The Art of the “One Person Band”
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Being a small web team or a web team of one has unique challenges and benefits. Particularly with budget pressures looming, we need strategies to help us to do more with less. Drawing on over 15 years of experience as a single-person web team, Eric will present techniques to help you maximize your impact as a small team.
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The Art of the “One Person Band”
- 1. The Art of the ‘One- Person Band’ Surviving as a small web team or a “team of one.” @ericepps #hewebmi #MI2
- 2. About Me Web Developer at Sauk Valley Community College in Dixon, IL Started developing for the web 1998, in higher education since 2006 SVCC is small (about 4000), rural, located in northwestern Illinois
- 3. 1. Stop the Redesign Cycle
- 5. “Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign” - Cameron Moll alistapart.com/article/redesignrealign
- 6. Why Incremental Changes? 1. Easier to implement 2. Easier to keep focus on solving problems 3. Easier for end users to adjust
- 7. 2. Fire your Web Committee / Start a Web Committee
- 9. Effective Web Committees High ranking members Able to effect change Allows you to hear vision directly (and vice versa) Small, but diverse Get Marketing and IT on the same page “We’ll bring in others as needed”
- 10. 3. Train Smarter, Not Harder
- 12. Training Ideas Don’t just show someone how to do something, do a screen capture video! Develop an online, self-service refresher course. Consider whether it’s worth training (and retraining) someone who updates infrequently. “Open-lab” group training to cut down on support calls.
- 14. Finding Areas to Automate/Integrate Does it need to be done regularly (every day/week/month)? Is it a multi-step process that’s always the same? Does it need to happen when something else finishes? Whenever X changes, Y needs to change Whenever X is added, Y needs to be created Does the same data exist in two systems?
- 15. 5. Make Use of APIs
- 16. What & Why APIs? What? API - Application Programming Interface Remember a bubble bath - SOAP & REST Why? Someone else does your work for you! Richer information for website visitors
- 17. Some APIs of Interest www.careeronestop.org Career profile, salary information, match skills to careers, and more from the Dept. of Labor www.data.gov US government’s open data initiative data.illinois.gov, data.michigan.gov State open data initiatives www.govtrack.us/developers
Notes de l'éditeur
- The goal today is just to share 5 tips that I have learned over the years that have helped me to be able to survive and get things done as a single-person web team. Some may be, “well, duh,” but I’m hoping that to spark an idea that you can take back to your college. Feel free to ask questions anytime, and we should have some time at the end, so I’d love to turn this into a round-table and hear some of your tips and tricks as well.
- This is how it typically goes. Either you hire an outside agency to redesign and spend lots of time and money or you do it in-house and spend even more time. I’ve had redesign projects go from committee meeting to committee meeting just waiting for the time to get moving. In the meantime, the website stagnates while you spend time developing the redesign. A few years ago, I was really frustrated that I couldn’t get any traction on my redesign project when I came across this A List Apart article; maybe some of you have read it.
- The article doesn’t say that a redesign is never called for, but that not every design change calls for a full redesign. A while later, I finally developed a strategy that has been very effective over the past few years. I simply focus on one area of the site at a time. Left navigation this time, top navigation next, home page, design refresh. This incremental approach has been tremendously helpful, for a few reasons.
- First, it’s much easier to implement. The scope of a full redesign is so huge that, as a single-person or small web department, it’s
- Anyone ever have a committee meeting like this? I know I have. In higher education, we love our committees, and often it seems like the bigger the better. We have to make sure every area is represented, make sure we get a representative from all staff and faculty levels, etc., etc., and then wonder why our 40-person committee isn’t effective. So how do we make our committees effective? Of course, this is one of those areas we may not have much control over, but if we can get a picture in our mind of the end goal we can make little changes wherever possible to get there. Here are a few things I’ve found that make for an effective web committee:
- It’s helpful to have at least one member as high on the org chart as you can get. I know, I know, they’re the enemy, right? In our latest (and most effective) version of a web committee, we have a VP on the committee. Does he take credit for my ideas sometimes? Sure. But, let’s be honest, he was going to do that anyway. It’s been really helpful in a couple key ways, though. First, it’s meant that we can actually see changes made. Instead of, “here’s a great idea, if only we could get X and Y departments to go along,” we have the ability to have him take it to President’s Council, saying “this is what we’d like to do,” and it happens. Also, it’s helpful to here as directly as possible the vision from the top. And, it can go both ways, too! You have a chance to bend their ear as well. Who knows, they may actually notice that you’ve put some thought into things! Second is not much of a surprise, probably. You want a lean committee, but with as much diversity as possible. In my experience, it’s a great opportunity to get Marketing and IT on the same page. Especially if that relationship has been strained, an invitation to have a place at the table can go a long way. As you’re trying to keep your committee small, a great key phrase to use is “we’ll bring in others as needed.” Not everyone needs to be at every meeting, but you can make sure you keep diversity by bringing in new voices at different times. If you’re working on student services pages, bring in some key people from that area. My third tip is to, as much as possible, focus on process, not pixels. It’s really very easy for committees to devolve into nitpicking little aspects of a design. Whenever possible, bring it around to process--how is information going to flow, who’s responsible for what, what’s the next problem to solve. Especially if you have successfully avoided your committee being focused on a redesign, you’ll be poised to look at solving problems, not just sharing your opinions on what color to make the background or how big the logo should be.
- - Course Catalog - SIS - Calendar, Schedule, Faculty/Staff - Digital Signage - Learning Management System - Calendar System