Dear SCCC Members,
As we start the 2008 season, the SCCC management team is very pleased to announce the completion of the SCCC 2.0 initiative that we had started as a beta program in July 2007. This effort was a total team effort between the SCCC technology team and SCCC executives. Frankly, when we started this transformation journey, we didn’t know where we would end-up but we were determined to make a change and take our social enterprise into the Web 2.0 era. Along the journey, we discovered what works and what does not. We discovered each other’s specialties. We had meetings. We exchange hundreds of emails and met many times face-to-face. It was all fun (well, at least for me). And now, we are finally ready to let you have it!
As it happens with any new roll-out, we don’t expect things to be free of errors or problems. However, we do expect you to see improvements in our operational expenses, a superior availability system – when used correctly, and most importantly, a better online marketing brand for our club and members.
Technology Operations Expenses Down to $0
In every organization, the technology department is treated like an expense or cost center. We are determined to change for the Santa Clara Cricket Club. So, with our new solution, based on the free version of Google Apps, our technology expenses have become $0. Additionally, this transition has set us on the course to making technology to be revenue generator – in future – through online contextual advertisements. However, we must have audience before that. We don’t know what and how of that yet. But we will figure it out as we go along.
Superior Availability Management Configuration
Earlier this week, we used the NCCA scheduled spreadsheet and uploaded that to the SCCC calendar in the Portal. Therefore, you as a member, you can go in and submit your availabilities for the full season – of course, you can change them later also. Your advance submissions will help our captains and executives to plan more effectively. This new setup will enable better forecast and predictability of the resource shortages as we go into the season. What is the benefit for our club? Better forecast result will result into better selection decisions, and better selection decisions will result into better results for our games!
For your user id questions and brief tutorial on how to submit the availabilities, please click here.
We have debated this lot internally but we have come to an agreement that the best way to improve our brand is to have Santa Clara CC branded email addressed for all SCCC-related communication. Yes, some of you may disagree, but the executives’ board has felt the need to improve our brand more strongly and a santaclaracc.org-branded email will be one action to get us there. To implement this, we have enabled santaclaracc.org-branded email addressees for all of you. You will also see an email-widget on the left-upper side of the main portal page. Now, the logical question would be how the Yahoo Group will work? For now, Google Apps does not provide Groups integration so we have decided to keep the Santa Clara Yahoo Group. However, the Yahoo Groups do allow non-Yahoo email addresses to be used for receiving and sending emails. Therefore, we recommend that you do that. The instructions to do that can be found at this link.
Online Content Management - Beta
Through the use of contemporary Web 2.0 technologies, we are in the process of improvements in how we do content management across the SCCC website. In many cases, we are dealing with the tools limitations. Therefore, this is an area where we do need to work as we go along here. For now, you can see photos, links and some videos on the main page as we go into the seasons, though; I would be the first one to accept that the presentation of those content items may not be as elegant as in some other professional websites.
Twitter-Based Games Status – Beta
Do you Twitter? If yes, then you may get the idea of this initiative by just reading the title. However, for others, you just need the need to understand the concept of Twitter as almost real time non voice-based answer to the most common question in our games as “what does the scoreboard say?” We will be piloting the Twitter technology to provide real time status for our games. Everyone will be able to subscribe to them and for instant gratification, you could setup device alerts and the messages will flow to you instantly. This will eliminate your phone calls to the players and most importantly, to our SCCC 411 service, Sujesh Pullikal!
Twitter receivers can be many but there can be only one sender. So, for Aces, I will be the designated twitter. For Bees and Seas, we are looking volunteers. So, if you have a cell phone with text plan, can type quickly on your phones and don’t mind updating your curious club members, please send me an email and I will make you the twitter for the Bees and Seas teams. The URLs of these twitters are also on the main page of our portal for someone to check the score card from the web. Additionally, we have a general purpose twitter for our general club news that you can subscribe to also.
What is Next?
To be honest, we don’t know. Yeah, it may sound lame but we wish but we could predict how you are going to use [or abuse] the system. So, we just have to watch and take actions from them. We believe on the philosophy of following the users – and the rest just follows. We will try our best to serve the needs of the Santa Clara Cricket Club!
Let’s have a great season!
Best Regards,
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