So just what have we been doing for the last 6 weeks? Good question. While the rest of our colleagues, from NPR Music, from ARGO and from the industry in general) party, errrrr work at SXSW, here is what the ARGO team is up to at the moment.
We are in midst of the research phase of the project, which will continue roughly through the end of the month.
We are in deep exploration across the disciplines.
1.) Editorial – We are working with editorial contacts at the stations to focus the Website ‘elevator pitch’ and to create a sample content plan to reinforce what type of content readers might find on an average week. This helps us envision the content in this format and also begin to ensure we are coming to a common understanding on the site’s soul.
Here are the current ARGO station sites
(*disclaimer… still subject to change… do not remove under penalty of law… void where prohibited).
- KPLU (Seattle) – Global Health
- WGBH (Boston) – Living on the frontlines of Global Warming
- OPB (Portland) – Nexus between the Environment and Public Policy
- WBUR (Boston) – Economic Impact of Health Care
- KQED (San Francisco) – Green Technology
- WNYC (New York) – Finance {Topic still in play}
- KALW (San Francisco) – Cops and the communities
- WXPN (Philadelphia) – Local Music
- KPCC (Los Angeles) – Emerging Immigrant Communities in SoCal
- WAMU (Washington, D.C.) – Changing face of D.C. (Race/culture collisions)
- KPBS (San Diego) – The Homefront — Military Families
- MPR (Minnesota) – Higher Education
2.) Personas/User Experience – We have asked stations to think about the different audiences for their sites and try to think about their motivations for coming to it. That will help us design and build functionality, tools and – under this tight deadline – allow us to prioritize the order in which we build.
3.) Technical – We have asked a number of stations about their technical capabilities (Operating systems, hosting environment, Content Management Systems) to help inform platform decisions and identify potential integration points.
As you can imagine… there is a great depth of detail behind each of these areas. We will continue to discuss, with each station individually and as a group, their hopes, desires, dreams and expectations in these categories.
