Building community with the Digital Services Coalition

Project overview

After Mighty Acorn Digital joined the Digital Services Coalition (DSC), we wanted to contribute to community building as both a member and an active participant. Sean, a Mighty Acorn director, learned that the DSC was integrating a new digital communications platform and wanted implementation support. The project could potentially be included in Mighty Acorn’s Early Career Engineer (ECE) program, but even if it didn’t fit, Mighty Acorn still wanted to help create a minimum viable product.

The opportunity

The DSC sought to complement its free version of Slack with a personalized, community-based communications tool. Since the DSC hosted many different companies within its Slack, this also meant hosting all the members within each company. There could be nearly 2,000 users in the DSC Slack, some of whom weren’t engaging in continuous conversation. Additionally, with the free version of Slack, the DSC lost its data and messages every 90 days. Comparable associations were using a platform called Higher Logic, so the DSC wanted to test it out.

The pivot

Mighty Acorn Digital’s Product & Delivery Manager, Karen, reviewed the DSC project needs in relation to our ECE aims. While the opportunity for collaboration remained, it didn’t include coding opportunities, a key component in the ECE program. The project was in its final stages; DSC wanted someone to help with processes, documentation, and user guidance.

Karen took on the project herself, first dedicating time to the discovery process. She learned what Higher Logic offered as a provider of online community software, watching documentation videos, reading how other users have optimized the platform, and testing out tailored options. Karen reworked some design elements, customizing them for optimal functionality, and created reference documentation so the DSC could learn its new platform.

The launch

Although Karen hadn’t previously used Higher Logic, she led with curiosity to create order, reference materials, and a clean user experience. Her efforts will have a lasting effect. Last month—after a year of testing—the DSC launched on Higher Logic with reference documentation, expanding its community and communications reach.