Members Only
Edit Profile (AMS integration)
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Medium/Large Association – Members Only
Committee Team Spaces
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Workflow Intensive Case Study
• Challenge: Automate a completely paper-based accreditation
review process
– Ambulance agencies seeking prestigious CAAS accreditation must
document that they comply with more than 100 standards
– Applicant agencies currently send more than 2,000 pages of
documentation as proof (in triplicate)
– Three different teams of reviewers must examine documentation
– Extremely detailed process with constant interaction between applicant
agencies and review teams
• Commission Accreditation Submission Portal (CASP)
– Built in 10 weeks by 5 students from University of Illinois at Chicago
– Students had no prior experience in Plone
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Workflow Intensive – Case Study
• Workflow
and
permissions
complexity
made this
perfect for
Plone
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Workflow Intensive Case Study
• Plone made
it easy to
establish an
extensive list
of permission
levels for our
complex
workflow
requirements
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Workflow Intensive Application
• Without a
significant
investment
of time,
Plone
allowed the
students to
“port” the
current
design to the
new Portal
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Workflow Intensive Application
• Plone’s folder
structure
provided an
easy to
deploy, easy
to
understand
structure for
each of the
accreditation
standards
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Workflow Intensive Case Study
• Plone’s
“smart “
folders made
it easy to
provide
applicant
agencies
with a view
of their
progress to
date.
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Introducing
• Long Term Goal: Build a comprehensive Association
platform using open source components
• Allow associations to download entire platform
• Also provide it as a hosted, managed solution
• Encourage developers to extend functionality and
contribute enhancements
• Short Term Goal: Combine open source with best-in-
class Software as a Service (SaaS) applications
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Introducing
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Association-Related Opportunities
• Use and Extend the OPENAssociations platform
• Keep Your Eye Open for Key Areas of the
Association Technology Platform that Could be
Served by a New Open Source Application
• Identify Workflow Intensive Applications
• Get Good at Skinning a Plone Application
• Remember, Chicago is the second largest home
to associations in the country
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Thank You!
To contact me:
brettw@tcag.com
www.tcag.com
http://openassociations.ning.com/
http://twitter.com/growassociation
http://www.linkedin.com/in/brettwangman
847.657.6700 ext 3060
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