building internal communities to support your content strategy

Building Internal Communities to Support Your Content Strategy

Georgy Cohen OHO Interactive

@radiofreegeorgy #confabedu

https://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558


Building Internal Communities to Support Your Content Strategy


@radiofreegeorgy PSUWEB 2015




@radiofreegeorgy PSUWEB 2015



What did I learn?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558 https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitneyinchicago/3541505856

People liked being connected to information, and one another.


https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitneyinchicago/3541505856

It was easy for me to find the rockstars.

I had an easy way to disseminate information.

“In most situations, the decentralized publishing model has been disastrous. The people trained tended to be relatively junior staff, for whom publishing to the website was just one more responsibility. The result was lots and lots of poor quality content that was never updated or reviewed.”

Gerry McGovernhttp://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/decentralized-publishing-equals-amateur-web-management

http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/decentralized-publishing-equals-amateur-web-management

“When it comes to content, people are far more important than software.”

Gerry McGovern



So, what can we do?

“It is essential that [central web teams] are highly collaborative, which means they should spend most of their time out of the office. They should work closely with the various organizational units, spreading their expertise wherever possible.”

Gerry McGovernhttp://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/decentralized-publishing-equals-amateur-web-management

FROM THE TOP

DOWN


FROM THE

BOTTOM UP

https://www.flickr.com/photos/oimax/2260643716

https://www.flickr.com/photos/oimax/2260643716

Even better… we can formalize these connections and collaborations by creating communities around our content.

Creating communities

Living, breathing, walking, talking

governance.

Goals for content communities:

1. Connect members to institutional standards and overall best practices

2. Connect members to training, documentation, and resources

3. Connect members to each other for support and collaboration

Goals for content communities

“The result is a community of communicators, working toward similar goals and within similar constraints.”

Chas Grundy University of Notre Dame

http://grundyhome.com/blog/archives/2011/03/24/rising-boats-colleague-education/index.html

http://grundyhome.com/blog/archives/2011/03/24/rising-boats-colleague-education/index.html

Subvert

politics

and turf

wars

Don’t

dominate;

facilitate

How do you manage this community?

Identify

goals.

Make it

relevant.

Convert project teams or draw from existing groups

Rotate hosts and venues

Make it

outcome-

driven

Skunkworks? Maybe.

Publish minutes, notes, session video or PDFs

Analytics

training and

reports

Content reports and testingBrainstorming

ideasProject collaboration

Share

templates,

techniques, &

resources

Large (moral) support networkInformation

sharing

Pool resources for professional development

How do you get people on board?

Let’s check out some case studies.

@bamadesigner

Goals for UA WebTide:

1. To help benefit its members, and the university, by promoting professional development, innovation, and discussion

2. To provide community, education, professional development, and support to all web professionals at The University of Alabama.

“As a ‘one-man’ team, I wanted the opportunity to share ideas and ‘talk shop’ with other web professionals on campus but, desiring more than just a community, I also saw an opportunity to crowdsource resources and professional development for all web professionals on campus.”

Rachel Carden, University of Alabama

“We all share similar challenges, opportunities, and a goal of representing, and promoting, the University with a high quality web presence, so why not help each other out!”

Rachel Carden, University of Alabama

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dvs/166443190

@nicholaseobrien

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dvs/166443190

“While we as web professionals can know best practices and try to add value to our colleagues’ content, we can’t be everywhere at once. Through thoughtful and intentional governance, we can add more value to more content.”

Nicholas O’Brien Bates College

Confab Higher Ed 2014https://vimeo.com/112237325

https://vimeo.com/112237325

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_State_University

@wrstknitterever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_State_University

Goals for OSU content strategy group:

1. Connect people to content strategy best practices

2. Get people talking about the purpose of their websites and who their audience is

3. Show people how to effectively plan and manage their web content

“It’s a good way to talk about things people don’t usually talk about.”

Erin Martin, Oregon State University

Organize

around

Drupal

community

2 meetings, ~30 at each, ~56 on mailing list

Guest speakers from other units

Breaking

down silos

with Slack

Also: OSU College of Agricultural Sciences Site Coordinators Group

“Our college does very important work across the state and the world, but the digital communication was haphazard, not coordinated. This group is the first step in an attempt to offer help and support to the units in CAS, to provide guidance and to learn what is going on in some units.”


“Our college does very important work across the state and the world, but the digital communication was haphazard, not coordinated. This group is the first step in an attempt to offer help and support to the units in CAS, to provide guidance and to learn what is going on in some units.”


http://agsci.oregonstate.edu/

Goals for CAS site coordinators group:

1. Forge strong working relationships with unit leaders and staff

2. Offer guidance and support to those managing websites

3. Promote “a bit of” content strategy 4. Promote College & University goals 5. Work with units to target audiences

and serve user needs

“So many of our site coordinators are overworked, underpaid office staff and asking them to do more is just not going to happen. I try to frame it like they are our partners and I am here to help. I’m still working on this.”


https://www.flickr.com/photos/5yearjourney/15924878026

@virtualr

https://www.flickr.com/photos/5yearjourney/15924878026

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bexwalton/10133921476


“No one has to do anything a certain way, but you do have to have the right outcomes.”

Rebecca Bernstein, University of Buffalo

Goals for UB DCT Solutions Group:

1. Empower people with knowledge to elevate their practice

2. Empower groups to get more input and feedback from users

3. Inform community about changes and new products

Another model: pop-up shops

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bexwalton/10133921476https://oncampus.oberlin.edu/webteam/2012/05/talktome-social-media-office-hours


https://oncampus.oberlin.edu/webteam/2012/05/talktome-social-media-office-hours

“One thing I was struck with was watching people interacting while they were waiting. We are all trying to do more with less these days; any opportunity to get strength and support from each other is a bonus.”

Michelle Tarby, Le Moyne College

http://higheredsolo.com/newmodel/

http://higheredsolo.com/newmodel/

In conclusion:

• It will always start small, but what matters is that it starts • Communities of any size are helpful • A good content community ultimately serves users at all ends of the process • Any community requires purposeful leadership to flourish

Thank you. [email protected] @radiofreegeorgy


“None of us is as smart as all of us.” Japanese Proverb


building internal communities to support your content strategy

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