The Right Tool For Songwriters Hall of Fame
Build or buy it?
Songwriters Hall of Fame was founded in 1969 to honor a wide range of beloved popular songwriters and foster up-and-coming talent.
The online voting platform used to conduct annual online elections was unreliable, and failed in advance of upcoming deadlines.
Our client found a new platform that we were able to validate called Simply Voting that seemed custom made to solve the problem.
So, why have we written a case study about a client who, instead of paying Solspace gobs of money to build something awesome, found something ready-made that perfectly suited their needs with a lot fewer zeroes on the bottom line?
First of all, Solspace’s mission is always to do our best to guide you to the right solution for your problem, even if the solution is not us. Second of all, we believe in great craftsmanship, and know the value of using the right tool for the job. We also believe in working smarter, not harder, and using the right tool effectively is as smart as it gets.
Each year the Hall of Fame inducts a slate of songwriters voted on by the membership at an Awards Gala that has been recognized by the music industry and the media as the most important of the year. The entire election process is conducted and managed online.
Our main contact at Songhall was preparing for the yearly election process, and found that one of the integrated third party tools that managed part of the election process was offline due to a server malfunction. Our client attempted and failed to get a response from the provider so she went shopping for an alternative solution. She quickly located a tool called Simply Voting. As it turned out, Simply Voting did everything Songhall needed in one convenient package. It kept track of authorized voters, handled the email notifications to these voters, managed the election and its specific rules and guidelines, and did all of this securely.
Because many of the voters participating in the SHOF elections are very high profile individuals, their personal data is especially sensitive, and security is an extremely high priority.
Solspace took over as the go-to for website maintenance and support for songhall.org from another vendor in 2018. We built a number of supporting administrative web tools that allowed our client to slice and dice their subscriber data as needed to prepare the voter rolls each year. We manage the e-commerce and back-end tools as well as the CMS platform the website is built on (ExpressionEngine). With Songhall we primarily serve as an ongoing partner and problem solver. We’re focused on solutions, and not wedded to the use of any specific tool. This ensures that we can advise our client freely about the best tools for the job.
The Simply Voting platform charges a fee per election scaled to the number of voters. Although it’s not cheap, the cost is far less than if we had custom built an identical platform for our client. What really matters for the value proposition is this: does this solution meet our client’s needs, reduce friction and create the desired outcome with an intelligently assembled set of tools? If the answer is yes, the financial investment is a smart one.
The result is that our client will no longer have to worry about the yearly election cycle. She found the right tool for the job and the right partner to help her use it optimally.
Our client saw a crisis coming when the system they had used for years broke down when one component failed, and proactively located a newer, better solution that met all of her needs for a fair price. The Solspace team was delighted to validate that solution for her and celebrate her resourcefulness!
