[Lnc-business] Request for Update on LP.org

Thu Nov 3 19:12:38 EDT 2016

Just a few quick points all of which are discussed in the report I
mentioned.

> something as basic as front page blog images don't display

Caryn, please understand that this is not a matter of the software not
functioning, but rather is a matter of needing to train people as you noted
yourself, we're a largely voluntary organization.  We're doing the
training, but it does take time.  Unfortunately the election is in 5 days
and given the goal of the website launch, we're trying to do as many things
at once as we can with priorities on what affects the end marketing output
the most.

Additionally, I have long advocated for the LP to understand that it needs
to pay for a professional IT staff.  It's mind-boggling to me that the LP
believes it can take on this work voluntarily.  Technically it can, but
this is why the infrastructure was in the chaotic state that I found it in
(again, all of these nuances of this will be outlined for you in a report
format).

> I am disturbed at the offhand way these are treated

I would like to add that I'm not attempting to treat these in an offhand
way.  I've been logging hours since I started this project.  I would have
thus far billed over $40,000 in client services if I were billing the LP.
I'm not and so I've billed $0.00.  If it seems as if I'm dismissive of the
bylaws addition it's only because there has been a tremendous amount of
work necessary to update our infrastructure.  I have spent a month working
on that alone.  Our infrastructure has been spread over 6 different
services (we require just 1) and on my current estimate has been costing us
over $10,000 / year in unnecessary expenses.  This is largely the result of
an array of volunteers tweaking changes rather than a paid professional
organizing a plan of action and executing it.  The point being that I have
been unbelievably focused on trying to fix these things while billing at a
pretty low rate of $0.00 and simultaneously trying to reduce about $10k of
the party's annual expenses while drastically improving services.

I would therefore counter by saying I'm disturbed at how trivial of a job
some people seem to think this work is to accomplish.  If we wanted
everything done perfectly, we should have outlined it years ago.  We didn't
and so I'm working as hard as I can to fix that so that any future changes
are not only easy to accomplish, but follow best-practices.

Finally, had we launched the site AFTER the election, we'd have received
who knows how many emails bemoaning that it wasn't launched before the
election.  Launching it before the election gets us emails bemoaning
certain things missing.  I hope you can appreciate we can't win either way,
so we took the most effective strategy for the party.  In this case
promoting Gary Johnson as our guy before the ugliest election in my
lifetime.

I hope that sheds some light on the situation from this side of the table.

~k

On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 5:45 PM, Caryn Ann Harlos <carynannharlos at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thank you Kevin, I understand your position, and I am not going to put
> much time in disputing, but when something as basic as front page blog
> images don't display, it clearly wasn't ready for prime time.
>
> As far as this, " I'm fairly certain that our marketing people are not of
> the position that people will avoid voting for Johnson because they can't
> immediately find our party's bylaws online."
>
> That is not a decision we or anyone had the authority to make.  We are a
> voluntary association run by Bylaws, and our Bylaws require differently.  I
> am disturbed at the offhand way these are treated.
>
> I look forward to your report, and thank you again.
>
> *In Liberty,*
> *Caryn Ann Harlos*
> Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
> Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
> Harlos at LP.org
> Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
> <http://www.lpcolorado.org/>
> Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
> <http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org/>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Kevin Ludlow <ludlow at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Caryn,
>>
>> I was under the impression from speaking with Lauren et al that we would
>> be able to get those pages up relatively fast or I'd not have had that
>> exchange with you and Lauren last week.  That said, and as I've stated
>> before, I am 100% behind whatever priorities Wes has been organizing for
>> staff.
>>
>> My position is that we absolutely did not prematurely go live.  If
>> anything we launched later than planned mostly due to a series of
>> infrastructure issues (many of which are cost-dependent and detailed in a
>> report I've been working on).
>>
>> To expound on my response, the website was built and launched to serve as
>> a marketing tool for the Libertarian Party.  I know some may disagree with
>> this, but the majority did agree with that premise and that's why the
>> project was taken on in the first place.  The most important marketing we
>> could do right now is for Gary Johnson (much like the GOP is using their
>> website to promote Trump and the DNC is using their website to promote
>> Hillary).  This has been a marketing strategy and by all accounts is a
>> pretty practical and intuitive one.
>>
>> Still, I'm not dismissing the other pages needing to go online.  I fully
>> agree with you that they do need to.  But the marketing of the Johnson
>> campaign has been given priority over some of the internal components.  I'm
>> fairly certain that our marketing people are not of the position that
>> people will avoid voting for Johnson because they can't immediately find
>> our party's bylaws online.
>>
>> Also, I managed to make the old site available for staff internally.
>> This in itself took a lot of work, but has been done to ensure they can
>> compare pages.
>>
>> Finally, and as briefly noted above, I've been preparing a lengthy report
>> for the LNC and for LP staff so that all of the components we are working
>> with are spelled out.  Once I finish the report I will gladly share it
>> provided that the LNC DOES agree to keep it confidential (given it contains
>> highly sensitive information related to our infrastructure).
>>
>> -Kevin
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 5:21 PM, Caryn Ann Harlos <
>> carynannharlos at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> In short, we made a mistake in prematurely going live.
>>>
>>> --
>>> *In Liberty,*
>>> *Caryn Ann Harlos*
>>> Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska,
>>> Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
>>> Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
>>> Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
>>> <http://www.lpcolorado.org/>
>>> Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
>>> <http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org/>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 4:15 PM, Wes Benedict <wes.benedict at lp.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The website has come a long way, but we have a lot of work yet to do on
>>>> it. I have personally instructed various staff members to focus on certain
>>>> things in front of others. While getting bylaws up and new LNC photos is a
>>>> priority, it may still be a while before we get those up. Again, I have
>>>> told staff there are higher priorities in the short run.
>>>>
>>>> things that have displayed poorly on the home page are a higher
>>>> priority for now. For example, below is taken from an email I sent to staff
>>>> on some things we had to do for the home page.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If I inaccurately promised some things in a few days, I revise that
>>>> estimate to a few weeks.
>>>>
>>>> We are making progress. But again, especially while we were having some
>>>> issues with files and images appearing and then disappearing, I have told
>>>> staff to focus on certain other things.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Wes Benedict, Executive Director
>>>> Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
>>>> 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict at lp.orgfacebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
>>>> Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership
>>>>
>>>> On 11/3/2016 6:05 PM, Caryn Ann Harlos wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hello, I am following up on the several things I was assured would be
>>>> resolved shortly (likely a few days) that remain unresolved.
>>>>
>>>> First, the minutes archives is not yet restored.  These are required by
>>>> the Bylaws, and I must object once again that we have a
>>>> non-Bylaws-complaint page up.
>>>>
>>>> Second, the LNC members photos have partially disappeared.  I have been
>>>> getting a ton of publicity for the LPCO in CO and when the news there is
>>>> looking up my credentials, they see an LP.org LNC page that is incomplete.l
>>>>
>>>> I waited well past the few days discussed to followup.
>>>>
>>>> Yes the election is coming up but our Bylaws are our Bylaws and having
>>>> an incomplete page looks bad when people are looking us up.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> *In Liberty,*
>>>> *Caryn Ann Harlos*
>>>> Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska,
>>>> Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
>>>> Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
>>>> Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
>>>> <http://www.lpcolorado.org>
>>>> Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
>>>> <http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Lnc-business mailing listLnc-business at hq.lp.orghttp://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> *In Liberty,*
>>> *Caryn Ann Harlos*
>>> Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska,
>>> Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
>>> Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
>>> Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
>>> <http://www.lpcolorado.org>
>>> Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
>>> <http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ========================================================
>> Kevin Ludlow
>> 512-773-3968
>> http://www.kevinludlow.com
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> *In Liberty,*
> *Caryn Ann Harlos*
> Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
> Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
> Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
> Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
> <http://www.lpcolorado.org>
> Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
> <http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
========================================================
Kevin Ludlow
512-773-3968
http://www.kevinludlow.com
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