APS Board Approves Five-Year Strategic Plan

US Total Pop = 321,368,864

US Internet users = 280,742,532

US Population over age 4 = 262,246,108

Guess some under 4 also have it!

Don

Edit: As of end of 2015

I think you did the math wrong. If there are 280M US internet users, and only 262M people over the age of 4, more than 100% of people over the age of 4 have access :)

Fixed, I do not know how they count 'internet access'. For example if a household has access, do they count everyone in the house even if some don't use it?
Don

At the risk of veering wildly off topic, I'm pretty sure that's measured by household, i.e. if the house has it, it counts, regardless of the occupants' ages or dependency status, etc. If a 2-year old's parent has internet, that 2-year old is considered to have internet.

Q/ Does my house have internet access if my cable teevee company has wired the whole neighborhood, even if I do not subscribe?

Put another way, does 'access' mean accessed, or accessible?

Counting all of the phones that could be used to access the web as having web access is a little bit like claiming that over 90% of US households have jogging access because there is pavement within N yards of their front door.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

In my opinion US internet access is 100%.
Even a homeless, phoneless person can walk into any local library and get online for free.
Don

In addition to getting APS members online and chatting/posting, and turning those visits into new memberships and sales the APS should also develop an internet strategy that draws in affiliate organizations.

Maybe not simple, but creating a platform so each affiliate organization can have its own hosted forum, sales, etc. would be another possibility. There would be the general APS platform and then each affiliate could have an instance of their own platform. I'm thinking of all the small organizations that barely have working web-sites and the small clubs that maybe are not online.

In any case, they would have done far better to hire one (or two) smart energetic software developer(s), with an interest in philately, and set them to work, than hire additional executive staff and farm out the work. Being a SW developer myself, that might be a dream job/location at a different point in my life.

HungaryForStamps:

I am not sure that you are allowing for the legitimate insularity of the APS.

On the APS hosting small-club websites:

Q/ Does the APS really want junky, clunky, ill-maintained, small-club websites under its umbrella?

Q/ Does the APS want to develop & enforce aesthetic & performance standards for those small-club websites?

The more integrated the small-club websites are with the APS website, the more headaches for the APS.

The less integrated the small-club websites are with the APS website, the more unnecessary it all becomes.

I can see the APS seeing nothing but trouble from hosting small-club websites.

On the APS hosting an APS forum:

Q/ Would the tail wag the dog? Would the forum become the APS experience?

In a lightly-moderated forum, anyone who felt ill-served by a forum member would feel ill-served by the APS ... will they renew?

In a heavily-moderated forum, what would the permitted topics of conversation be?

Perhaps the most useful threads would be of the show'n'ask variety, eg, "Is this a 309a or a 309b or a 309c Type 2?"

Q/ What if an answer is just plain wrong? Will it be deleted? Will it persist, and come up in search results?

Q/ What happens to the APS Expertization Service when free, unqualified, conflicting, cacophonous opinions are available on the APS Forum?

I can see the APS seeing nothing but trouble from hosting a forum.

And I can see the APS heading towards a membership-supported theme museum.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

It seems to me that an APS employee could accept questions submitted by the general public and then give answers and/or point to resources for all reasonable questions. These could be placed online, along with subtle or not-so-subtle promotion of the APS. Wouldn`t that be a start?

And if this is already done, is it just me who doesn't know it?

Matt Liebson was kind enough to make me aware of this thread discussion. I'd like to be as helpful as possible, so I thought I'd touch on the original questions.

"Q/ What does it mean to "merge" internet sales (electronic platform) and circuit sales (physical platform)?"

This is an operational merger and not aimed at trying to force customers into a singular platform. We see circuit sales and internet sales as two virtually unique customer bases and have no intention of eliminating either service at this time. We can, however, address internal management, by bringing the staff together of these operations under one director.

"Q/ What does it mean to make 'a new web-based circuit sales system'?"

This is a back office reference for accounting purposes. Not all that long ago, circuit sales operated on index cards and adding machine tape. The APS initiated an integration of the accounting system into the other back office functions in 2010. After nearly 5 years, the system is finally close to completion.

"Q/ Online meetings, online forum, redesign(ed) website ... as ways to reach the former members?"

Former and non-members who are active stamp collectors and buyers. We do have a mission to promote membership, but also philately, an increasing online presence promotes both.

"Q/ Do you think that the 'survey' should be by phone & postal mail?"

Whatever the most accurate means of understanding both the membership and the marketplace. This is not a decision that's been made yet.

"I would guess that APS is targeting a new web site design and some 3rd party web group has fed them justifications like the statements you outlined. A web group's objective would be to initially sell them as much as they can and try to lock APS into a long term relationship. Online meetings, forums, managing circuit online... all sound like things that a web development company would promote. Doing it this way means there are no real objectives defined so determining if the effort is a success becomes difficult."

This would be news to me. Our objective is to more efficiently deliver services to our members, increase accessibility to the APS community, and ultimately increase and improve our presence in the collecting community.

If you read the strategic plan, the first objective is strengthening the communication and support of the 490 local clubs, along with the affiliates. I will be personally visiting four clubs and two local stamp shows soon to start down this road (pardon the pun).

Thanks for the comments and the discussion. I cannot promise a simple answer to anything, but we are certainly willing to listen.

One note: After 22 years in public service, I've come to expect both positive and negative feedback. So I will take the criticisms and see if there is something we can do with it. So by all means, feel free to share it.

Scott,
Welcome. Your posts mentions, "Our objective is to more efficiently deliver services to our members, increase accessibility to the APS community, and ultimately increase and improve our presence in the collecting community." My first question is, do these objectives include APRL or do they have separate objectives?

Objectives, and whether or not they are met, are measured by metrics but I have not heard or seen how this is to be done. Perhaps you could help me understand better. Starting with the first objective to efficiently deliver member services; how exactly will efficiencies be determined? Quicker turnaround times for certs? Faster processing of membership applications? Quicker movement of circuit books? Is any change in the web site considered to be an improvement in the efficiently to deliver member services?

The second objective of increasing accessibly could mean many diverse things; do you know how APS will measure this? Would this be measured by increased monthly hardcopy subscriptions? Or perhaps increased web traffic? Does APS know which pages are the most popular and should be expended upon? Does it know which page(s) users most often leave the site from? Who analyzes APS web traffic statistics? Does APS have a desired growth rate for its social media efforts? Does it have additional SEO efforts planned?

And the last objective is to improve APS presence in the collecting community. Is this an objective to attract new people, pull back in former members, or both? Will the success or failure of this effort be measured by membership numbers? If so, would a slowdown in the attrition rate considered a success or is an overall increase desired? Does this objective include digital efforts or non-digital efforts?

Objectives are pretty simple to outline, but the rubber meets the road with the defining of the metrics that will be used to determine success or failure after X amount of time. I am sure this isn't the case here, but sometimes metrics are intentionally left undefined so no one can be held responsible at a later date. Any chance you can supply some details on how success might be measured?
Don

Don --

Thanks for the questions. The strategic plan is a joint plan developed for the APS and the APRL. Rather than read a news article, I would recommend reading the plan in its entirety: http://stamps.org/userfiles/file/mi...lan2016.pdf. The APRL Board meets on Tuesday to discuss and consider this plan, among other topics.

You will note there are specific measurables to be accomplished in 2016 - 2018 - along with the expectation of reevaluating the plan annually and adjusting as necessary.

We break down the goal areas into sustainability, education, accessibility, and membership - along with specific activities and outcomes.

I make almost all my stamp purchases online, and find information entirely online. With many of the used US specialty stamp books way too expensive, I was happy when someone here pointed me to USPCS.org. They had digitized many of the books I wanted to read, and free for everyone! These days, we EXPECT to find information freely offered online. I was so happy I joined uspcs and will be a member indefinitely.

Toward the beginning of this discussion, someone posted a link of what the APS offers, and I was presented with an option to search and "add to cart". Honestly I couldn't close that tab fast enough and won't be back. I have been to their site a few times, but the only thing that I find even slightly intriguing are the circuit books, which seem somewhat expensive just for the chance to look at stamps. If they offered hard to find information as uspcs does, even if only to paying members, I would consider joining. As for now, I am not enticed.

I also prefer those philatelic organizations that are in my area of interest and that offer free archives of most of their older stamp journals online.

Thanks for coming online, Scott! It's really appreciated!

-- Dave

APS #187980