Virtual Back to School Day

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools takes advantage of the back to school season to host a day of interactive interviews to reach and engage target audiences.

Students, teachers, parents and school administrators typically approach back to school day with mixed feelings of excitement for the new academic year and nostalgia for the passing of another summer. The challenge, for all parties involved, is to mentally prepare for the year ahead and get off to a promising start.

Policy-focused organizations often face a similar challenge in trying to focus their target audiences – policy makers, journalists, researchers – on the issues they care about. One way to bring these key players together is to host an interactive event around a common theme. By setting an agenda for the event that spurs discussion among influential groups in the policy arena, an organization can ensure a slot on the larger policy agenda for the coming season.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools took this concept and organized Virtual Back to School Day , which was held on September 6, 2006. This interactive event featured a series of live online interviews to address the most pressing issues facing charter schools today, including funding, facilities, legislated caps and much more.

Virtual Back to School Day, powered by Forum One Communications’ Live! Interviews Online service, gave web site users the opportunity to interact with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu among others.

"Live! Interviews Online helped the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools create a compelling event for Virtual Back to School Day quickly and easily,” Alliance Communications Director Colleen Sutton said. “It allows us to promote our staff and supporters alongside prominent policy makers and gives us a chance to actively engage with our supporters. Also important, Live! Interviews was inexpensive, easy to setup and easy to use."

Live! Interviews Online allows organizations to feature senior staff, celebrity supporters or topical experts in a structured, interactive format. Although pioneered by commercial organizations like the Washington Post at Live Online and ESPN with insider, online interviews are an excellent addition to government agency, association, and non-profit web sites as well. Forum One’s hosted service makes Live! Interviews Online easy to set up and manage.

Forum One has deployed Live! Interviews Online for organizations including Conservation International, the World Bank and the Albuquerque Journal and has recently hosted interviews with people ranging from François Le Gall, the World Bank’s Lead Livestock Specialist, to Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard.

“We have conducted over a dozen online interviews, which we’ve branded ‘Speak Out’ live discussions and found that they engage users, create interesting new materials, and are contained enough that they don't scare away interviewees,” said Jeff McCoy, Speak Out coordinator for the World Bank. “They have been a great way to increase interactivity on the World Bank web site.”

Read more about Live! Interviews Online.

For more information on how to set up Live! Interviews Online on your web site, please contact Dave Witzel at (571) 641-3029 or e-mail dwitzel@forumone.com.