Case Study

Intercollegiate Studies Institute

ISI has been a client from the beginning, when David Kidd left his position as ISI's Director of Internet Technology to start North American Web. As a membership organization, a publisher, a solicitor of donations (online and offline), a custodian of many decades-worth of publications, and the host of many kinds of events, their needs are diverse. We're proud to be the vendor of choice for almost all their web-related projects.

CComplex Integrations

As a membership organization, a publisher, a solicitor of donations (online and offline), a custodian of many decades-worth of publications, and the host of many kinds of events, ISI relies on a variety of systems to manage payments, communications, authentication, constituent data, and more. We've helped them tie their systems together in ways that dramatically reduce administrative overhead and allow them to serve constituents on a large scale. ISI can take a membership registration on its main website, sync the data into a CRM, kick off a personalized email sequence, make a members-only discount immediately available on their online store, and forward purchases from that store to a distributor using the distributor's esoteric web service. And they can do all this (and much, much more) without relying on a single software platform that may not be strong in every domain.

CCustom Development and (Very) Long Term Support

Our commitment to forging long-term relationships with clients has a huge impact on the solutions we develop, and ISI is a great example of this. Every project we start with ISI we undertake with the knowledge that we may be responsible for maintenance for many years to come. We build our products to fit, and we build them to last.

We've done a ton of custom development for ISI. From a full-blown social networking application with fine-grained privacy and security policies—“Reveal my name as author of this blog post only to friends and those who went to this particular ISI event with me”—to minor (and major) extensions of widely-used platforms (Wordpress, Drupal, Magento, CiviCRM, etc.), we're experienced developers who know how to make things work.

SSystem Administration

As an early and enthusiastic adopter of internet technologies, ISI runs websites on quite a few different platforms. We directly administer almost all of their web properties, and we act as a technical contact for ISI in the cases where specialized hosting from another vendor is indicated. We handle the arcane details of server optimization and crisis management so they can focus on their core competencies.

CCoaching and Reporting

We work alongside ISI to help them identify promising online initiatives, and we help them think through the implications of the choices before them. What will it really take to implement this feature? When will it be necessary to replace or shut down this old web application? How has this resource been performing? How much of a given project can be accomplished with existing technologies, and how much will require custom development? There are few kinds of project we haven't undertaken before, and our counsel allows ISI to proceed with confidence.

www.isi.org