Digital Drivers - Valerie May

June 21, 2007

Valerie May
Executive Producer, Web Transformation Team
AARP Services

Valerie May joined AARP Services' Web Strategy Operations in Washington, D.C., September 2006, as Executive Producer of its Web Transformation Team. In that capacity, May is involved in preparing for what will be online next year, rather than in what's currently on the web. The publications—AARP The Magazine (aarpmagazine.org), billed as the "world's largest circulation magazine;" AARP Bulletin (aarp.org/bulletin); and the Spanish-language Segunda Juventud (aarpmedia.org/segunda.php) — are satellite sites under the AARP.org umbrella. Prior to AARP, she was Senior Editor, New Media for National Geographic. As such, she spearheaded that Washington-based magazine's new media efforts since 2000, when she conceptualized and launched ngm.com. May, who presented that magazine's content in web-specific ways with integrated multimedia and interactive features to showcase its narrative mission, now is developing a new website for AARP that will do much the same for that organization's magazines and its mission. Previously, she helped launch National Geographic Society's site in 1996 and served as its Managing Editor and Director of News and Editorial Programming.
 
Q. How active are your readers 50- and 60-plus when it comes to navigating your online content?
 
A. It's largely not true that older people don't go online. The Internet has become part of most people's lives. Although a fairly small group of our members use our website on a regular basis, we want to increase that exponentially.

Q. What is the most heavily trafficked area of the AARP website?
 
A. Two areas—memberinformation and discounts and, interestingly enough, games. Everybody likes a good deal. And people like to test themselves.
 
Q. How many people are on your Web Transformation Team, and where did they come from? And what's your target date to implement the various online design changes you're developing now?
 
A. Our target date is early 2008. The team combines people from outside the association and from within. We started with a close-knit group of about half dozen and expanded. We're developing a vision and editorial content for our new site, which we hope will become a destination site for adults 45-plus, as we extend AARP's mission online in web-specific ways, for example, by developing a community site and by heavily integrating user-generated content. We want to increase the value of AARP membership as well as attract a new audience, especially among baby boomers.

Q. Have any of your lessons learned while at National Geographic come in handy for your duties at AARP?
 
A. Absolutely. Nothing attracts an audience like a good story. We want to leverage Internet functionalities in innovative and compelling ways not only in the way that we tell stories but also in the way we present and gather information. Engaging people in interactivity, using video and audio, and constantly refreshing content are all part of the editorial strategy.
 
Q. Can you say what percent of AARP The Magazine's content is exclusive to the web, rather than adapted from print? Do you see that mix changing much down the road?
 
A. A good part of both AARP The Magazine and the AARP Bulletin online content, as well as content from the rest of AARP is original to the web. That percentage will increase significantly with the launch, of the new site.

Q. Do you anticipate video playing a bigger role than now, when it's pretty much limited to, say, a part of AARP The Magazine's interactive "At Home in the World" feature and a segment with magazine editor Steve Slon?
 
A. We will be developing seven editorial channels and threaded throughout will be rich media, including podcasts and multimedia specials. It will be a totally new site when the light goes out for the existing site and goes on for the new one.

Q. Beyond podcasts, what about audio? Currently, the magazine site offers an interactive Paul McCartney feature, "When I'm 64,” which cries out for music clips, a la the "Virtual Bob Hope" comedy feature. Might you also incorporate some audio excerpts from cover interviews like Kevin Costner's? The outtakes from Robin Williams' magazine interview alone would probably have been priceless!

A. Robin Williams excerpts would have been a wonderful value-added! We plan to put together multimedia specials on topics like re-careering, health care, and travel. Plus "sound-and-screen" features on music, movies and TV, poetry and prose. And a robust area for book clubs to come to for book reviews, interacting with authors, perhaps focusing on a different genre each month. We're working through specific features now. Aside from entertainment content, we're also focused on health issues, financial security, work, caregiving. The breadth of material embraces all of AARP's initiatives.

Q. Does AARP have any interest in adding other digital platforms, such as mobile?
 
A. AARP is very forward-looking, so they absolutely have interest in extending to mobile and other platforms as we continue to develop out.
 
Q. Looking ahead, are there things you'd like to be working on there that you're not yet doing?

A. I'm hoping to move toward using the Internet in some unique ways, for example, as a place people can come to tell their life story. I'd like to develop the Life Stories Network, where Holocaust survivors, as one example, could tell their stories via their own voices and rich media. I'm excited about the long-term possibilities.