Purpose and Vision:
The Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce is a 900+ member business advocacy group. Various technology systems must be used to assist the Chamber in achieving its mission and to allow the staff to provide the level and quality of service that our members and the community deserve and expect.
Objectives:
To effectively and efficiently communicate messages from the Chamber to its various publics including members, residents and non-residents of Terrebonne Parish and government officials. To provide the small staff the ability and tools necessary to leverage their time and efforts and assist them in effectively achieving their goals and objectives.
To efficiently organize the plethora of financial, contact, membership, communications and historical data that is stored at the Chamber and allow for easy use and implementation by the staff and/or volunteers.
To educate and influence the business community about the benefits of technology use in their own businesses.
Short-term Goals:
Continue to fund technology as per the objectives.
Continue to train staff as necessary to minimize the need to outsource projects or services. Continue to push the technological envelope and strive to further the Chamber’s advances in technology usage and appreciation.
Continue to support the existence of the Chamber’s Technology Committee.
Achieve a minimum of 5 percent of Chamber members that link their Web sites to the Chamber’s.
Long-term Goals:
Provide for interactive, long-distance meetings and seminars to educate the members on various topics and issues.
Be a technological inspiration and resource to small businesses.
Facilitate the Chamber’s Web site, www.houmachamber.com, as the parish’s go-to source for business news and needs.
Budget:
The President/CEO will work with the Technology Committee and the organization’s IT consultant to set short term goals for technology implementation including the budgetary requirements. In 2010, the technology budget is $16,546 or nearly 5 percent of the total budget.
Communications Description Amount
Data Back up Off-site back up of Chamber’s server. $1,440.00 E-mail Hosting Off-site hosting of Chamber e-mail server. $780.00 Internet - DSL Broadband internet connectivity for office. $1,140.00
Mobile Phone President’s voice and data phone. $1,380.00
Office Phones Three phone lines and one fax line. $2,520.00
Web site Monthly hosting fees. $1,800.00
Equipment & Software
ChamberMaster Off-site, web-based membership database. $2,736.00 Computers-Maintenance Estimate based on previous years. $1,000.00 Computers and Equipment Purchase Replacement of one PC per year. $2,000.00 VoterVoice Off-site, web-based communications service. $1,750.00
Training:
The President/CEO will work with the Technology Committee and the organization’s IT consultant to ensure that the staff is trained on all hardware and software. The staff will receive training on the latest versions of the software that we currently use and any required as per job descriptions.
Software training includes but is not limited to the following programs: QuickBooks 2010, Microsoft Office Suite 2007 (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Outlook), Adobe Creative Suite CS3 (Adobe InDesign CS3, Adobe Illustrator CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3), ChamberMaster (membership database) and Bizzuka (Web site).
Staff will be cross-trained on applicable software to provide for redundancy in skills.
Staff will be trained on office equipment including copy machine, folding machine, postage machine, digital camera and digital projector.
2008: Communications Director (formerly President/CEO’s) PC 2009: President/CEO’s Laptop
2010: Business Manager’s PC 2011: Membership Coordinator’s PC
The technology budget will include upgrade costs (as necessary) to ensure that computers in non-replacement years will still meet the staff needs.
Web site Privacy Policy
The Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce is committed to protecting the privacy of visitors to its Web site. Any information collected about visitors to this site is maintained for internal use for the benefit of improving our Web site and enhancing our communication with visitors and Chamber members.
For each visitor session to houmachamber.com, our Web server automatically recognizes the visitor's domain name. We collect the domain name and e-mail address (when provided) of visitors to our Web site, the e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail, aggregate information on what pages visitors access or visit, and information volunteered by the visitor, such as survey information and/or site registrations. The information we collect is used to improve the content of our Web site. It is not shared with other business or organization.
In an effort to prevent e-mail harvesting, the Chamber staff will make every effort to “Blind Copy” addressees of e-mails originating from the Chamber.
With respect to cookies: We use cookies to store visitors preferences, record session information, such as items that consumers add to their shopping cart, record user-specific information on what pages users access or visit, alert visitors to new areas that we think might be of interest to them when they return to our site, record past activity at a site in order to provide better service when visitors return to our site, ensure that visitors are not repeatedly sent the same banner ads, and customize Web page content based on visitors' browser type or other information that the visitor sends. If you do not want to receive e-mail from us in the future, please let us know by sending an e-mail to our Communications Director Angelle Percle. If you supply us with your postal address online you will only receive the information for which you provided it.
With respect to Ad Servers: We do not partner with or have special relationships with any ad server companies.
This privacy policy was adopted and will be periodically reviewed by the Board of Directors of the Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce. If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, please contact us using any of the methods below.
Data and Electronic Media Security Policy
Summary:
Electronic security is extremely important in today’s business environment and the Chamber is no exception. This policy outlines a security methodology by which to minimize the risk. Several operation systems are outlined below and will be revised as we continue to evolve our information technology infrastructure.
Users:
Password Protection: Each staff member has been provided with his or her own personal login and password for network access. Your password should not be shared with anyone. On occasion, staff members will be required to change their passwords. If you have reason to believe that your password has been compromised, contact the President/CEO immediately so that it can be changed.
The Houma-Terrebonne Chamber provides its employee’s with a number of Electronic office automation tools, several of which are referenced below:
Internet Access Voice Mail
Personal Computing Network File Servers
These tools are provided exclusively to assist in the conduct of company business. E-mail, Voice Mail and all information contained in the Houma-Terrebonne Chamber’s Computer Network is the exclusive property of the Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce.
All E-mail, Voice Mail, electronic communications and all information contained within the network or on any employee’s assigned computer, are the sole property of the Houma-Terrebonne Chamber and are considered business records of the company and are subject to inspection and monitoring at all times, by the company.
The company may override any individual passwords or codes or require employees or on-site personnel to disclose any passwords or codes to facilitate access by the company. The Chamber retains the right to access any of the electronic systems above at any time for any reason whatsoever without notice to the employee. Such reasons include, but are not limited to, to assure compliance with the Chamber’s policies, to conduct business, to investigate conduct and behavior that may be illegal or adversely affect the Chamber’s employees or members. Employees should have no expectation of privacy or
confidentiality regarding the Chamber’s electronic information systems.
By using these systems all employees and on-site support personnel knowingly and voluntarily consent to their usage of these systems being monitored and acknowledge the Chamber’s right to conduct such monitoring.
Any communication by employees via E-mail or Voice mail that may constitute verbal abuse, slander or defamation or may be considered offensive, harassing, vulgar, obscene or threatening is strictly
prohibited. Offensive content includes, but is not limited to sexual comments or images, racial slurs, gender specific comments or any comments that would offend someone on the basis of his or her age, race, sex, color, national origin, religion, disability or veteran status. Any violation of the above policy will be subject to disciplinary action by the company.