Designing the Future

We took some time last week, in between the holidays, to lay out plans for YourPanorama. Up until now it seems we were making decisions daily as to what sounded like the right thing to do, which direction to pursue and which means appeared the best way to achieve our goals. The result was that it felt more like we were floundering than setting sail in a prescribed path.

I should have learned a long time ago that a vision and a written plan to realize that vision works best. Did that all the time in my previous life as a manufacturing manager. No reason I can't apply the same technique to this new venture.

Our plans fell into three categories: 1) Improve financial conditions: which includes reducing costs where it makes sense to do so as well as finding and implementing new revenue streams. 2) Increase the number of contributors and visitors to the site: two different, but related activities. Thus far, a small handful of contributors supply all the content to the site. Our plans are to expand this number so that the site is truly participatory. 3) Improve the overall look and feel of the site. By design, we started with a simple layout and a few things we thought were necessary to include. We knew that we would learn and discover what else needed inclusion, what need to go and what design features we wanted to apply. YourPanorama will be constantly changing, so this is an on-going process.

Beginning tomorrow, we will be putting these plans into action and I can't wait. It would be wonderful to see results immediately, but I think we are more likely to see things evolve a little bit every day, then take off rapidly at some future point. We'll see and we'll keep you posted.