Web Staffing: September 2006 Archives

I started working at the MU just over a year ago. Previously, I worked in public relations with an insurance company where one of my duties was writing and managing the company intranet. This position has given me the opportunity to further develop my Web communication skills.

I report to the departments of Web Communications and Admissions, and spend my time in both offices. My job title is student recruitment information specialist and I spend a lot of my time writing for and updating the Admissions web site. My other duties include writing and contributing where necessary to other student recruitment efforts on the Web; working with Admissions and Web Communications to develop and implement new ideas, pages and features on the Web; information architecture, which is something new and interesting for me; and acting as a liaison between the Web Communications and Admissions.

I work closely with the director and associate director of Admissions, as well as all of our admissions representatives. In the office of Web Communications, I work closely with Josh Nichols who helps make new Web pages a reality. With the new content management system, I’ve also been working a lot with Jason, who’s always helping me with my daily questions. While I’m on the subject, I think the new CMS is great, and the Admissions folks, as well as me, have all caught on quickly.

Oh, where to begin? My long, strange, trip with Web Communications began way back when I was a college student in 2003. I was attending MU in the Fine Arts department and my emphasis area was in Graphic Design. After a few semesters we took a class that dealt with Web Design. About that same time, Lori and her staff in Web Communications happened to be looking for a student intern to do some of the odds-and-ends work on the Web sites that were being maintained at the time as well as gain experience in Web Design. I had experience with the Web back during its young and impressionable years when I was in High School, so the combination of taking a class and the opportunity to have an internship in a field of interest to me was hard to pass up. I applied, and was subsequently hired.

I was lovingly termed the "half-person" here in Web Communications, referring to my status as an intern. I would, over the course of the next year and a half, learn more information and real-world application of knowledge than any one person could ever learn just by taking a class or dabbling in Web design. There is no price a person can put on the experience I gained here. These people know their field and it rubbed off on me.

My background is mostly in print media and my previous job was a designer in the Office of Publications. I moved over to Web Communications at the end of last year and so far it’s been a huge transition. (I had to move from a Mac to a PC. ICK!) I learned very quickly that design for the Web is completely different than design for print and that it takes a lot of effort to “just throw it up on the Web.”

In the office, my official title is I-Net Administrator, but my primary role is a Web designer. I’m the one who takes Niki’s information architecture and organizes it on screen so it’s easy to use, fits with the university’s look, and sticks to our MU Web Policies and Guidelines. Of course, I always make it pretty too.

After I get my design mocked-up in Photoshop, I build it in XHTML and CSS. Luckily, I had a little bit of a background in CSS before coming to Web Communications, so I didn’t have any old habits with building sites in tables to get over. I was able to jump right into CSS and now I feel like I have a really good handle on the technology.

My other big duty in the office is content management system (CMS) monkey. To be more specific, I’m the no. 2 monkey, right under Jason. I take my pretty design and spend many, many hours chopping it up into blocks and regions and other CMS thingys so I can go back and write some XSLT to manipulate it all. I’ve never done a lick of programming before the CMS came along, so this part is the toughest for me. It’s common to hear curses of frustration spouting out of my office. Don’t worry, I’m just CMS’n and I’ll be over it as soon as I get my Starbucks.

I also handle lots of little jobs in the office: I create graphics for our sites, I take some pictures, I direct photographers, I illustrate, I build Power Points, I maintain existing sites and other things as needed. In the future I hope to have the chance to expand my skill set into multimedia as we get more demand for that kind of thing.

In her previous post, Lori asked our staff to blog about our jobs here in Web Communications. My working title is assistant director, and in that role, I serve as the project manager and Lori's (our director's) back-up. When we begin a project, I usually work with Lori to develop a project plan, requirements and a timeline. I then work with the other members of our team to make sure we have what we need to complete a project on time. This generally requires facilitating, problem-solving and polite nagging.

I'm also the information architect for the office. It's my job to inventory, organize and label the information on a Web site so that it is usable and useful to the site visitor. This typically involves doing research to find out how folks use a site, what their needs are and how those mesh with the goals and objectives of the department or owner of the Web site. I ask a lot of questions and try to put myself in the shoes of the people a Web site will serve. I work closely with writers and other content specialists who write copy for the site. Once I have the organizational framework created, I pass this on to the assigned Web designer who will create the graphical interface (look and feel) and then build the site in HTML and CSS. Once a site has been launched, I help evaluate and find ways to address any problems visitors may have using the site.

My third role, a much smaller part of my job, is Web designer. When I started at Web Communications over five years ago, this was my primary role — graphic design and coding for Web sites. While my role has changed over the years, I still manage a few of our sites, and most recently lead the design and coding for the new MU Web site.

I frequently am asked by people, both on and off campus, about the make-up of our Web team in Web Communications. It always seems to come as a surprise how few people are actually full-time staff members of our central Web Communications office. In actual fact, there are only 4 people, including me, that belong solely to the central Web team. All of the other staff that reside here belong in whole, or in part, to other partners on campus who have decided to work closely with us to achieve specific campus-wide goals.

For instance, our Web Communications staff members are all I-Net Administrators, although they sometimes use other working titles to more accurately identify what level of responsibility they hold or the broad spectrum of work they do. I'll ask each of them to make an effort to talk more about their own jobs and duties here on the blog. It's always helpful to hear it directly from the person who handles the job!

In addition, we have a full-time staff member who is a dual-report to both Web Communications and Admissions. Her job title is Student Recruitment Information Specialist. This is an example of an important partnership that has been in place for about a year. Web Communications is responsible for managing the Admissions Web site. Christine Deane is the staff member who is responsible for being a functional and engaged member of both staffs so that work can be done more effectively. So far, it's been a great success!

Because the undergraduate admissions partnership worked so well, we were able to invite two members of the Graduate School to join us in our office space. While their reporting relationship is still with the Graduate School, they, like Christine Deane, split their time between both departments. The benefits go both ways. They are able to become more familiar with our practices here, learn more about the content management system and are in the communications loop that helps them integrate their Web communications more effectively. In return, we are learning more about the needs of graduate students, the goals and vision for graduate recruitment and what tools and resources are most valuable to that community. We are able to identify redundancies in our work and to determine who should be doing what, saving time and eventually dollars in the process. In return, we also invite these extended team members to join us in planning and building elements of central Web resources that will ultimately be used by their department. All around a win-win situation for our campus Web presence.

There are other partnerships in place or currently under consideration. I'll share more about these and how they are helping us build a more integrated, usable and professional Web presence across MU. I'd be happy to hear how others on campus are doing the same.