JewishBoston.com

Yiddish - Alive and well in Boston

A few years ago, I read the lively and unlikely story of Aaron Lansky's quest to rescue Yiddish books from obscurity and oblivion.  One of these days, I hope to get to the National Yiddish Book Center that he established in Amherst.

But in the meantime, there's plenty of Yiddishkeit alive and well in our own backyard.  For example...

Every Wednesday night, the Yiddish Voice airs on WUNR 1600 AM radio at 7:30 to 8:30 pm.

Workman's Circle offers Yiddish classes; in fact, new classes are begining on Tuesday, February 9.  Don't you love the title of the classes... Beyond "Oy Vey"!  

And their Yiddish choir A Besere Velt (a better world) is the best.  Last year, I had the great pleasure of attending their concert with the Klezmatics at the Somerville Theatre where they sang "I ain't afraid" among other fabulous Yiddish songs.  They do an open Yiddish sing once a month; January 28th is the next one.

You can also find Yiddish lessons at The Boston Language Institute.  Or a Yiddish club at Brandeis.

Finally, if you're a fan of Klezmer music, check out Ari Davidow's labor of love, the Klezmer Shack.  It's full of fabulous resources, from radio shows to blog postings to music calendars.

Please let me know what I left out - we want to make sure all of these resources get listed on JewishBoston.com.  It's fascinating just how many nooks and crannies of Jewish culture exist all around us.

Habanot Nechama - Boston Jewish Music Pre-Festival Concert on Jan 10

Get a taste of one of the most exciting cultural offerings to hit the Jewish Boston scene - the upcoming Boston Jewish Music Festival coming to a location near you from March 6 to 14th - at 7:30 pm this Sunday at Temple Aliyah in Needham. Tix are $18 at templealiyah.tix.com.

Want to hear more?  Fire up myspace to hear more tracks - or even better, come hear them live this coming Sunday!

 

Job Posting for the Editor of JewishBoston.com

Yes, we're hiring!

You…

Talented writer and editor. In love with words, blogs, and writings. Outgoing and active. Connected to the Jewish community. Deeply embedded in and enthralled by social media.

Us…

Launching in March 2010, JewishBoston.com will make it easy for more and more people to participate in Jewish life in Boston. Key features: Events and online registration, organizational and program directory, and community blogging. Interfaces with Facebook, Twitter, and the social web. Useful to everyone in the community, the site is especially targeted to young adults and families with young children.

The job…

On a daily basis, you’ll take the lead on featuring events, blog posts and organizations. You’ll help foster a civil community by moderating the site and encouraging contributions. You’ll write and edit JewishBoston posts. You’ll help recruit a community of bloggers and ensure an ongoing flow of user and organizational generated content. You'll work with our community manager to teach Jewish organizations throughout Boston how to effectively communicate through the site. On a weekly basis, you’ll run the editorial meeting. Together we’ll review metrics, set goals, track progress, and plan the ongoing improvement of the site. Over time, you'll help shape the growth and direction of the site.

And more about you...

8 to 10 years of work experience, including 2+ years experience editing an online website and working with web content management systems. You've lived and breathed what it takes to produce a successful site (think Huffingtonpost, Gawker or Jewcy). Along the way, you've built a significant portfolio of web writing and become an expert on engaging people through the use of social media. You're already connected to the Jewish community and feel a special affinity to our target audience of young adults and families with young children.

Here's the full job description and info on how to apply. 

Thanks in advance for your interest - and for forwarding this on to your network.

Why do we need JewishBoston.com?

We sent out the email yesterday asking people to submit their data to us for JewishBoston.com. We've received a great immediate response! As of first thing this morning we received 36 completed surveys.  Thank you!  Keep going!

We also heard a few questions about the site.  Here are some of the questions I was asked:

We already have a website, why would we need JewishBoston.com?

• The answer here is simple. We are not trying to replace your website, we are trying to help your market your organization, and reach more of the community.
• One of the big things we heard, not only in the sessions for the CJP Strategic Plan but the community sessions for JewishBoston.com, was that information about all of the Jewish resources in the Boston area is hard to find. By sharing your organization info on JewishBoston.com, you're helping people find you and make the connection that they are seeking. 
• And, if you don't have certain tools on your website - like event registration - JewishBoston.com can augment your existing site.

Why would I need JewishBoston.com if I already have a listserv/mailing list/newsletter?

• JewishBoston.com won't change what how you communicate to the people already involved with your organization.  Use JewishBoston.com to tell your story and promote your events and programs to the greater community.

Is there a cost to being listed on JewishBoston.com?

• No, CJP is providing JewishBoston.com as a service to the entire community.  There is no charge for organizations to list themselves, add events or blog posts to JewishBoston.com. Our goal is to help more people participate in Jewish life across all of Boston. 

Thanks for these questions!  We will be creating a frequently asked questions portion of the site. What other questions would you have for us?

Get listed on JewishBoston.com

As we get closer to the launch of JewishBoston.com, one of the most critical pieces we need is accurate information about the Jewish organizations and programs in Boston.

We were hoping you could help.  

We've created a short survey to collect some simple information about your organization and contacts.  The form also has a few questions about your organization’s potential usage of the site.  We want to make sure that our February trainings are designed so that you really know how to use the site and to get value from JewishBoston.com

All the organizational or program information that you provide will be pre-loaded into JewishBoston.com. By February, when we conduct our organizational training sessions, all the information will already be there. Ready to be edited, ready to add photos, ready to add stories and especially ready to add your events! Especially since launch is right before Passover!

Are you a Jewish organization or program in Boston? Submit your information using this survey! 

If you have any questions regarding this process or the survey itself, please ask in the comments so we can share the answer with everyone.

Thanks in advance for your help!

What are other Jewish communities doing?

One question about JewishBoston that comes up frequently is... What are other Jewish communities doing?  Is anyone else doing something like this?

The short answer is no, not really. 

Here's my take on why.  Jewish Federations face two competing demands for web investments.  The first is what do we do for our own websites?  For example how can www.cjp.org best meet the need to educate and engage donors in our work.  The second question is what do Federations do programmatically to leverage the promise of technology throughout our communities.

For most of us, our focus is on our own Federation website.  For many years, we were able to rely on a product from the Jewish Federations of North America.  Perhaps ten years ago, they launched a remarkably innovative set of tools for federations around the country. Called Fedweb, it offers local federations a bundled set of functionality:  content management, ecommerce, event registration, and email marketing.  Over 100 of us, including CJP, still use it.  For what we get, the price is right; our fees are about $2500/month.

Sadly, however, the UJC platform hasn't keep current with the changing needs of nonprofits.  The new Jewish Federations marketing team is doing a great job, offering new flash components for holidays and new media guidebooks from Blue State Digital. But Fedweb itself is a pretty challenging environment to work in. 

So most Federations who have the resources to do so are working on or have implemented alternative platforms.  New York, Chicago and Los Angeles are on different systems.  San Francisco is about to do so, and Montreal is exploring their options.  Here at CJP, we're looking to improve what we're doing in the short run and beginning to budget for a new cjp.org site. 

What's really different and unique about Boston's approach is our decision to focus on the programmatic investment in JewishBoston.com.  When I tell people in other communities that we're taking the community functionality out of CJP.org and putting it into JewishBoston.com, they get it and think it's a good idea. But understandly so, most Federations are focused on their own marketing problem.   

As we launch, it's our hope that JewishBoston.com will be a model for other communities and that others will choose to replicate our approach, leverage our investment, and, most importantly, make it easy for everyone to participate in Jewish life. 

Marketing suggestions from Hubspot founder Dharmesh Shah

Thanks to MIT entrepreneurial guru Ed Roberts, we had lunch today with Dharmesh Shah, the CTO of Hubspot and the co-author of Inbound Marketing.  Having read or skimmed many books on the topic of web marketing, I find it a pleasure to read a book as clear, simple, and lucid as this one.  I strongly recomment it. 

Our conversation centered on how to best launch JewishBoston.com and best practices for social networking marketing.  Here's what Dharmesh said:

1.  Remember that there's huge value in social connections.  As a philanthropy, CJP (and JewishBoston) should recognize that getting people to leverage their social network has tremendous value.  Think about this as you launch JewishBoston.

2.  Start with asking people to do the right thing.  "If you find JewishBoston.com useful, we would really appreciate it if you'd tell your friends about us!"  Altruism is a wonderful thing and, in general, people do want to be helpful.

3.  Think about social incentives that would get people engaged.  Girl scout badges are an example of this; the online world is exactly the same.  Sites such as stackoverflow, a Q&A site for developers, really excel at this.  People want to be recognized for their contributions.

4.  Contests are good but they are timebound. 

5.  Recognize that the bar for engagement with a website is very high these days.  The second that people feel that you are wasting your time, they will run away.  Do everything you can to make it easy for people to engage with your website.  Incremental improvements over time can make a big difference.

6.  Don't push too hard.  Think carefully about what you ask people to do when.  Coming on too strong turns people off.  Instead, use analytics to see what people do on your site and design involvement opportunities depending on what they do.

7.  Use a Facebook fan page to market your site.

8.  Make it simple and obvious for people to share information with their network.

9.  Don't overthink your marketing!  Try new things, trust the organic nature of social networks, identify the connectors and go with it.

Thank you, Dharmesh!  Very helpful!

Let me know what you'd add to Dharmesh's list.  What would be #10?

Our new branding

You may have wondered when you saw the home page design for JewishBoston.com why the design of this blog didn't match it at the time. 

Thankfully, now it does! 

Liz and I have a ton of help creating and building JewishBoston.com. Besides our developers, Cantina Consulting, and our designer, Chris Capotoso, we also have a very talented volunteer committee who we rely on for their input and expertise.

We'd like to give a grateful nod to Josh Fialkoff, a member of this committee, who coined our witty tagline of "The wandering is over."   

Organization Rountable Discussions

For the last several months, Patty and I have been holding roundtable discussions so organizations can actively play a role in the building and marketing of JewishBoston.com. We've had great participation and many great thoughts and ideas have come from these meetings.

On December 7th, we're holding another one. This discussion will focus on marketing and launch plans (an idea that came from our last meeting!), and as always to answer any questions and hear your thoughts and ideas about this project. We currently have 17 participants and can only squeeze in a couple more for this session. If you want to join Patty and I for this discussion, please email me and I'll be happy to include you. If we go over what we can fit into the room, we'll simply hold a 2nd meeting to accommodate everyone. These meetings are held at JF&CS in Waltham.

If you want to talk about JewishBoston.com or want to find out more and are unable to make it to Waltham for these meetings, please contact me and I would be happy to fill you in on this exciting project!

We have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! Have a great week!

Website metrics and knowledge management

One of the things that can be mind-numbing about websites is just how much data they generate. 

How many visitors did you have today?  Did they just wave or did they stay and talk?  Did they start to do something - register for an event and then change their mind? 

Making sense of these the options reminds me of the knowledge management graphic that that we used during my Notes consulting days. I still like it.

[See Wikipedia for more about the DIKW model.]