Burner Profiles
2013 saw the introduction of the Burner Profile system. Burner Profiles have initially been developed to provide a central location for our participants to self-mange their own information, including addresses, phone numbers and other Burning Man-related information. Burner Profiles will also consolidate the login process and data entry for our numerous online systems. In its first phase, Profile logins were integrated into most of our ticket sales registration processes and the BRC Participation Forms.
User Support
With the introduction of the new Burner Profiles, the integration of all the Participation Forms and the Volunteer Questionnaire, we anticipated that there would be an increase in participant questions and need for a best-in-breed technology support tool. The Ticketing Team had a positive track record with ZenDesk’s Customer Service solution so we introduced it into the Burner Profile Contact Us workflow. Profiles and Forms support saw 4,757 customer support requests, we were able to respond in a timely manner and keep an audit and reporting on all participant requests.
BRC Participation Forms into Burner Profiles
In 2013, we moved the BRC Participation Forms into Burner Profiles. Specifically, the following forms are available after filling out a Burner Profile: Art Questionnaire, Media Application, Theme Camp Placement Questionnaire, DMV: Mutant Vehicle Application, and DMV: Disabled Vehicle Application. The contact information in the BRC Participation Form is pre-populated with the contact data entered into the Burner Profile, so the user does not have to fill it out twice. In the future, we will move the Low Income Ticket Program, additional ticket sales registrations and access to more systems into the Burner Profile portal.
Decompression Form
A new form was created for the Special Events Team to facilitate the production of the San Francisco Decompression event. It was used to track submission for Art Installations, Theme Camps, Sound Camps, Mutant Vehicles and Fire Art. This form was built in SurveyGizmo, presented different sets of questions based on the type of participation, and helped the Special Events Team better organize Decompression information. It was produced on a very compressed schedule and will no doubt have some refinements for 2014.
Professional Use Agreement Applications
We moved the Professional Use Agreement Applications (Basic Use, Still Photo, News and TV Feature) into SurveyGizmo this year. These applications are managed by the Media Department, who has previously individually emailed the different versions of this agreement by hand. The new application process improves user experience and saves valuable time for our staff.
Media Gallery
After extensive research of digital asset management systems, we selected ResourceSpace to replace our previous Django-based media gallery site at galleries.burningman.com. The new gallery provides users advanced meta searching, tagging, better defined artifact types, sortable views, image zooming, EXIF data, and a custom randomization feature for the homepage. Development overhead has been substantially reduced by the back-end feature set which allows site admins powerful asset management control, and better enables them to respond to contributor needs, while supporting a streamlined curation workflow.
The contributor user experience has been updated to provide a simplified upload process and more robust meta options. A new API will be made available with the release of our Innovation development portal in 2014. Next phase planning includes responsive design enhancements, systems integration, new back-end features, and staff training to support projects with media management components.
Submitted by,
Silvia Stephenson, Ian Starr and Brian Forsyth