AGDA Introduction

Welcome

Hi there! AGDA's new national website is about to make an appearance and we need your help! Perhaps a handy cup of tea or coffee may be in order before you tackle this email.

Introduction

For the past 6 months we've been creating an all-new AGDA website. We've listened to your feedback, worked out ways to keep you in touch with the latest talent and ideas and - more importantly - given your online member account a complete makeover. The site is busily being worked on as this email hits your inbox, and new articles and information are being added in order that you have the most useful resource at your fingertips. But before we release this to the public, we need you to do your bit...

My Member Account

You can now access your personal member details online. We've done this for a number of reasons - for starters, it's dead easy for you to change your details when you need to. More importantly we've got plans to integrate your account into other areas of the site, like AGDA awards, so you won't need to re-enter details that we already know about (we know how much you love data input!). But the real benefit now lies in being able to publish your member profile to the public, via your own personal member page accessed from the Member Directory.

Your profile page allows you to post an image of yourself - a glam headshot, a logo, an avatar or whatever takes your fancy - at 150px x 150px (JPEG, GIF or PNG only please). Your contact details will be listed as per your account details - telephone, fax, email and office address (if you elect to fill them in). Underneath that you can write a brief biography, include your skill sets and list your clients if you wish. You can also select which skills/disciplines apply to your or your company so that potential clients can find you by browsing in the Member Directory (e.g. browsing for 'Illustrator' in the directory could bring up 20 alphabetically-sorted listings that will link through to each member's profile).

On top of that you can also add folio images to your profile to showcase your work, show off your studio or simply post images that you like. It's your profile to do with what you may.

Accessing your account

The site isn't live yet, it's still in the 'testing' stage before release.

The reason for this is to allow the opportunity to 'fill' the site with content before we turn off the existing site - when we swapover to the public, we want it to make an immediate impact and ensure there's no 'holes' in it. We also want you to test the site, get a feel for it and make sure it's working as it's meant to - we've put it through its paces hundreds of times, but as any grey-haired developer will tell you, there's ALWAYS a problem somewhere you didn't find by yourself.

Firstly, visit your account at

http://members.agda.peptolab.com/

You'll find the 'Members Login' link in your top-left browser screen, or alternatively select the 'Your account' link in the left-hand side menu bar. Your 'Login' will be your AGDA member number. Your initial password will be the same BUT please, for security's sake, change your password once you've successfully logged in. If you're the type who doesn't like to login every time you visit a site, you can also select the checkbox below the password box to have your browser remember for you.

Once you're logged in, you'll find you can do a lot more:-

• Visit Update member details to change your password
• Visit Your personal details to update your name, address and other contact details
• Visit Member profile to update the details that are visible on the member's directory. NOTE: You can elect to not display your details on the Member Directory for privacy reasons.
• Visit Add/Update gallery images to manage your member directory gallery images
• Visit Add/Update skills list to let us know which discliplines/skills apply to your profile
• Visit Subscription details to subscribe/unsubscribe to newsletters. NOTE: The newsletters from the new site are currently disabled (there'll be an announcement on these when they've been enabled).

Finally, you can manage your own classifieds ads online. As a member, you'll have 1 free listing per calendar month, which will automatically expire. You can also manage your classified ad and use expired ads as templates for new ones. You can also edit these ads and 'cancel' them at any time if you so wish. Finally, if the classified demands it, you can upload a small image - show off your studio space or upload a picture of the flashy new laptop you want to sell!

Blogs

The fun part - contributing. Visit the 'Blog' and post your own entry, or simply make a comment on someone else's post. Be nice - the blogs are intended for up-to-the-minute enlightening stories, reactions to industry announcements, a chance to vent (within reason, of course!) or simply to ask probing questions of the community. The blogs replace the current forums - the existing forums will close down when the new site goes live. Oh and in case you're wondering - yes we filter out bad language.

Events

We've updated the calendar to a (hopefully) more accessible layout so you can see at-a-glance what's on where. Feel free to contribute an event if you know something we don't. The aim is to keep this as fresh and encompassing as possible.

Awards

We're in the process of building on top of the online awards registration from the 2006 awards ceremony. Stay tune for an even more refined and user friendly system. In the meantime, you can check out the winning entries of 2006 and view the gallery from the awards evening.

Groups

A section dedicated to special interest groups. If you're interested in starting up a specialised area for discussion, please visit the 'groups' section and we'll get it up and running as soon as possible. This area has started off small but will grow if the interest is there.

...and more...

We've kept the best of the existing site's information in the National section and across the other sections of the site. Let us know if we've missed anything.

We hope you enjoy the new site. Bear with us as we rush to complete this - here's some points to remember whilst you're using the 'beta' site:-

• If something's not working, please send a detailed email to the development team via the feedback option located under National on the menu. Please outline what you were trying to do, what error showed up (or worse, didn't!) and your member account number - the more information, the more likely we can fix it.
• If you have an idea for new functionality for the site, please don't hesitate to send it through. It may or may not make it to the first release depending on how big the request is, but common sense will prevail.
• If you have an idea for stories, site graphics, any other way to make the site look great please contact your state coordinator or the development team.

We're looking forward to releasing the new AGDA site - at this stage we're aiming for a March 15th release, and will keep everyone up-to-date as we get closer.

Start browsing the new site!