by CJP Director and IT Committee Chair Stephen Elop
While the camaraderie, friendship and mutual support from which we all benefit as members of CJP are hallmarks of the organization, we are also defined by – and dependent upon – the CJP website and forums for much of our engagement. As many of you have commented, our technology platform is aging, lacks key modern capabilities and is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to support and enhance.
By way of background, our IT platforms are a mix of open source technology and quite a bit of “bespoke” code. That is, any significant change to the site is essentially a hand-coding exercise. We are dependent on a single individual, Jonathan, who has served us well for many years. Because of the state of the technology and Jonathan’s plans to retire, the IT Committee, along with Rob Balzano and Liz Nixon, took on the task of considering what should come next.
Since the last Convention, we have examined and tested a wide range of potential solutions. As we evaluated different paths, there were several criteria that emerged as most important:
- Extracting CJP from the software development business, and instead operating on widely available platforms that are well supported in the technology community
- Modernizing the forum user experience (maybe even a thumbs up capability!)
- Maintaining the wealth of information that is hidden away in the years of forum posts, so as to not lose our institutional knowledge in the transition
- Dramatically increasing the searchability of our information to find answers to questions that were long ago answered, including through the use of AI search tools
- Enhancing the “back office functionality” that Rob and the team use to administer the business side of CJP
- Providing a modern platform for growth in usage and capability in the future.
It would surprise no one to know that “we are not alone” insofar as there are other organizations – indeed, other owner/pilot associations – that are facing these same questions. Furthest along among all of them is the TBM Owners and Pilots Association (TBMOPA).
Over the last 18 months, TBMOPA has completely modernized their online environment. This included identifying, integrating and implementing a collection of open source platforms to meet their needs and the needs of other owner/pilot organizations. At this point in their implementation, inclusive of all of the learning derived from their community, they are now making their platform available to other owner/pilot associations.
We have therefore decided to accept TBMOPA’s offer to use their platform for the next generation of the CJP technology environment.
A few quick answers to common questions:
- We will have our own instance of their platform, customized for our specific needs. It will be our code in our environment. We are not commingling data in any way.
- We intend to evolve the underlying technology in lockstep with TBMOPA and other owner/pilot associations that adopt this technology. We do not want to “fork” and head off in our own direction. There are economies of scale if we work together with TBMOPA in the future.
- For the technology minded, their platform brings together a suite of common and widely supported environments, including WordPress CMS, MemberPress, Discourse for forums, and a GitHub repository for version control.
- All historical forum content and the Russ Meyer Citation Library (RMCL) will be ported to the new environment.
- The project manager who led the work for TBMOPA will be the project manager for our initiative. We will also be using additional third party technical resources. He is also a pilot, which enhances his understanding of our association’s needs.
- The total cost of implementation is expected to be of the order of $150K, with operating costs thereafter expected to be approximately 80% of what our current environment costs.
- We expect to be able to do a first demonstration of the environment with CJP livery at the September Convention, with a plan to be fully live by early 2026. Of course, the essence of our implementation is already visible by way of what the TBM community is using every day. I know that some of you are or have been TBM drivers and are members of TBMOPA.
- After the demonstration at the convention, we will be looking for volunteers to work with us to shape the implementation specifically for the needs of CJP.
I know there will be many more questions – and undoubtedly hiccups – along the way. There is absolutely no question that we must make a platform change. We believe we have identified the option that offers the highest degree of functionality with the lowest degree of risk.