This month, in announcing my new full-time role with Technically Media Inc., I briefly noted that we had launched Constitution Daily, a new blog platform for the National Constitution Center.
A move of that magnitude, I think, deserves a bit more detail.
Last January at the prestigious Union League after speaking on a panel about the future of journalism, I met and started a dialogue with David Eisner, the new CEO of the National Constitution Center, an innovative museum and event space devoted to the U.S. Constitution that is based in Philadelphia.
By May, we agreed that NCC needed to toe into the waters of content to grow its own audience who could become supporters, donors and visitors. In June, we started that work with an asset analysis and creating work flow and a platform direction.
Soon after, we worked with NCC senior staff to accept a proposal by noted web desvelopment shop Happy Cog, you know, which is one of the country’s most respected firms. Holding true to an originally planned rollout, in December, we launched that platform.
The point here for the NCC is to grow an audience and get them in their pipeline: creating content that spreads, conversations that interest and attracting new and familiar faces to their events and museum.
This can also be an interesting trial in the future of NCC’s online presence, its branding and, perhaps most compelling, the power of meaningful content. My coworker Sean Blanda, Brian Kirk and I are all contributing to the strategy, with Sean there almost daily.
In just a couple months of posting, here are five of the best posts that staff members have created:
- Cliff Lee and the Constitution
- Did WikiLeaks really commit a crime?
- ‘Top 10 constitutional news stories of 2010
- Could you be a Supreme Court justice?
- Martin Van Buren, immigration and the presidency
And how about contributions from Pennsylvania First Lady Marjorie Rendell?