Questions help your brain to see from different persoppectives ... and they help 
you to create a quality website … if you simply start with a spurt of curiosity and ask yourself questions such as …. who will stop by to chat and what do you want people to learn or share with others there? How can you sustain a global dialogue at your new site… while at the same time showing genuine local interest? What details would illustrate the vision of your organization in a new light to engage others?
Questions… much like those asked here… can help you to distinguish your website as a unique roundtable … a kind of fireside chat … that… at the same time, can become a vision that defines your career and community.
To launch your website research ask:
1. What three established websites are most like the one my organization could build?
List a key purpose of each site identified… and suggest its usefulness to exchange ideas and hear from those it serves.
Jot down insights about how this information you see listed on a website you admire… might help you to create your own site…. And take note of what similarities you see in the stated purpose of each site you research as it will influence the site you plan to create.
2. What one key statement defines the purpose of your website and how will you position it as effectively as the statements of purpose in the sites you researched?
Illustrate how your planned mission statement will be similar to each site you researched ... and at the same time different enough to distinguish your unique purposes.
3. Who do you want the world to see on your site? A thoughtful commenter added this question and I thought it was especially critical to any web site research. That question draws from a person's intrapersonal intelligence and allows the web team to show their vision through their persona in much the same way a blog shows who its author is. What do you think?
Can you think of any key questions that still need to be asked before you build your web site?
Another question takes into account that a web site acts as an avatar for its owner, so the question becomes, "Who do you want the world to see?"
I believe it is a difficult question to answer because few people go through the exertion of defining who they want to be in "real life" much less trying to define their virtual persona.
Great Optimism,
Posted by: Dutch Driver | July 7, 2006 11:37 PM | Permalink to Comment