Iris Awards Announcement Postmortem?

[Wayne Messer <6d200f2f1@rewrite.aisboard.org>]

My compliments as well to Gerry Snyder, John Jones, and Robert Pries for
making these announcements rapidly available.  I think they have done a
great job under conditions that have markedly changed in the last few years.

With the changes in how Awards are announced and the information shared, is
it time to review what we do and what we want to accomplish?  Do we have
postmortems on happenings like this to prepare for the next time?  I'm not
sure where we might do this; so, here are my comments.

I assume everyone has seen the notice and the PDF list on the AIS website,
the notice and the Iris Encyclopedia page, and the News & Notes Special
Edition.  If not, here is the AIS Awards page:
http://www.irises.org/About_Irises/Awards_Surveys/AIS_Awards.html
the 2014 PDF list:
http://www.irises.org/pdf/2014%20AIS%20Awards.pdf
the Iris Encyclopedia main page:
http://wiki.irises.org/bin/view
the Iris Wiki 2014 Awards page:
http://wiki.irises.org/bin/view/Main/InfoAwards2014

My understanding is we are attempting to release the information in the
following order:

1. Notify the winners
2. Announce it to AIS members
3. Spread it on social media to potential members
4. Make the general public aware to increase their interest in irises

With the speed of social media, following this order is becoming more
challenging.  Does this mean we need to change the order or how we do
things?

Are there other categories I am missing on this list?  Would garden writers
or other news sources be something to consider?

Some general and specific comments:

News & Notes: Unfortunately, I do my best thinking after the fact, and I
don't think they warrant a remailing, so am recording suggestions here,
hopefully to be considered next time :)  The excitement of award time may
be a good time to interest people in membership or becoming a judge.  I
would not do a hard sell; but having a link to becoming a member and
becoming a judge could encourage people.  We could do something like this
in the future, either just links in the Quick Links in the left-hand column
or an expanded mention of the judging and membership benefit.

Similarly links to judging and membership could be incorporated near the
award notices on the AIS website and the Iris wiki.  Are there other topics
that would naturally go with the awards?

Pictures are one of the major draws.  Should we be selecting favored
pictures early from the Iris Encyclopedia for all the Medal nominees so we
are prepared?  (Maybe we are already doing this.)  Would a color PDF,
offered as an option, on the AIS website be useful?  I do like the
incorporation of an iris logo in this year's PDF.

Cross-referencing and cross-posting:  Having it on World of Irises and the
AIS Facebook page is good.  Thank you Andi for getting this up so rapidly.
And I liked the expanded posts on each winner that the World of Irises had
last year.  Are there other social media we should include?  Are there
links between the AIS website notices and the Iris Encyclopedia pages that
should be added?

Visibility:  Having the News Flash on the main Iris Encyclopedia page is
good for raising awareness of the awards.  And having the News entry on the
AIS website telling about it is also good.  Is there some way we could have
a News Flash or something on the homepage?  Are there other announcements
that should/could go out?

Follow-ups?  Not sure what I would suggest here.  The World of Irises
series is very good for extending the interest and something we can point
to with subsequent News & Notes issues.  And which is cross-posted to
Facebook as they occur.  Are there any other events or news releases based
on the awards?

Again, my overall conclusion is we are doing a good job under increasingly
shortening timescales.  And I would like to learn where we might improve,
obtain additional benefits, and apply lessons to other areas.

Thank you for your suggestions and comments.

Regards,

Wayne Messer
wrmesser@gmail.com
News & Notes

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to the AIS Secretary
<aissecretary@irises.org>
The archives for AISDiscuss are at:
http://www.aisboard.org/lists/aisdiscuss/