Hi Neil,

First, since I don't have ako or CAC access, I can only comment on the public site. With that in mind, I have to say that it is bland, boring and does nothing to attract the eye at all. Public sites, and especially those designed to engender support for some agenda that is controversial, really need a lot of that elusive "Wow" factor. I hate to say it, but both are a major yawn - they appear to be circa 1995 presentation style.

Some specifics:
  1. The background colour is extremely poor and sets the tone. If I were you, I would shift it to either a green or a blue, both of which have more positive emotional connotations in Western cultures (grey engenders some distrust).
  2. Drop the pseudo-tiled marble background gif entirely - the sub-consciously communicated metaphor of "set in stone", which will be evoked in a number of public users, is definitely not the message you want to send.
  3. Where are the "Success stories"? Think public, public, public.... This site is "selling" a product to the public - COIN - which is intimately tied into public perceptions of the "Surge" (no one ever said the public was savvy ). You need success stories and you need public items related to both COIN and the Surge. "COIN in video", with links through to the Daily Show (etc.) would be a start.
  4. Your coding for
    <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="DirectorsCorner" --> doesn't work properly in Firefox - I think it may be the
    <p align="left" class="templatelinks"> commands that are causing the problem, although it may be an interaction with the .css style.
  5. Both front pages should be visible in a single screen. I'm using a 1280 x 800 screen resolution and I don't see the entire page. When I scroll down to get the non-visible information, I don't see any reason why I should have to - there's not enough link information to justify it in my mind.
Sorry to be so negative, but that is my honest opinion based on 14 years of web design, evaluation and analysis experience.

Marc