CIWM turned to Cantarus to seek pragmatic, expert advice on delivering a sophisticated online community offering as quickly as possible. Initial conversation centred on goals, member value, timeframe, integration, and price. Mark Eichler, Cantarus Principal Consultant and lead community strategist, guided the process. “We understand online community, community strategy and related technologies intimately,” Mark said. “CIWM brought three final critical pieces to the project – capable staff, leadership buy-in, and member appetite. The combined CIWM/Cantarus team had all the elements to make the project a success in a very short timeframe”.
Cantarus listened and proposed a community adoption strategy tailored to CIWM’s needs:
Platform: Discourse
The leading open-source online forum platform was seen as the right fit for features and time to deliver. The open-source price point allowed the budget to be applied to critical integration work, branding, and support.
Integration: CRM
CIWM adopted iMIS as its CRM years before the project was initiated. We proposed providing an integration to populate the community, confirm member security, and utilise the existing login platform. Our technical staff would achieve the integration with minimal staff time and without staff interaction or support from the CRM vendor.