building internal communities to support your content strategy - psuweb
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Building Internal Communities to Support Your Content Strategy
Georgy Cohen OHO Interactive
@radiofreegeorgy #psuweb
https://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558
Building Internal Communities to Support Your Content Strategy
Georgy Cohen OHO Interactive
@radiofreegeorgy PSUWEB 2015
https://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558
Georgy Cohen OHO Interactive
@radiofreegeorgy PSUWEB 2015
https://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558
What did I learn?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558 https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitneyinchicago/3541505856
People liked being connected to information, and one another.
It was easy for me to find the rockstars.
I had an easy way to disseminate information.
“In most situations, the decentralized publishing model has been disastrous. The people trained tended to be relatively junior staff, for whom publishing to the website was just one more responsibility. The result was lots and lots of poor quality content that was never updated or reviewed.”
Gerry McGovernhttp://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/decentralized-publishing-equals-amateur-web-management
“When it comes to content, people are far more important than software.”
Gerry McGovern
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/decentralized-publishing-equals-amateur-web-management
So, what can we do?
“It is essential that [central web teams] are highly collaborative, which means they should spend most of their time out of the office. They should work closely with the various organizational units, spreading their expertise wherever possible.”
Gerry McGovernhttp://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/decentralized-publishing-equals-amateur-web-management
FROM THE TOP
DOWN
FROM THE
BOTTOM UP
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oimax/2260643716
Even better… we can formalize these connections and collaborations by creating communities around our content.
Living, breathing, walking, talking
governance.
Goals for content communities:
1. Connect members to institutional standards and overall best practices
2. Connect members to training, documentation, and resources
3. Connect members to each other for support and collaboration
“The result is a community of communicators, working toward similar goals and within similar constraints.”
Chas Grundy University of Notre Dame
http://grundyhome.com/blog/archives/2011/03/24/rising-boats-colleague-education/index.html
Subvert
politics
and turf
wars
Don’t
dominate;
facilitate
Make it work
Identify
goals.
Make it
relevant.
Convert project teams or draw from existing groups
Rotate hosts
Make it
outcome-
driven
Skunkworks? Maybe.
Publish minutes, notes, session video or PDFs
Analytics
training and
reports
Content reports and testingBrainstorming
ideasProject collaboration
Share
templates,
techniques, &
resources
Large (moral) support networkInformation
sharing
Pool resources for professional development
Provide incentive
Let’s check out some case studies.
The landscape at UA
Large and
decentralizedNo central web shop
Mix of teams
and “lone
rangers”
No content governance in place
Goals for UA WebTide:
1. To help benefit its members, and the university, by promoting professional development, innovation, and discussion
2. To provide community, education, professional development, and support to all web professionals at The University of Alabama.
“As a ‘one-man’ team, I wanted the opportunity to share ideas and ‘talk shop’ with other web professionals on campus but, desiring more than just a community, I also saw an opportunity to crowdsource resources and professional development for all web professionals on campus.”
Rachel Carden, University of Alabama
WebTide at UA
Slack, listserv,
monthly
meeting/
presentation
5-member planning committee; multiple units
GitHub for code sharing
Student
mentorship
and campus-
wide training
“We all share similar challenges, opportunities, and a goal of representing, and promoting, the University with a high quality web presence, so why not help each other out!”
Rachel Carden, University of Alabama
“While we as web professionals can know best practices and try to add value to our colleagues’ content, we can’t be everywhere at once. Through thoughtful and intentional governance, we can add more value to more content.”
Nicholas O’Brien Bates College
Confab Higher Ed 2014https://vimeo.com/112237325
Monthly
gatherings
and Google
Group
Started group by drawing from active network users
20-30 people attend
each gathering
(10% of all users)
Previewing design
changes helped
earn buy-in
Users’ interactions with web team were more positive and patient
Goal: for users to
depend on each
other for support as
well as web team
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_State_University
The landscape at OSU
Very
decentralizedDrupal campus
Lots of
“armies
of one”
Range of commitment (full-time to “other duties”)
Goals for OSU content strategy group:
1. Connect people to content strategy best practices
2. Get people talking about the purpose of their websites and who their audience is
3. Show people how to effectively plan and manage their web content
“It’s a good way to talk about things people don’t usually talk about.”
Erin Martin, Oregon State University
Drupal Web Communicators and
Content Strategy Group at OSU
Organize
around
Drupal
community
2 meetings, ~30 at each, ~56 on mailing list
Guest speakers from other units
Breaking
down silos
with Slack
Organize
around
Drupal
community
2 meetings, ~30 at each, ~56 on mailing list
Guest speakers from other units
Breaking
down silos
with Slack
Also: OSU College of Agricultural Sciences Site Coordinators Group
“Our college does very important work across the state and the world, but the digital communication was haphazard, not coordinated. This group is the first step in an attempt to offer help and support to the units in CAS, to provide guidance and to learn what is going on in some units.”
Erin Martin, Oregon State University
Goals for CAS site coordinators group:
1. Forge strong working relationships with unit leaders and staff
2. Offer guidance and support to those managing websites
3. Promote “a bit of” content strategy 4. Promote College & University goals 5. Work with units to target audiences
and serve user needs
OSU College of Agricultural Sciences
Site Coordinators Group
Mailing list
(no Slack…
yet)
~30 members (mostly “other duties as assigned”)
Plan biannual and quarterly meetings
Comms.
managers
“So many of our site coordinators are overworked, underpaid office staff and asking them to do more is just not going to happen. I try to frame it like they are our partners and I am here to help. I’m still working on this.”
Erin Martin, Oregon State University
https://www.flickr.com/photos/5yearjourney/15924878026
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bexwalton/10133921476
Session video
and slides
archived
2/3 of 250 users have attended at least 1 session
From “armies of one” to fully-staffed units
“One to
many”
coaching
“No one has to do anything a certain way, but you do have to have the right outcomes.”
Rebecca Bernstein, University of Buffalo
Goals for UB DCT Solutions Group:
1. Empower people with knowledge to elevate their practice
2. Empower groups to get more input and feedback from users
3. Inform community about changes and new products
Another model: pop-up shops
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bexwalton/10133921476
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bexwalton/10133921476https://oncampus.oberlin.edu/webteam/2012/05/talktome-social-media-office-hours
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bexwalton/10133921476
Today!
3:45PM
Room 108
“One thing I was struck with was watching people interacting while they were waiting. We are all trying to do more with less these days; any opportunity to get strength and support from each other is a bonus.”
Michelle Tarby, Le Moyne College
http://higheredsolo.com/newmodel/
In conclusion:
• It will always start small, but what matters is that it starts
• Communities of any size are helpful • A good content community ultimately serves users at all ends of the process
• Any community requires purposeful leadership to flourish
Thank you. [email protected] @radiofreegeorgy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558
“None of us is as smart as all of us.” Japanese Proverb