EVERYONE; PLEASE READ THIS AND PLEASE POST YOUR SUGGESTIONS, COMMENTS, CRITICISMS ETC

From: ALI
Date: 7/25/00
Time: 2:50:56 PM
Remote Name: 205.188.208.137

Comments

this post is basically devoted to my suggested format of the websites home page. it is and i reiterate, just a suggested format, by no means final or anything close to it. i am just spitting it out to get feedback from ALL OF YOU. so please dont hold back, we really need everyones input. i swear i wont hold any resesnment in the least if even one word of my suggested format doesnt make it in the actual home page.

please bear in mind that the home page is the most crucial part of holding our audience's attention. if we can hold her/his interest here, we pretty much have ourselves an acive participant or a non participating member. as you get ready to post your suggestions about the home page, please put yoursleves in the shoes of our target audience; the new comer, who has practically no previous idea of this board or hm etc.

i am gonna digress here a bit, so please bear with me. i cant help but express my feelings about the new development; the break in gho's silence. i really think this is positive for us. regardless of the news being good or bad. if atleast gho is gonna start giving us feedback, at least we will know the status of hm. anyway, i am keeping my fingers crossed, but i dont expect a breakthrough cause otherwise hairsite wouldnt have waited a week and this thing would have been all over the news. IMPORTANT REQUEST TO ANYONE INTENDING TO CONTACT GHO; PLEASE, PLEASE DONT. WE ARE GONNA ASSIGN ONE PERSON TO BE OUR CONTACT, MAYBE ANDY, I AM NOT SURE. but all of us contacting him is counter productive, so please dont do it.

back to the website;

their are a few roles that our mission statement/website/homepage etc will have to fullfill and i think i should run them by you;

1. to clarify our mission and plan of action not just to others that are our audience, but also to ourselves.

2. to serve as a sort of intro to newcomers.

3. to act as a medium to share knowledge and thoughts.

4. to be a recruting center for volunteers and for members which will be our force.

5. to educate people, particularly ones suffering from hairloss about upcoming options so hopefully they dont get butchered by some ht surgeon and also to make the ht industry see the light and join us in the advocay of a better solution to hairloss.

NAME OF THE ORGANIZATION; UNITED FRONT OF HAIRLOSS SUFFERERS(suugested by randy). i like this name cause i think it reflects us best. we are quite unique in the sense that we dont have anything to sell like some of the other hair related sites. but just have one, unadulterated quest; get our hair back and help others facing the same situation. i dont think that the name should be hip or salesy, cause it would then sound too much like a marketing campaign rather than a grass roots effort. i understand that we are at this point classifeid as a hm site, but what happens if we find out that hm is not the most viable option at the moment? do we forget our quest, or do we still have an agenda?

MISSION STATEMENT: TO EXPEDITE THE CURE OF HAIRLOSS AND EDUCATED PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM IT.

now, as far as the rest of the home page goes, i grappled with putting it all together in a concise, logical way without ommiting too much info but with all the issues involved; stagnation, ht industry's somewhat lack of resolution to do anything different etc, i gave up the idea and decided to write it up in a question/answer format.

Q1. HOW ARE WE DIFFERENT FROM OTHER HAIR RELATED SITES?

2. WHAT DO WE HOPE TO ACHIEVE?

3. WHAT METHOD OF CURE IS OUR CURRENT FOCUS? this is where a quick intro to hm comes in and then we coould refer people to the "what is hm?" button.

4. WHY DO WE FEEL WE ARE NEEDED? this is where various factors come into play and we could answer them in an a,b,c.. format, for example.

a. due to the fact that no one really is pushing the cure to hairloss agenda purely....

b. current status of stagnation in the feild; this is where the ht industry etc come into play.

c. educate people who are considering other options, particularly ht of upcoming procedures and hopefully have them consider waiting a bit longer for something a lot better on the horizon. this is where we could refer people to the hair transplant button where we show some of the horror stories.

5. HOW TO BECOME A MEMBER(refer them to the join as member button).

6. HOW TO BECOME A VOLUNTEER(refer them...).

7. HOW DO WE PLAN ON ACHIEVING OUR GOAL;

1. by educating people including the media of the devastating affects of hairloss and putting hairloss in the spot lite rather than a plight faced by silent sufferers that choose to suffer in silence cause of the fear of being ridiculed(this is where the psychology issue comes in and we refer them to the button). we also need testimonies from people, esp ladies to get some sympathy).

2. by contacting people/organizations in the hairloss research feilds and be on their update list.

this is all i can think of at the moment. as i told u earlier, its all half baked, so please comment. once your comments are in then, fred, bill, randy, tk421, herby etc and whoever else wants to cotribute will modify it accordingly and repost it or whatever u guys decide. but either way, its imp that at this point we set a deadline for the release of the website.

ali