How to Plan for Your Website Redesign
Redesigning your website can be easy and fun or expensive and painful. We'll cover content management systems (CMS), customer/constituent relationship management (CRM), writing RFPs and how to select a vendor. This panel will include a handful or organizations and blogs that have recently completed the redesign process.
Julie Blitzer is the User Experience Lead at Advomatic, a web development company whose clients include non-profits and political organizations. As part of the Advoteam, Julie helps clients translate their ideas into complex web applications and communities designed to achieve strategic goals, whether they be winning elections, passing a key bill or promoting a non-profit's success. Prior to joining Advomatic, Julie worked in New York politics, including the Manhattan district office of Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY-08). and on the technology team for Mark Green for Attorney General in 2006. Julie is the Director of the New York City Chapter of the New Leaders Council and was previously Institute Co-Chair and a 2009 Fellow. She was the Social Media Strategist for the YDA 2009 Local Chapter of the Year Manhattan Young Democrats. At MYD, she managed online outreach and social media for New Yorkers for Marriage Equality and appeared on CNN.com's Blogger Bunch. Past speaking appearances include SXSW Interactive, Netroots Nation, IPDI's Politics Online, YDA's Biennial Convention and Organizing 2.0. Julie has a B.A. in Government from Claremont McKenna College, where she wrote her thesis on the relationship between technology and political campaigns.
Paula Brantner has been the Executive Director of Workplace Fairness since 2008, after serving as its Program Director from 2003 to 2007, writing legal content for the Webby-nominated site www.workplacefairness.org. Most recently, Paula was the Program Director for Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, and the Working America Education Fund. From 1997-2001, she was the senior staff attorney at the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA), heading NELA’s amicus, legislative/policy, and judicial nominations programs. An employment lawyer for over 17 years, Paula has degrees from UC-Hastings College of the Law and Michigan State University’s James Madison College. She is a co-coordinator for NetSquaredDC, volunteers at the National Zoo and travels around the world to see pandas. She also hopes that by the time you read this, she will be in training to become a DC Rollergirl.
Erin is a new media strategist with nearly a decade of experience working with national and state-wide campaigns, organizations and party infrastructure. She most recently served as the Strategic Manager of all progressive clients for New Media Strategies.
Erin specializes in strategic planning, website re-design and new media outreach. She previously served as Director of New Media for Media Matters for America and their C4 arm, Media Matters Action Network, Director of Online Strategy and Communications at Grassroots Democrats – a 527 dedicated to working with Democratic State Parties. She was an Internet Strategist for the Kerry-Edwards 2004 presidential campaign.
Over this time, Erin has helped more than 30 State Democratic Parties, a variety of non-profit organizations, unions and individual candidates develop their new media strategy, re-design their online presence and build campaign micro-sites for list building. She also specializes in online marketing, email strategy, social networking, mobile strategies and database management. A graduate of the California State University, Chico with a double major in Political Science and International Relations, Erin is a founding partner of Middle Coast.
