Everything is coming together. Slowly, steadily, it’s all about to come crashing together in an energy producing, gamma ray blasting, supernova explosion. Twenty years ago when the first colleges and universities started getting in to the web (and ten to fifteen years ago when it became more commonplace) the web was a very decentralized and amorphous thing. Rarely was there central control because there was no central to do the controlling to begin with yet. Part of our issue with centralized control now is that frequently colleges and departments started sites entirely on their own to begin with, and now don’t want to give up that freedom (whether or not they are doing good things with that freedom). That’s a problem many of us are dealing with, generally with varied success. Usually the move to an increasingly centralized control can be made or broken on the backs of high level buy in. That is crucial, especially with what I’m talking about, something that can span departments, colleges, and the university on the whole.

The issue I’m seeing is way bigger than that. It goes beyond who should be allowed to put content on the Art department’s web site. Look at your web presence – the whole thing. You likely have a web site that is all front facing and public, right? What about an intranet? Student portal? E-commerce platform? Student information system? Alumni portal? Athletics, fundraising, help desk, housing, event ticketing, blog system… The web isn’t just about a stack of HTML files anymore. This is the problem. Of all of these systems present on campus, how many different people are involved in running them, and how many of those are working together (better question: how many are working against each other)? How many are even under the same authority? I’ll happily throw down a stack of money that says you can’t even name everyone responsible for the whole of your web site. Peter Nissen of JBoye.com talks about some of the reasons decentralized control doesn’t work.

Despite all of this, we still have a core client to address. They might be in different audiences, but they are all web users, and they have common expectations. Is there someone responsible for looking at a housing management system that can say “Hey guys, this system has some serious usability and integration problems, and I don’t think it’s going to be a good fit in the overall web presence.”? I can answer that for you: you don’t. You should. I’m sure there are a couple exceptions out there that have gotten over this hump (and PLEASE share your experience in the comments, I’d love to see what you have to say). We see similar issues with content. Kristina Halvorson, in her book Content Strategy for the Web, looks at the web like a news show, newspaper, or magazine. All have to have multiple content types and sources, all reach an end user, and all need to have a central point of oversight to make sure it’s right. Where’s our editor-in-chief?

The Singularity in this case is user expectation with respect to our systems. Your web visitors don’t care that you have a dozen different systems and applications running to make their web experience happen. All they know is that if it sucks, then you must be failing. They get angry, they get frustrated. They want a simple, seamless experience. If you’re familiar with the MVC style of programming, users want a single, standard view, not dozens. And to put it simply, the systems are starting to get good enough that our excuses for not working towards that goal are getting very thin. It might be hard, it might take time, but that’s our job. We aren’t here to just set something up, slap the school colors on it, and walk away. If you aren’t striving to do better than that, then you are probably falling prey to the very issues I’m talking about.

Imagine if you will a cruise ship. Cruise ships have tons of components that make your vacation happen. Some you have direct contact with, some not. Engineers, cooks, stewards, bridge crew, medical, security, performers, and so on. Imagine if all of these people tried to make your cruise happen without any central management. It’d be a mess, a complete disaster. Every cruise ship has a captain. The captain might not know the fine nuance of the water reclamation system, but he can at least make sure their team coordinates with the right people when there’s trouble or when a common goal must be achieved. He can’t do the job of all 2,000 employees on the ship, but he is a successful planner. He dictates, directs, and designates well. He’s a 3D sort of guy (get it? 3D? Because he dictates, des… oh nevermind).

That’s what we need. Our web sites need a captain. That captain doesn’t have to be a Python guru, or a master of Flash, or a jQuery ninja. But, he should know the heading and be able to make sure efforts are properly and efficiently coordinated. Their knowledge should be broad, but not always deep. That’s why you hire the experts in the respective fields for your specific tasks. Our problems aren’t going to get simpler moving ahead. It used to be a web site was a handful of GIF animations and a dozen HTML pages. Now we have CMSs, tens of thousands of pages, multiple servers, and all that just to maintain our front facing presence. In the coming years, these systems will have more crosstalk, not less. Expectations will increase, not decline. And the complexity of our sites will balloon.

Centralized control might not be a popular idea to a lot of people, but it will become a necessity for success, regardless of how big your university is. That’s my prediction. The alternative risks a mess of code, duplicated efforts, and upset development teams. Without someone at the helm, to use a phrase from Twitter this morning, running your site will be like pushing a wheelbarrow of squirrels. That’s my rant for today. Our needs are going to come together, as users and providers, and we’re all going to be looking for something central to tell us what to do. We’re already near the event horizon of this problem. It will be up to us how we’ll handle crossing the threshold.

Illustration by NASA/Dana Berry, SkyWorks Digital Inc.

Related posts:

1. Reining in the outliers for a university-wide cohesive Web presence
2. Reining in the outliers for a university-wide cohesive social media presence
3. [Results] State of the University Web Department survey

1. Job Security

Despite budget cuts around the country, we are still in one of the most stable parts of the industry available. If you’re an army of one, even more so. It’s not because you’re irreplaceable, it’s just that no one wants to hassle with replacing you right now. Most states tend to also have laws or unions that make it additionally hard to get rid of you after X amount of time. So, count your blessings, stay on your game, and you’re almost guaranteed to be here next year. Having that steady paycheck and the other benefits that come with the job can be worth more than the mere dollar number on your pay stub.

2. Flexibility

Maybe my situation is unique, but around these parts they basically shovel vacation and sick time on us. They can’t pay us like our private counterparts, true, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t compensated in other ways. And that not withstanding, I know if I picked up the phone and said my kid was sick (hypothetically, since I don’t have a kid), or I was sick, or pipes burst in my house and I have to wait on a plumber, I wouldn’t get an ounce of grief about it. In some cases I could even say I’ll VPN in and get someone to forward my office phone to my cell. There just aren’t many jobs that give me that latitude. And maybe it’s just as simple as “I’ll be in at 8:15 this morning because I’m running late.” I’ve had jobs in the past where something as simple as that was a major issue. Sometimes not sweating ten minutes here and there can be a big stress reliever.

3. Leadership Opportunities

Besides the chance for actual leadership classes and such, the number of committees and meetings we are exposed to come with a positive side effect. In the event you do plan to get out of higher ed, you have basically an endless stream of chances to get into leadership positions which you can reflect on a résumé. They might not be glorious or significant, but it still looks good. Use that as a chance to influence the things that bother you. Change the system a little here and there. I’d rather people be annoyed because I’m more ambitious than them, rather than have people think I’m lazy or complacent. A common complaint I hear is that someone’s coworkers are basically just trying to coast to retirement, and any initiative is met with resistance. Use leadership opportunities to change and improve the system for yourself and those after you.

4. Industry Resources

This might not be true everywhere, but many schools have various contracts that allow us to get into the latest, greatest versions of different pieces of software whenever there is an upgrade. When we bought Adobe CS3 a couple years ago, it came with a built in, free upgrade to the next version as soon as it came out. So we effectively got both CS3 and CS4 for less that the retail cost of one part of the entire suite. When CS5 comes out, we can get that at a discounted rate. Likewise, if you play the “game” right, it’s pretty easy to keep yourself awash in things like multiple monitors (I can’t debug without them!), Wacom tablets (you try graphic design with a mouse!), cameras (you want web video made with a pad and paper?), etc. In a lot of cases, we’re some of the best equipped web developers out there.

5. Professional Development

Okay, this one is a little iffy lately. In the past, things like conferences, manager training, certifications, etc have all been at our feet. Lately, not as much. But there will come a time where the tide shifts back on this. And even still, most of us at least have some kind of development options. Even if it means reaching out to someone like .eduGuru with an idea for an article you’d like to write for the community or something along those lines. There’s a lot you can do that doesn’t cost money that you can accomplish to improve your standing, skills, and position (see leadership opportunities above). In most cases, if you go to your boss and say “I’d really like to do X to help me with Y,” they’re very likely to hold the door open for you and give you the room to accomplish it, money notwithstanding.

6. Challenges

I like to think about the things that face us in higher ed as challenges to be overcome. Short or moving deadlines, scope creep, audience targeting, budget silos, you name it. These aren’t barriers, they are hurdles, and the trick is to get good at overcoming them. You do that, and you can make it in web development anywhere, because everyone has these problems to one extent or another, and if it isn’t those problems, it’ll be something else. You need those critical thinking and problem solving skills. I have a job to do, and if there’s something in the way of that, then we need to deal with it. If you do it right, in the process you can set it up so next time it’s much easier to handle. So bring it.

7. You

You are the reason I am here, writing at .eduGuru, and enjoying my day to day work life. You make the UWebD social network fun. You make me laugh on Twitter. You are there to help me when I need a second set of eyes on some code. The higher ed web developer community is one of the most open, friendly, active, helpful professional networks that I have ever seen. I can count on untold numbers of you to walk up and say hi to me at conferences, or email me with questions, or take part in surveys and research. I may be an army of one in the office, but I rarely feel alone.

Bottom line is that I think that while we do complain about a lot of things in higher ed, I don’t think a lot of those issues are necessarily unique to higher ed. We just feel like they are, because the environment we work in is far from tuned in to how agile the web is, and we all reinforce each other since we identify with each other’s pain so well. We end up feeling like we’re riding an elephant in a NASCAR race, but we fail to notice all the other racers are on pacaderms too.

photo credit: cobalt123

Related posts:

1. IMHO 7 Reasons Why Higher Ed Is the Toughest Gig in All the Web
2. Web Leadership’s Role in Higher Ed
3. “Repent! Collaborator,” Said the Higher Ed Beancounterman

What? Mark Greenfield is giving us license to bitch?  Count me in.

To be honest, I really wanted to jump right in.  However, I realized I needed more space than 140 characters and more time than a few days to collect my thoughts.  So without further ado, here’s my list:

1. We are over-scheduled.

But not necessarily with actual productive work.  More time is actually spent talking about what we’re going to do than what we’re actually doing.  Time seems to be relative and limitless.  Because time seems limitless in academia, we begin to undervalue it, disrespect it, and mismanage it in our projects.

Directors spend too much time in meetings to do true management by walking around (MBWA), so directors schedule 1-on-1 meetings to try to keep up with what they would know if they were in the office talking to people.  Managers, who spent too much time in meetings with their directors and other managers, don’t have time to do their MBWA, so they schedule 1-on-1s.  Web people in the trenches have committee meetings, departmental meetings and 1-on-1 meetings that interrupt real work every hour-and-a-half to two hours.  This is clearly not enough time to accomplish much of anything except try to get to inbox 1563 (inbox 0 is a pipe dream), read from RSS, and send a few tweets with the #facepalm hashtag to all your #heweb pals.

2. We don’t get paid what the private sector does.

To me this in itself is not an issue, but it adds up to a number of issues below.

3. Our salaries are kept secret.

If you don’t know billable rates, it’s difficult to manage projects. When is it more feasible to do it in-house and when should you get a consultant?  What jobs are more effective for two part-time students to do in two weeks and what jobs are cheaper for one full timer to do in three?

4. We “grad source” worse than the public sector outsources.

We don’t think of students as partners who can share in a learning experience on a project. We think that undergrads are an endless supply of cheap labor.  We think grad students are substitute for paid professionals. The problem is that someone working for a semester or two may not be thinking in terms of how a single project could scale from one semester to the next. Or over several years. Or for reuse in other projects or other units.

5. We pad our resumes with DIY projects.

We end up building our own systems thinking we cut the consultant and implementation costs. Or we Frankenstein disparate third-party pieces together rather than doing something the way a vendor recommends.  If we don’t have concept of what staff time costs, sometimes management even forgets to calculate it altogether.  In the end we have no idea whether keeping these projects afloat have really saved us time or money, especially when we could be spending time consolidating our efforts and working on other projects.

These projects are unit specific and not designed to work with other departments so there is a good chance someone in another department is building another DIY system that does the same thing.  These are the people who are too busy with their DIY system to fulfill other request we need for our other Web projects.  Are they really worth the effort?

6. Our budgets disincentivize collaboration and efficiency.

If your budget for next year is based on what you spend for this year, what incentive do you have for collaborating with another unit to eliminate redundant systems (for example, a university-wide CMS)? In many units, when the fiscal year ends, people are encouraged to look around for what they need to purchase to ensure they get the same budget next year, especially as they compete for funds that are shrinking.

7. We try to serve everyone and end up pleasing none.

Who is our customer?  Businesses have an easy time defining this.  Higher ed, not so much.  Do we serve the students? The faculty?  Donors?  Are we focused on academics or research?  We change directions each time one of these stakeholders offers feedback and then wonder why the worst feedback we get is that we’re fickle.

Related posts:

1. IMHO 7 Reasons Why Higher Ed Is the Best Gig in All the Web
2. “Repent! Collaborator,” Said the Higher Ed Beancounterman
3. Student Workers in Higher Ed Web Offices Research Results

Garbage In, Garbage Out

If your team waits to time-track until the end of the recording period and then back-dates all their time-tracking with bogus data, what do you expect to get out of time-tracking? If your time-tracking system allows for templates and you use them so much that you never need to actually track time anymore, what do you expect to get out of time tracking? If the data these systems collect are duplicated or exist across many places or are just plain fudged, what good is it?

Enforcing the use of a particular system helps.  Getting and promoting a system where people feel that they get more value out of it than the effort it takes to put into it is even better.

It’s Not the Hammer; It’s the Carpenter.

If you need a major home improvement done, you hire a contractor. And if it’s not done the way you want it, you don’t blame the tools, your blame the people. Tools help you do the job, but they don’t do it for you. They require expertise. Do you even know what information you want to get from the application in the first place? Do you know enough about the data you are collecting to know how to get what you want from the tools? Do you know how to use the tools?

You may be asked to play mind reader, to pull Web analytics reports without knowing what kind of reports people want.  People may ask you for training on the statistics tools when what they really need is an understanding of how your organization is structured, its business processes, and those relate to the data entered into the tools.  When people don’t know what they want or don’t have the expertise, they may jump to conclusions and blame the tools.

Do or Do Not. There is No Try.

Information is valuable because it guides our actions.  You may have good data, you may know how to use the tools to get the information you need, but if the information ends up a weekly report that gets ignored in a supervisor’s email sandwiched between Nigerian scams and watch replications, then the whole process has been a colossal waste of time and effort.

Photo Credit: Arm and Hammer by Aaron Escobar

Related posts:

1. The Art of Assessing Your Data
2. Four Types of Web Analytic Data
3. Wofford Monthly Web Analytics Summary – March 2008

Recently, Nick DeNardis did some research into the state of university web departments. This is the next in our series of surveys, and we’re looking to see if and how you are using students to help create content for the web. This is not without a twist, however. We’re not looking at students that are employees for you, but rather the classes that teach areas relevant to the web, such as graphic design, photography, marketing, programming, etc.

Classes provide an awesome opportunity to use coursework to foster an environment of creativity, provide opportunities to the students, and create content you might not otherwise have the ability too with normal, limited resources. Not everyone can keep a full time coder, or writer, and Flash developer on staff. With the right coordination however, you could get far beyond your normal means. So, take about four minutes to help out the community and fill out the survey below (even if you don’t work with classes, we want to know that too). The survey will be open through the end of the month, and the results will be published after the start of the new year.

Start taking the survey »

photo credit: durian

Related posts:

1. [Results] Are Classes in Your Toolbox?
2. [Guru Survey] Higher Ed CMS Usage
3. 5 min survey: State of the university Web department

I’ve written previously that higher ed has a huge challenge facing them when it comes to hiring talent because they must compete with the private sector over them.  It’s a challenge because it’s difficult to get the best if you can’t even attract the best.  But, when you can attract the best, you must also retain them.  States all across the country are scrambling to cover shortfalls, and in most cases education is one of the top three money vacuums on their lists.  I don’t care about blame.  Blaming people won’t fix our problems.  I care about repercussions and fixing.  See, there are two problems with the current approach.  The first is in most cases, if a state cuts funding for higher education below 2006 levels, they have to apply for a special waiver or risk losing Federal stimulus money.  The second is that if they cut too much money, they risk damaging the system beyond repair.  What can our system bear?  That’s a question no one can answer, and we’re testing with elementary guess-and-check processes.  It’s Russian Roulette with line item veto.

There’s your rub.  If you are a smart, talented, motivated web developer, and you’re watching the system come down around your head, are you going to just sit there and watch it happen?  Web is an interesting field.  In a time of recession, it’s one area that people still throw money at.  This is because of several reasons like cost shifting and trying new money making opportunities.  As people are laid off, they might be inclined to build a small startup of some kind, and mom-and-pop-shops may try to improve the visibility of their business in the region or expand to bigger markets.  One thing is for sure, it’s never a bad idea to have a few freelance clients on the backburner, and it’s very easy to do, if you know your trade.  A smart person will always keep an ear to the wall in times like this, if only for those “just in case” moments.  That doesn’t mean you want to leave or are trying to, but if you’re flying you’re always supposed to note where the exits are in case of emergency.  Your paycheck should be no different.  The first time a local company puts $70,000 on the table for a well-qualified, talented web developer, do you really think you can ignore it?

Governments will always bounce back from a recession slower than the private sector, and any administrator worth their salt will tell you it is infinitely easier to take money away from education than it is to get it back.  Given the erosion of ground taking place, the question I pose back to you is to see if you think higher ed is in danger of losing some of it’s best and brightest minds in web development to the private sector in the mean time, and if that happens, how do we recover?  I not only think we will lose some, but I would argue we already are, leaving the question to be more along the lines of just how many will fall.  Teams are getting smaller, conferences are being cut, funding is slashed; how much more before you start giving thought to the opportunities that might lie in the clutches of the for-profit industry?  Many people will cite the job security and benefits as a key reason for working under a state umbrella, but when that safety net is more secure with a company, or even when it is self-provided, where will that leave our colleges?

I know I talk about this a lot, but I love my job and the opportunities it has, and I’m becoming increasingly afraid for its future.  There are mountains you can read on the philosophy of the place education has in a powerful, modern, functional society, and in my opinion most of it is on the money.  When education is a target instead of a tool, I think you’re within sight of giving up.  I would love to see some drastically different approaches.  For one, states need to find another fund-cutting target.  Anything.  If you’re going to scuttle higher ed, then just get it over with, otherwise take it seriously.  It’s cat and mouse funding the way states are currently behaving.  Games waste our time and energy and are an enormous distraction.  I’d also love to see new approaches to web development.  Why can’t we start maintaining college sites as part of the education process, via an intensive and multilevel learning program for students?  It’d be hard to establish, and it would take resources, but imagine the long term payoff it creates in ideas, opportunities, and products (i.e. an abundance of hopefully well trained and flexible web developers).

What do you think?  Am I totally off in left field here or are you seeing the same trends?

photo credit: a shadow of my future self

Related posts:

1. IMHO 7 Reasons Why Higher Ed Is the Best Gig in All the Web
2. “Repent! Collaborator,” Said the Higher Ed Beancounterman
3. Equal Pay for Equal Work

In all the discussions I realized how similar but yet very different all the web offices are. They range from large and centralized to small 1-2 person teams. I summed it up in this tweet:

“Major theme from #heweb09: There are a lot of great people underfunded, understaffed and underappreciated doing some great stuff!“

I wanted to try and get an understanding of the landscape of higher education web environments to see what works, what doesn’t and how we can all improve. I created a survey for anyone who’s primary job is working on any part of an institution’s Web site. It should not take more than 5 minutes to complete.

The survey will be open until October 25th so spread the word to any higher ed web professionals. The more responses the better the results and analysis.

Survey closed. Stay tuned for results.

Related posts:

1. [Results] State of the University Web Department survey
2. Guru Interviews: Shelby Thayer, Penn State University
3. [Guru Survey] Are Classes In Your Toolbox?

I’m releasing the Prezi and research data under a Creative Commons license (attribution, non-commercial, share-alike), so feel free to build on this information and make it more valuable.

• Survey Results
  • Employer Responses
  • Student Responses
• [ Download Presentation ]
• Twitter Stream (#hew09mmp9)

photo credit: vancouverfilmschool

This work by Michael Fienen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Based on work released at doteduguru.com.

Related posts:

1. [Guru Survey] Higher Ed CMS Usage
2. Student Worker Research
3. Untapped Resource: Do you have Student Web Workers?

Let’s face it: money is one powerful motivator.  If you have a financial need for a minimum salary, all the other perks of the job will not enable you to accept.  When you are interviewing prospective employers trying to get a feel for the job, you have very little information and first impressions are crucial.  A salary offer could be interpreted as how you would be valued by the organization, and a lowball initial offer may be a bad first impression.

But what happens if you are hired as an expert (maybe even paid as an expert), and not treated as a an expert?  What amount of money does it take to sell your soul to the zombie Web committee?  In higher ed, we hire experts, but we don’t use their expertise.  Instead we form large committees, seek consultants, and gather more data.  We don’t make changes. We don’t take risks.  We don’t want to draw too much attention to our work.

In his TED talk The Science of Motivation, Dan Pink argues that in creative work, money is not an effective motivator; autonomy is.  While salary may get people in the door, autonomy keeps people from walking out of it.  We need to trust our experts. What are your thoughts?

Related posts:

1. Continuing Web Education: Watching Out for #1
2. I’m Marching to My Own Tune. Better Get Used to It.
3. Equal Pay for Equal Work

Much has been written on the efficiency of how business operates at the university level.  There’s no shortage of ideas on how to improve the way higher ed functions.  I think at a base level, many of us can agree that something is broken, so I’m not going to go in to what’s wrong or how to revamp the system (besides, that’s a topic far too long winded, even for me).  Instead, I want to focus on one area: pay.  And keep in mind, what I’m going to say isn’t a fix for the system.  In reality, I am fully aware that what I will pose in this article is largely unrealistic.  But, I think different places could cherry pick parts of what I’ll offer, and that can go a long way towards helping them out.  Plus I want to encourage you to share your thoughts on the subject as well, whether encouraging or not.

The idea of pay as a motivating factor is a clear one.  It’s one debated by faculty members often.  The idea being how do you recruit the best teachers from industry, when they can make far more in their industry doing what they are so good at?  There’s no easy answer.  That argument can (and has) actually be extended to many functions of colleges.  As a university, we provide a ton of services, many of which we must compete with the private sector in.  IT, marketing, legal, and the web being major ones.  At the same time, there are some that we don’t, like admissions, development, and athletics.

The problem is that if you cannot compete for and retain the best possible staff, how do you set yourself up for success?  There’s two ways to approach this:  planning, and compensation.  For years, even though a university couldn’t pay the cash money to compete with the private sector, they had a lot of other benefits to offer.  The chances for professional development, networking, conferences, the laid back atmosphere, the flexibility – these all carry a certain value with them.  This made up for it.  Now, many of us are watching these benefits getting chewed up to save costs as part of an all out race to the bottom.  Travel budgets are emptied, professional development is postponed, and workloads increase as open positions are held.  Suddenly, the reasons to come or stay at the college are few.  Think about the past year and how many people you know or follow that have left higher ed to go into the private sector, or even just going to another school offering more money.  Recession or not, the web is still highly competitive with regards to skilled professionals.  On the planning side, for years colleges would throw out wide nets for different positions, such as programmers, on the thinking that you get someone cheap, and train them, and now you have a programmer.  This might have worked in the early days, but now, that leaves schools carrying the salaries for a dozen or more programmers who can’t think outside the box or be flexible, when good planning could have said “Let’s triple the salary, and get a single, top shelf programmer that can do the work of five of the home grown programmers in part of the time.”  And for god’s sake, fire the ones not pulling their weight.

Here’s why.  Who’s going to fight over good admission counselors besides colleges?  Very few people.  Who’s going to fight over a good lawyer, web designer, or god forbid, custodian?  If you’re going to take away the little perks of the job, the colleges are going to have no choice but to find some kind of better parity in how they pay individuals working in higher demand fields at the risk of only being able to hire off of the lower rungs of the ladder, which only further hurts the institution’s ability to advance.  It’s a downward spiral.  Naturally, this does nothing to answer the question of how do we pay or offer people more when we have less?  Obviously you don’t want to pay existing good people less.  I think some of the answer lies in simple efficiency, not just at the university, but in government in general.  Smarter money spending means more savings to spread around.  I’m just of the opinion that it has to happen to remain truly competitive.

In the web, we deal with several key stressers.  Because we touch so many mediums, a large site can easily make the case to have at least one each of a dedicated writer, graphic designer, programmer, system administrator, and marketer.  And that’s before you start talking about usability, accessibility, social networking, video, training, security, and on, and on.  At some point, universities will need to start thinking much more strategically about these positions, start thinking like an actual business instead of a money pit.  When it happens, how will your school deal with it?  How can you make sure that you get the best people for the job?  The coming years will be very telling.  Web development isn’t going to get easier – just because things are getting easier to use doesn’t make them easier to make.  Smaller regional schools could begin to find themselves at a significant disadvantage against their competition if one of them puts a good team together, but they can’t do what is realistically necessary to compete.

I pass the ball to you.  Share your thoughts with us.  What is your school doing to attract and retain quality web professionals, or what practices do you see taking place that are hurting their ability to plan for the future?  What stops you from jumping ship?  We work in higher ed, and in higher ed, success comes through education, and education starts with talking and sharing.  Feel free to remain anonymous if you want to comment about something you see that is hurting your school.

photo credit: Tracy O

Related posts:

1. “Repent! Collaborator,” Said the Higher Ed Beancounterman
2. The Web Design Triangle – It’s A Crutch!
3. Is There a Brain Drain Coming?

As I walked back to my office Friday afternoon, certificate in hand, I got to thinking about how critical leadership can be in a web office, and how our role at a university puts us in a position unique from almost anywhere else on campus.  First, it’s important to stress that real leadership isn’t about power, it’s about service.  I cannot stress that enough.  Almost more than in any other profession, in higher education when you are willing to take a leadership role, it means truly committing and putting yourself out there above and beyond your job description.  Maybe you’re sitting on extra committees, coordinating efforts, or taking part in things like a classified senate.  Regardless, becoming a leader requires you to commit beyond your job description and to give yourself over to serving others with the skills you have.  It isn’t just about being in charge of a bunch of people and telling them what to do.  Being a boss and being a leader are different creatures.

The reason we are in such a unique position is because of how connected we are across campus.  Public relations knows a lot of stuff, so does Advancement.  Ultimately, however, most of these entities are limited and restricted from certain aspects of campus.  The web, however, is different.  I’ve stressed before that a good web office sits under neither Marketing, nor PR, nor IT.  Instead, it should be between them all.  A hub, not a spoke.  When you serve as the hub, all things go through you.  PR isn’t particularly interested in the syllabus posting needs of faculty, or the photo gallery requirements of Athletics.  IT… well, they’re IT.  And Marketing’s main goal is to get students and money on campus.  All of them have on blinders.

We can’t work that way.  Recently, a group of about six offices came to me wanting a solution for doing things like storefronts, taking donations, and otherwise using the web to make money.  Great idea, that, because obviously with budgets getting cut, the more we can do to make easy money, the better.  It just so happens that with our web ear to the wall, we discovered at that exact time the Budgeting Office was meeting with vendors for a billing and payment processing system for campus.  Without that connectedness, this first group would have been in the dark, and we would have ended up with two different groups doing two totally different things towards basically the same goal, and spending way more money than necessary.  Instead, we stepped in, got people involved, and worked it out so everyone could benefit from a single tool.

It’s situations like that which have lead me to declare that any time I ever hear the word “web” or “internet” mentioned, I simply inject myself into the meetings and discussion.  If I don’t, there’s no one else here that is, and more often than not the result is people making less than well informed decisions.  In the case of the payment software, I didn’t necessarily have an obligation to step in and put the two groups together, but I knew that action would better serve them, the campus, and my office.  It’s no new thing that on a big campus, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, but a leadership minded web office can serve as the nervous system that sends signals to both, and gets them working together to do things like play the guitar.  Metaphorically speaking, of course.

We all have a ton on our plates, no doubt.  But these small things and actions can go a long way to proving and solidifying the importance of a well resourced web office.  Imagine the money that could be saved when web steps in with recommendations for taking certain data operations online, or like in my case, when they hear two different groups working towards the same goal.  Imagine the time that is saved.  No one else has as many feelers out there as we do, and that leaves us in a prime position to take a leadership role, and help serve the campus to keep it running straight and efficiently.  Pick your metaphor: we’re the nervous system, we feel the pulse, we sense the weather changing – it all comes down to knowing how much we can do and offer for campus, even if you don’t have to.

photo credit: pedrosimoes7

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Perhaps, one of my all-time favorites was this one from a parting manager, as I was about to fill his shoes: “Just remember, you don’t have attend every meeting, Nikki.”  Ah, but the great secret was: “Which ones do I have to go to and which ones should I miss?”  If there really are too many meetings that must have a representative from your team present, consider a delegate.

All too often, I’ve seen the same few people selected to represent a unit or team for all the major projects for no other reason than:

1. they are the players people on the outside already know from previous work,
2. they have the internal knowledge from working on projects in the past, and/or
3. they are so busy representing the team at project meetings that they don’t have time to share internal knowledge that would allow someone else to fill in.

At some point, you, the over-scheduled person, or you, the supervisor of an over-scheduled person, will have to decide when to delegate projects to others in your unit. Rotating in a few fresh faces in the team would:

• Take the burden of the key point people. We have a habit of rewarding people for their hard work with more hard work.  The problem is, a calendar full of meetings for projects doesn’t allow for completing these projects.  Something has to give.
• Allow for succession planning. What happens if the key point people retire or leave? In higher education we don’t usually have the luxury of having the new hire trained by the outgoing worker.  What will you do if a position is vacant and held open for months?  How can other staff members gain knowledge and experience to fill the gap if they can’t be trusted as delegates?

In the end, would the world really end if the one person in your unit who absolutely has to be part of every project planning meeting all of a sudden didn’t show up?  (If it would, then you probably need a delegate before that person gets hit by a bus or wins the lottery anyway.)

Photo, Cubicle Life by herval

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For me, it’s been March Meeting Madness. I log out of my calendaring application in the evening feeling relatively safe and sane, knowing I might be able to salvage a few productive hours in the proceeding days.  Then, I wake up, come to work, log in and find that overnight, some calendaring fairy—or a band of impish meeting happy academics—have sprinkled meeting dust all over my calendar.

So what’s a girl to do? I propose we all leave notes under our pillows (so to speak), as an incantation to ward off all the meeting-happy people who might be tempted to clutter up our calendars.  Please feel free to comment with some of your own tips as well:

Dear Meeting Imps,

We in higher education sometimes spend more time talking about what we’re doing and thinking about what we’re doing than actually doing it.  But sometimes action is necessary.

In the name of efficiency, I have the following suggestions:

• Rethink standing meetings. What is the purpose? How frequent? Who really has to be there? What’s on the agenda?
• Shorten the meeting by moving items off the agenda. What can be done before meeting? What can be done after?  What can be done in smaller subcommittees?
• Include travel/down-time in scheduling an event. Even in the same building people need to walk from one location to the next, gather materials, take a break, check calendars, and leave previous meetings that may have run over time.
• Understand how technology is being used in your meeting. How are people using technology? If they use technology to get information on demand, to document the meeting in real-time, or to assist the meeting in some other productive way, don’t discourage it.  If they are using it to get other non-meeting related work done or for personal business, you may need to re-evaluate how frequent you are having meetings or who really has to be at your meetings.

Please don’t take my word for it. Read Allan Gyorke’s blog post on the subject as well as the comments from the readers below.

Sincerely,

NikkiMK, a.k.a. “Booked Until Retirement”

Photo “Meetings” by Pixarman

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A Training Problem. Do you have trainers and presenters who lack the skills in the first place?  Don’t expect the technology to compensate.

A Technology Problem. Does your site have a bad user interface?  Do your forms use field labels with really hard to decipher language?  Do you have processes that could be automated to eliminate the potential for human errors?  Then don’t train around design flaws.  Your users can only be expected to remember so much.

A Leadership Problem. Have your leadership expected the technology to guide the policies and business processes instead of the other way around?  Does your leadership fail to hold individuals accountable?  Then don’t implement more technology.  Don’t implement training programs without holding individuals accountable for their professional development.

Take it from “Dr. Nikki”, when you have a problem in your department, the last thing you want to do is send it to the wrong specialist.  It’s like sending someone with a heart problem to a brain surgeon.

How have your organization’s problems been “misdiagnosed”?   Have any been corrected?  I’d like to hear about it.

Photo Credit: “Pills” by Mattza

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As the recession gets worse, even blogging or commenting about layoffs and budget cuts becomes a scary thing to do for fear that The Ones Who Kept the Machine Functioning may find you.  So many of us in higher ed wonder about the future of our projects, our professional development opportunities, and even our positions.

One of my big fears, though, is the irony that in saving money, those who count beans may be causing departments to hoard beans.  Sound familiar?  It’s almost like a higher ed credit crisis:

Let’s say department X is allocated funds annually to support a system. Department Y supports their own similar system.  Neither department will be motivated to coordinate their efforts and reduce time and money spent on that project for fear that they would lose some funding or positions. Instead X and Y give their students disparate systems and the university pays twice the amount it should have.

In BNET’s Five Signs That You Have a Crummy Job, the two departments that rarely shrink in a recession are accounting and legal.  As the bureaucracy increases, innovation drops and the creative talent becomes demotivated.  I’m all for saving the institution, but will hoarding a handful of magic beans really do the trick?

Have your collaborative projects been terminated for budgetary reasons? I’d like to hear about it. Comment (anonymously if you prefer) or tweet (http://twitter.com/nikkimk) to tell me about it.

Photo by Sherry Elliott

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