Article 1: What Is Your Mission?

by Vance Elderkin
Copyright � 2004 by Vance Elderkin.  All rights reserved.
Originally published by Website Awards.

Congratulations!  You have decided to start a web awards program.  You've seen these nice-looking awards on other sites.  Maybe you've applied for awards, and won some.  Now, you've decided to put your own awards program together.

Or perhaps you're trying to redo or upgrade a program that already exists.  You may have started with some basic elements you've seen on other sites.  But now that you've been around for a while you have a better idea of what is involved with running such a program as well as the amount of work involved.

Either one of these tasks can be overwhelming.  There are so many things to consider.  Will your awards program be a part of a site you already have, or will it be a stand-alone program?  Will you give awards to any kind of site, or are there certain kinds of sites you should leave out?  What criteria should you use?  What kind of award graphic should you use?  What sort of design should you use for your site?  Should you hand-code it, or use one of the WYSIWYG editing programs?  Should you use judges, or should you do all of the work yourself?  Should you try to get your program rated by an awards-rating index?  If so, which one?  Do you need to belong to an ethics organization?

Certainly, there are many questions to answer.  But you won't be able to adequately answer those questions and move forward with your program until you first answer this one:

What Is Your Mission?

Maybe you have seen "mission statements" on other web sites (not just award sites).  Maybe you haven't thought much about them.  Maybe you just skip by them on the way to the criteria.  If you do that, others probably do it, too.  So why bother?

In the script-writing class that I teach, my students and I spend a great deal of time on "character development" -- that is, figuring out everything there is to know about the characters in our scripts.  We select their names, their nicknames, where they live, the clothes they wear, their beliefs, their fears, and the like.  Two-thirds of this material will never be used in the script.  It is developed so that the characters will become real, living, breathing people TO THE WRITER.  If they are not real to the writer, they will never be real to the audience.

It is equally important that you clearly define the mission of your awards program.  How will you know whether you have met your goals if you don't have any idea of what your goals are?  Perhaps you will write a formal "mission statement"; perhaps not.  You may wish to place a statement of some kind on your award site that talks about the purpose of your awards.  That's fine, but it is not crucial that others read your mission statement.  It is VERY crucial, however, for you, that YOU have clearly defined your mission.

Determining Your Mission

So, how do you go about figuring out your mission?  There is no one correct way to proceed, but I'll give you one possible way.  Let's start with a few basic issues.

You are an individual, with a combination of beliefs, experiences, values and skills unlike anyone else in the world.  This unique background makes you the person that you are.  As you look at web sites around the world, especially personal sites, you will begin to see that these sites are a reflection of the webmaster's interests and background, and is frequently an extension of the webmaster's personality.  So -- what are YOUR interests?  What is YOUR background?  What is YOUR personality?  What are YOUR skills?  It can be helpful to write these down, so you have them in front of you.

(Perhaps you have never really stopped to assess yourself in this manner.  If not, consider writing a "PERSONAL mission statement."  Franklin Covey has an excellent tutorial for this purpose at http://www.franklincovey.com/missionbuilder/. )

Know What You Want

Now, let's consider your own web-browsing habits.  What kind of web sites do you like to visit?  What kind do you NOT like to visit?

What kinds of things do you like to see when you visit a web site?  What do you NOT like to see?  What kinds of things make you want to bookmark the site and return?  What kinds of sites do things that are important to you, things about which you care?  What kinds of things do you wish that web sites would do, or would do more often?  What do you think should be encouraged and/or discouraged on web sites?

What kinds of sites make you feel happy, inspired, or nostalgic?  What kinds of sites make you want to throw your computer monitor out the nearest window?

What kinds of sites would you want to honor with a representation of yourself, sites on which you would be proud to see your own graphic?  What kinds of sites would cause you to die from embarrassment if they were ever associated with you?

Once you have the answers to these questions written down, you're ready to take your first step toward defining your mission.  Study what you know about yourself, and compare with what you know about your web-browsing habits.  Doesn't it make sense to encourage sites to do the things that you, personally, find to be satisfying?

So, you intend to give awards to sites that _______________ in order to encourage ________________.  Fill in those two blanks, and you have a start toward defining your awards program's mission.  Add in things you believe to be important, then clarify and refine.  Your finished mission should nicely fit into a sentence or two.

One Person's Point Of View

May I share a personal example?  My own site's mission is to award personal web sites that provide positive content and valuable resources without a fund-raising or profit-making motive.  Here's the thinking that went into that mission: I firmly believe in the individual, and the individual's ability to make a difference in the world.  I believe in and celebrate individuals who reach out to help others using whatever gifts they possess.  Often, these people do not have the resources that are available to a business or government agency.  I greatly enjoy finding people who unselfishly try to help and encourage others - not because they hope to somehow make money from others, but because they believe that they are doing the right thing.  My criteria, my graphics, and everything else in my program are consistent with my program's mission.  I regularly review my program to see if any changes are needed because of changing web standards, my own experience, or other reasons.  (Awards programs, like other web sites, are perpetual works-in-progress.)

You may not agree with the mission of my site at all, and that's fine.  That mission makes perfect sense to me, however, because of my own unique background and beliefs.  Largely, my awards program is a reflection of the way in which I view the world.

Conclusion

Once you have your mission defined, the issues I mentioned in the beginning become easy to resolve.  You simply ask yourself one question for whatever you are considering concerning your awards program: How will this help me to accomplish my mission?  No matter what it is that you're considering for your program, don't make a decision based on anger, or fear, or "what everybody else is doing."  Just ask yourself: How will this help me to accomplish my mission?

If you are able to answer that question to your own satisfaction, then your decision is right for your program, even if someone else disagrees with what you're doing.  If it helps you to accomplish your mission, then it's the right thing FOR YOU to do.  You will find that you will rarely go wrong when you use this approach.  You will also find that an awards program that is an accurate reflection of your own personality becomes more than a hobby.  It becomes a passion, something that is important and vital in your life.  (This matters when you have a tall pile of applications in front of you!)

So, what is YOUR mission?

About the Author

Vance Elderkin is webmaster of the Internet Beacon Awards, in operation since 2000.  It's currently rated 5.0 with Award Sites!, 5 with WebsAwards, Elite 5+ with IWARA, and 4.0 with Olymp Award Index, and was selected by Website Awards as a World's Top Award.  Vance is a self-taught webmaster, now a Certified Internet Webmaster Associate.

Professionally, Vance is a Lecturer in Communication at North Carolina State University, along with being a freelance writer and voiceover artist.  Prior to that, he spent 25 years as a radio and television professional, working in announcing, programming, production and engineering.

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