Collegiate Web Solutions - Web management consulting for higher education

Welcome webinar participants! Day 1 discussion...

2009-02-24T14:30:00.000-05:00

Hello again, everyone. Thanks for joining today's session.

As I mentioned earlier, managing content is a strategic choice in which a CMS package is only part of the total solution.

To get the discussion started, how many of you feel your institution is truly ready to embark on this adventure? And, if not, what are your challenges? Expectations, culture, overly-simplistic view of the issue, budget? For those needing to build momentum, let's chime in to help.

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Answers to questions during the webinar will be posted below as we assemble them...

Q: Doing an audit as described in the session for a large university website seems outlandish. Thousands of pages and hundreds of departments. How do you do something like that?

Excellent question. Yes, it is a daunting task to take-on your entire website. But if your CMS scope includes your entire website, at some point you're going to have to face it. It's coming, one way or another.

If there are thousands of pages of content on your website, I'll gamble and say your website has probably become the dumping ground for everything everyone wants "on the web." The phrase "yea, let's get that posted on the website," has been used way tooooo much. (Hopefully, your nodding in agreement.)

If this is the case, you want to strongly consider a content management strategy that includes a segregation of your content between internal audiences vs. external audiences; which means an internal portal may well be in your future. It also helps bolster the case for higher standardization and clearer publishing guidelines with administrators.

The only way you're going to know for sure how to segment and scale down this much content is to take a full accounting of exactly what's out there.

[shameless plug] This is where hiring a company like ours makes sense. [end shameless plug]

But if you only want to get an idea of the content that's out there, to help keep your CMS project moving forward, here's a quick plan:

Group common websites at a high level first, like by administrative unit or college.
Choose a minimum number of websites to detail audit for each group. I'd recommend no fewer than five. (If you had 100 directories and broke them down into 10 groups, you'd cut your detailed audit number by half. And if you're auditing fewer than 20 directories in a website with over 100, you may want to re-group or raise your minimum.)
Audit those groups in detail, by categorizing file types, average last update date, type of content, applications used, etc.

Patterns should start emerging between directories in the same group. You might also notice patterns between groups.

In a scaled-down content and information audit, you'll likely face bumps when the "rubber hits the road" in the migration phase; especially with those departments you didn't audit. It's Murphy's Law: Those will likely be the ones that have that weird, quirky little web application they won't want to give up, and they will be the squeakiest wheels on your campus.

Create a unified vision for content management

2009-01-23T08:15:00.018-05:00

We’re excited about our first series of webinars, Planning for a CMS, this week. For final preparations, we called a few of the over 40 institutions who signed up. We chose those schools with multiple people registered, assuming CMS was likely a hot topic on their campus. Learning more about their needs, we could make our sessions more relevant for everyone.

We discovered that for half of the schools we chatted with, a unified vision for CMS seemed to be lacking. Divisions existed between IT and marketing or worse, across academic and administrative units.

A common story was a past CMS effort plagued by a few starts and a lot of stops; and now the “silo” mentality—every group for themselves—was either quickly nearing or had already taken hold. More than once we heard, “That’s just the culture here and it’s not going to change anytime soon.”

Justifying an investment in a CMS in higher education is largely a cost-savings, more than a revenue-generating, proposition. The hard returns provided by a CMS solution is managing an enterprise-wide website with minimal effort and fewer people while maximizing technical infrastructure and development.

Without a university-wide vision for content management, to be boldly honest, the future for these institutions will be worse than having an HTML-only website.

Aside from increased and redundant costs for technology, training, support and staff to maintain multiple CMS solutions, having every group go it’s own way proliferates the silos.

Creating a vision for content management across a university is not easy, but no matter what level you’re at, you can get it started. Just start small and be informal. The goal here is to shape opinions, not set policy. Here’s a few suggestions...

Talk to colleagues across campus with the same challenges you’re facing. Team up and work together to invite still more into the discussion. Think of this group as the “agents of change.”

Don’t spend time commiserating about problems and obstacles. Focus on opportunities to build relationships and promote dialogue on the issue.

Invest time with those who are barriers to progress, starting with lower-level employees and working up. Chat over lunch or an afternoon coffee. Learn about their challenges and listen to their take on the issue. Be honest, but not threatening. They may likely feel the same way about the issue as you. Ask for their help. (Note: This may take more than one chat.)

Reach out to IT and/or marketing, especially the web staff, and get them on your side. (If they are the obstacle, see #3.)

Identify leaders who could champion the CMS issue. Even if they don’t know they will be your champion yet, it’s good to consider early-on who has the political clout at the executive levels to help.

Create a value statement for a university-wide approach to content management. Define it with your group of change agents. Refine it with input from mid-level managers.

Connect with those who influence your champions. Leverage your network of colleagues to communicate the needs and value statement with these people from multiple angles.

Wait. Give the message time to spread and sink-in.

Actively recruit your champion. Let him/her run with it, and be there for support.

Hit a dead end along the way? Don’t lose hope, start again. Change takes time.

Some may wonder if only investing time to get a top-down decision would be faster. Yea, it might. But the risk is fickle support among leadership and departments, because some will feel forced to change. Building a unified vision from the ground-up keeps your support at the top strong and the base solid.

Will the free ride end?

2009-01-11T12:00:00.003-05:00

If you haven’t seen it yet, do a quick read of this article from CNN Money on Web 3.0.

While I don’t subscribe to the notion of “Web 3.0” yet, and disagree with Jessi Hempel’s (the author) assertion of what Web 3.0 is, this article does make a good point about the current state of the business of Web 2.0.

Even though services like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are free to use, the parent companies supporting these sites ultimately need to profit from their investments. Right now, these sites seem more like a black hole.

The primary means of generating revenue from these sites is advertising, but honestly when was the last time you clicked on an ad in Facebook or YouTube? Or even noticed them...that is, if they weren’t already embedded in the content you were viewing. And when they were, didn’t it seem obtrusive and turn you off?

That’s exactly the point. Businesses, including colleges and universities, have discovered that leveraging the free features of Web 2.0 sites are more effective than simply buying banner ads.

Take the most recent example of the Class of 2013 Facebook scandal exposed by Brad Ward of SquaredPeg. If targeted banner advertising on Facebook would have been more effective in selling their product, College Prowler likely wouldn’t have used the free features of Facebook to develop “Class of 2013” groups across various college and universities.

I personally don’t fault College Prowler for seizing the opportunities made freely available to them. It’s business. And the reality is they aren’t the only company using social media in this way. Even we in higher education use these free features to enhance our marketing programs.

The ultimate question in my mind is how long will this opportunity last? When will the free ride end? If Google, News Corp and other parent companies behind the sites driving Web 2.0 continue relying on a 1.0 revenue-generating model, I predict the end will come very soon. And when it does will we see the true emergence of Web 3.0.

Introducing CMS 3.0

2008-11-25T08:30:00.003-05:00

The other day I was discussing with a colleague about content management in higher education and how it is becoming much more complicated.

When we talk about web content, typically we refer to the pages on our website; what I call “on-site” content. However with the emergence of Web 2.0, web content has exploded beyond our .edu domains; what I call “off-site” content. How many institutions have a YouTube channel, manage or participate in blogs, and have a presence on Facebook, mySpace or LinkedIn?

Just as technology has evolved, so must our concept of content management. Currently, a “CMS” describes a piece of software. Something that allows text and images on a website to be easily manipulated and retrieved dynamically from a data system. Let’s call that CMS 2.0. (CMS 1.0 is an HTML-only website.)

The goal of CMS 1.0/2.0 is largely to keep on-site content up-to-date. However, in the socially connected world of Web 2.0 the goal is not just to be current but to stay relevant. This requires constantly adding new, sometimes smaller, and more widely distributed bits of content off-site.

For example, a news story posted on your website (CMS 1.0/2.0), is re-purposed as a blog post, updated Twitter entry, turned into a vod or podcast, and used as a point of discussion for members of your various online communities. Managing on-site and off-site content is the next evolution of content management; what I’m calling CMS 3.0.

For me, CMS 3.0 is a management concept, not simply a piece of software. It’s an approach in which we choose to manage certain online content, both on- and off-site, as part of our institution’s overall web presence.

It is a management concept because
1. There is no software on the market today that seamlessly integrates the management of on-site and off-site content. With the creation of gadgets and use of APIs, I don’t think it will be too long before some smart company tries to do this though.

2. University web teams are already struggling just to manage on-site content, and many rely on a distributed network of web editors to stay afloat. (See Management Models in CMS) Now add the need to re-purpose and maintain off-site content...that means more support, training and monitoring.

3. Participating in the online social network elevates the importance and influence of an institution’s content. Distributed web editors now need training not only in software systems, but also on the institution’s brand and core messages.

CMS 3.0 is a combined function of IT and marketing communications. Institutions that have or are moving toward integrated web teams will be in the best position for success.

Management models in CMS

2008-11-13T18:41:00.013-05:00

There's been conversation recently on the uwebd (University Web Developers) listserv about the appropriate management model in a CMS environment. Specifically, if content updates should be managed by a central unit or through a distributed network of department web editors.

Just to be clear, when it comes to monitoring and maintaining website content through a CMS, there are two basic management models

Centralized: Consists of a smaller group or team in which content change requests from university clients are funnelled through; access to the CMS software is limited to people within the group/team who are typically given greater administrative authority.
Distributed: Consists of a larger network of individuals from university departments who are directly responsible for content changes; access to the CMS software is unlimited, but authority to perform certain functions may be restricted.

Because colleges and universities are insanely diverse places, most end up with a hybrid of both. Even for the most seasoned web manager, keeping an enterprise-level website current amidst people with a wide variety of skills (and high turnover), small (and shrinking) budgets, few (and frozen) resources is a daunting challenge. It's no wonder why some are discovering simply implementing a CMS isn't the golden chalice they'd expected, or the vendor promised.

Even though both models present different challenges, the distributed model will prove to be more effective in maintaining higher education websites.

The reality is very few institutions will ever invest in web departments to the degree necessary to sustain a centralized management model. Also, website content is expanding beyond our websites. With Web 2.0, managing content now takes on dimensions not limited to the .edu domain or even just text and images.

The end of anonymity

2008-11-05T10:34:00.030-05:00

Much has been said, and will continue to be after the outcome of yesterday's election, about Barack Obama's use of the Web in this campaign.

From NYTimes.com: The '08 Campaign: Sea Change for Politics as We Know It
From Educational Marketing Group: Simple Web Bits from the Campaign - Interactivity
From .eduGuru: Comparing the Obama and McCain emails

Regardless of your political affiliation, one has to respect the amazing spectacle that was Obama's online marketing machine. What I take away is how Obama seamlessly incorporated all facets of Web 2.0--website, email, text messaging, video, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.--to create a shared vision among supporters, organize grassroots efforts and reach pockets of untapped constituents.

His campaign resided in a web-centric universe; even going so far as to announce his vice presidential pick directly to supporters via text message, in advance of a traditional press conference. And therein lies the point.

Obama's campaign is a defining moment for us as web communicators because he proved the power of self-identification over anonymity.

Voters could learn something about Obama through traditional media (online and off) or by lurking anonymously on various websites, but to truly be "in the know," you had to first belong.

Obama wasn't shy about asking for your email and other identifying information upfront. It was virtually a requirement to gain access to his website--which was the hub of his entire marketing campaign.

In return, you became part of the cause. You were invited to do more... ...told about campaign stops in your area......and given first notice on special news and insights......in short, you were valued.

For years many of us, myself included, warned against requiring visitors to self-identify too soon for fear it would turn them off and they would leave our websites, never to return. I'm sure there were many visitors to barackobama.com who didn't sign up and left.

However, even for those with only a remote curiosity who took a chance and did sign-up, the value received seemed to outweigh the price of giving up your email address, name and where you lived. There might be a lesson in that for us in higher ed.

The reality, whether we choose to accept it, is that certain constituent groups only really matter to our institutions--prospective students, parents, current students, alumni, donors, faculty and staff. And among these groups, some people care about us more than others. That is true whether we know them or not.

Yet on our websites, we stop short of finding out who these people are right away; and, I contend, do little to prove how truly valuable they are to us over the life of the relationship.

Take stock of your time

2008-10-29T16:11:00.014-04:00

Let's face it...the economic climate has created a pretty grim outlook for colleges and universities. In the future that lies ahead my sympathies lie with the web staff, especially those at small and mid-major private institutions.

Already burdened by high demand and minuscule budgets, expectations will continue to rise while the FTE count for web teams will remain immensely disproportionate.

The news today seems to indicate this trend will continue; "College Tuition Rises Faster Than Inflation Yet Again."

As web communication channels proliferate (websites, email, blogs, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc, etc, etc) how is it possible to maintain them all across all audiences (prospects, parents, alumni, etc, etc, etc) with a handful of staff and students?

I'm not convinced it can be done, at least not well. Now is the time for web teams to implement a web analytics methodology to protect their time and maximize resources.

What do you think?

The value of web analytics

2008-10-17T17:00:00.001-04:00

A weeks ago I had the great pleasure of presenting at Educational Marketing Group's (EMG) inaugural Brand Managers' Summit. Having always had great respect for EMG, they continued to exceed my expectations by holding an event that was one part CASE conference, one part nuts-n-bolts workshop. Geared totally for higher education marketing managers, the theme this year was Web 2.0. My session was on "Mapping and Measuring E-Marketing Effectiveness."

As most people typically do when giving a presentation, I wanted to gage the audience's depth of knowledge on the topic, so I asked how many used web analytics or site tracking reports. To my surprise, only one person raised her hand. Lack of time was most sighted as the reason why it wasn't used.

It is so unfortunate that in the daily grind of putting out fires and fighting battles, we often don't have time to employ little tools and techniques, like Google Analytics, that can have a huge impact on our ability to understand if all the effort we are expending is actually impacting our ultimate goals.

Over the next few months, I will blog about ways analytics can be utilized in your overall web strategies.

So, do you use web analytics? If so, please share what you use and how it helps...