Sustaining Web Content Management

High Ed Web Conference
Presentation (1.7 MB download)

Presentation outline

Know What You Want

• Goal: Assure continuing success.
• Process: Maximize the known and minimize the unknown.
• Path: Iterate and validate to avoid unnecessary risks.
• Principle: Sustain evolution of content management process over time.

Know the Emerging Trends

• Ubiquitous and free Internet access.
• Radically simple publishing.
• Findability enhancements, increasing value of deep content.
• Amateur collaboration and application-development environments.

Know Your Campus

• Campus context.
• Administration goals.
• Web staff expertise.
• Content developer assumptions.
• Existing infrastructure systems.

Know Your Governance

• Executive sponsor.
• Advisory committee.
• Direct supervisor.
• Key clients.
• Other important constituents.

Know Your Program

• Marketing communications.
• Information architecture.
• Editorial and content development.
• Design and interface.
• System integration.

Know Your Finances

• Leverage existing communications funding.
• Identify clients for incremental developments.
• Institutional support or cost recovery.
• Vendor partnerships.

Know Your Staff

• Department staff.
• Clients/partners.
• Campus Web professionals.
• Independent contractors.

Know Your Discovery Process

• Establish a discovery team.
• Brainstorm and prioritize requirements (NGT).
• Verify with initial vendors.
• Custom demonstrations.
• Input from advisory groups.
• Final decision.

An Aside: NGT Ranking (1)

• Brainstorm and organize features.
• Have constituents rank all features, 1 to X.
• Rank finalists against features (Y, N, ?).
• Use results to pare down large vendor list to finalists.
• Ask vendors to clarify information.

Know Your Deployment

• Implement a live prototype.
• Test all processes.
• Finalize contract (go/no-go).
• Phase two deployments.
• Soft launch.
• Implement with early adopters.

Know Your Next Steps

• Formalize migration pipeline.
• Document processes, including editorial guidelines.
• Scale up campus collaboration.
• Add support tools.
• Increase quality assurance services.

Know Your Metrics

• Session data and search analysis.
• User feedback (Web forms).
• User testing with a task orientation.
• Commissioned constituent research.
• Client satisfaction surveys.

Know When to Start Again

• Production has settled into a regular routine.
• Processes are established and running smoothly.
• Problem escalation process is established.
• Challenging migrations are complete.