very late Assignment 3

I had difficulty getting a meeting with Amy to talk about this assignment. The first meeting we had scheduled was postponed because of other issues that came up within the organization . I had to postpone the postponed meeting due to family matters. I am waiting to hear back from their web director before I post some of the technical information.

The target audience is not very well focused and is comprised of web surfers that come across the blog while perusing the Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota website as well as pro-lifers looking for recent news or events. This may include men or women looking for birth control options, abortion information, disease testing et cetera. For the most part the anticipated audience is composed of people already using services offered by Planned Parenthood or prospective Planned Parenthood clients. In this sense the target audience is the reason for the various programs at Planned Parenthood exist. The purpose of the blog is to inform and motivate the audience. Whether it be attending pro-choice functions, voting on referendums, candidates stances on issues, et cetera the blog can be used to inform the audience and give them the opportunity to act.

The blog had been up for some time before I began blogging for Planned Parenthood. One of the problems encountered was inconsistency in blogging. It is very difficult to measure the success of this kind of communication, especially when a main goal is to inform.

Given the goal of informing and motivating the audience, I think that things I can and should blog about are upcoming events, threatening legislation, and candidate stances. I foresee difficulty with the volitility of the issue I am working with. Because the issue is so charged it is very important to handle it with care.

I report to Amy Jacobson, but my posts are reviewed by a board of directors before they are posted.

The planned parenthood of MN, ND, SD website is www.ppmns.org . My blog can be found at http://www.ppmnsaction.org/learn. or http://www.ppmnsaction.org/learn/blogs . I don't believe there is a link directly from the ppmns site to the action site, but the ppmnsaction site is fairly well known and is the second link when searching google for planned parenthood and any of Minnesota, North Dakota, or South Dakota. I believe the reason for keeping the two sites seperate is so that the main organization can maintain their 501.3c status while the action site is seperate and can legally have more political action.