Talkinbusiness 2.0

Developing an online magazine is an easy exercise and especially simple when nothing needs to be done from scratch. The old version is here and demands little further explication. After some month of waiting for an test server: A virtual server running on an Windows Platform.
This was a big step taken entirely by our Authentication Department.
The target audience is clear: Business Professionals, Students, Staff and Faculty Members are the main group of people we are aiming at. The goal is to provide an attractive online appearance with up to date news and reports on the school's activities. In doing so we hope to increase the schools reputation among our audience. We want to be in the news and the best way is to make the news ourselves.
The technical setup starts with some thoughts of the CMS. It should do what we expect it do:
- run an online magazine
- provide different users with different roles with a intuitive back-end
- Cheaper than the current version and hosted on our own server
- Enough Support and a lively community

Of course there are many other demands on the system f.e. integration of SM, a Newsletter distribution system, dynamic front page, Monitor activity...etc. If 2000 hits per month is an optimistic estimation than the system should handle at least three times this much before the first problems become apparent. After all, Images, Videos and everything that can possibly reduce the bandwidth drastically is hosted somewhere "over the rainbow" in the cloud. A catchy title for an rather ancient technology! The choice is rather clear and given the nature of the operation also not very difficult. Cheaper means for free and WordPress fulfills all basic requirements.
The next step is to come up with a basic layout and structure for the website. A little graphic might help to envision the big picture before the details make you clean out the forest from the trees. Followed by discussion and debates on key issues like Categories, Picture here or there, Text one can sort out the things that are already there from the things that still need to be done.
The next step is to look for a theme that can be customized and utilized for the desired purpose. There one can spend some money to save time. Customization means to adapt it to the official color scheme, type fonts and house styles rules.
The next big challenge is the Newsletter system. The idea is that people can subscribe to the magazine by simply filling out a short web form. A double opt in process makes sure that the users are not machines and really do want to receive an email in their inbox with the latest entries. This system is a service that works seemlessly with the CMS and once configured produces the newsletters, handles the subscriptions and even provides templates. After some tests and the integration of subscribers info from the old site everything is in place. Almost everything.... Because who is the author of the articles? Who is the editor? Who takes the decisions that have nothing to do with the technical or managerial side of this project but with the content of the magazine itself?
I don't know this yet but for the rest everything is on the right track.

Ps. And never forget to map the domain!