On a scale of 1 - 10, how are we doing? Seriously.

The first time I officially supervised another person was 26 years ago. (It’s true I’m the oldest of five children and hours of “babysitting” my siblings was a fine training ground for management.) Yep, I’ve had plenty of time to develop my own philosophy about performance management. And, I’ve experimented extensively with how to offer exceptional feedback to the individuals on the teams I’ve led.

But despite this HR foundation, for the very first time, I am checking in with individuals external to mStoner as preparation for our 2011 performance reviews. It feels right to me that the mStoner performance evaluation process includes contacting clients. Who else could give a more accurate assessment of our team members? Yes, it takes extra time—time for individuals to suggest names of people I should call, time for me to schedule these calls, and most encouraging, the precious time clients spend on the phone talking about one individual’s work on a project that is probably over or nearly over.

Turns out, I’m working with a crew of three humble individuals. Until I talked to the clients:

• I didn’t know that one person made himself available 24/7 during the three weeks prior to a website launch by sharing his home and mobile phone numbers. And, as the client reported, “He always took our calls.”


• I wasn’t aware that another client never heard this mStoner team member say no. Even though the client described the ideas they came up with as wild and wacky, and with some high expectations for the technology.


• I hadn’t realized that another is trusted by the client because, in additional to his exceptional creativity, he is “completely unflappable” and adept at simultaneous right- and left-brain thinking.

In my opinion, this commitment to individual development is key to organizational excellence. mStoner is successful when our team does exceptional work for the educational institutions that engage us. I think it takes courage to circle back and ask a client how someone did. I’m proud to be part of a group that values, and seeks out, the opinions and impressions of people external to our company.

Inspired to talk to us about someone on our team? I’m sure Voltaire would like to hear from you. Contact him and let us know how we’re doing. Improvement is something we take seriously, any time of year.

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Consider Attending #casesmc

2012 brings the third annual CASE Social Media and Community Conference. I’ve never attended this conference but I remember reading some tweets from San Francisco in 2011. In fact, I think I first heard about #casesmc via social media from @rachelreuben. That was back before I met her live and in person.

In case you’ve missed the build of 2012 tweets about #casesmc, I’m super thrilled to announce that, this year, I’m serving as the conference chair.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been working with Jen Lichty at CASE to identify faculty and speakers for this event. I’m pretty excited about the program we’ve put together. It starts with a Social Media 101 pre-conference workshop designed to orient social media newbies just in time for the conference that follows. We are very lucky to have Patrick Powers leading the workshop. If you need a knowledge base about social media, you can rely on Patrick to deliver. He’s sure to be awesome.

The conference gets underway mid-day on April 18 with sessions and keynotes that will be varied, on point, and useful. (I promise to do my best on that commitment!) The full program with session titles and descriptions is on the conference website. Along with me, the mStoner contingent at #casesmc will include Michael Stoner. Here is a bit about the presentations Michael and I will offer:

From Michael

• Succeeding with Social Media (co-presented with Cheryl Slover-Linett, Slover Linett Strategies): In this session, we’ll look at what we learned in our third year of conducting the CASE/mStoner/Slover Linett survey on social media in advancement. What’s changed—and what has stayed the same? How have schools, colleges, and universities responded to external demands for stronger, more engaging social channels? How have staffing, management, and policies shifted internally to keep up with these needs? We’ll explore these and other findings. This year, we focused more sharply on success, probing on particular tools, practices and tactics of social media that help institutions to achieve successful outcomes. We’ll look at what our data reveals about the characteristics of successful campaigns and institutions on social media.


• Social Media and the President: Today, social media is pervasive. Not only are presidents expected to communicate with important constituents through social tools like Facebook and Twitter, but many recognize them as channels that allow them to amplify their messages. This session offers ideas on how presidents can maximize their use of social media—and why social channels are an important component of today’s communications mix.

From Susan

• What do I say? Some content ideas for your social media channels.: It bears repeating, content is king. If you are just getting started with a social media channel, it can be daunting to figure out what to say. Even those of us who have been doing this for a while experience an occasional dry spell or suffer through good, old-fashioned writer’s block. Whether you are a newbie or a seasoned pro, coming up with good stuff to use on your institution’s social media channels is sometimes challenging. This session will present a few (many!) suggestions.


• Connect Your Own Dots: Social Media Integration as a Best Practice for Marketing and Communications (co-presented with Nyleva Corely, UT Austin): Your audiences experience your brand and hear from you through a long list of social media and non-social media channels and you shouldn’t expect them to connect the dots. You need to develop an institutional plan that will allow you to stay on message across multiple communication channels using everything from social media aggregators to editorial calendars to social media campaigns. Not only that, a social media strategy isolated from your broader communication strategy is a risk. We’ll share specifics and demonstrate best practices through case studies from educational institutions.


It’s not too early to register for this Chicago event to be held on April 18 – 20. And, while you’re looking at the 2012 #casesmc website, check out the list of faculty and speakers. I think we’ve pulled together some of the most experienced and expert thought leaders within the social media discipline. I hope you agree. What a Tweet up this will be!

Just in case you’re not convinced, here are, straight from the CASE website, the official benefits of attending. These bullet points work well for the request-to-attend email you might need to send to your boss:

• For the social media novice, you’ll receive a practical orientation to the most widely used social media platforms. Get comfortable getting started.


• For the more experienced social media professional, you’ll engage (face-to-face) with respected educational leaders and be inspired by some of our advanced sessions.


• We’ll discuss the results of the third CASE/mStoner/Slover-Linnett survey on the use of social media in advancement.


• You’ll discover how educational institutions are tracking, assessing, and evaluating the effectiveness of social media channels.

Did you plan to get more social in 2012? Are you deciding now which conferences you’ll attend this year? Then join us at #casesmc in Chicago.

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Introducing Fran Zablocki

Back in November, we were ISO a PM for LTR.

Today, we announce that the search is over and that the long-term relationship will begin soon. I am thrilled to write that Fran Zablocki will join mStoner next month as a project manager. Perhaps you already know him as @Zablocki.

Fran comes to mStoner well prepared with a successful set of experiences in higher education. He is, for a few more weeks, the online community manager in Alumni Relations at SUNY Geneseo. Before
his current job, Fran spent some time as the web communications manager at Nazareth College. While at Nazareth, Fran was part of the team that deployed the award-winning Flight of the Flyers campaign.

A social media strategist and an expert about alumni communities, Fran offered a presentation about alumni networks and social media at HighEdWeb 2011. At the close of 2011,  he was the guest host for a Higher Ed Live episode called LinkedIn for EDU.

And speaking of 2011, Fran’s personal blog contains one of my favorite posts from last year. He wrote about the relationships colleges and universities have with young alumni and the typical neglect that typically follows graduation. I earnestly recommend his post, I’d like to introduce myself as…myself…and then again, as myself.

Hiring a project manager requires a careful assessment of a wide range of skills and a diverse set of abilities. We make commitments about budgets and time tables and milestones when we begin work with our clients. They are counting on us to deliver, and we rely on mStoner PMs to oversee the full project lifecycle. At mStoner, the PM is also the primary rep for the campus team. So on any given day, Fran will do everything from building a project schedule to analyzing a budget or explaining how usability tests work. He’ll be busy but we’re not worried. He’s got the chops to do the job, and we can’t wait to have him on board.

We’ll welcome Fran officially on February 13. It’ll be our birthday present to him. He wrote this announcement for his personal website. You can read more about Fran on his LinkedIn profile.

Leave a comment about Fran joining our team here on the blog or just Tweet at him. #FranZablockijoinsmStoner

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I’m listening. Tell me your version of the story.

All elements of a website should be carefully woven together to inspire and tell a compelling story about the institution. Easier said than done, right? Your .edu website works hard and serves many audiences. Most would agree that:

• The ideal reaction when an alum looks at the site is, “Yes, that reminds me of the school I knew and loved.”
• The ideal reaction when a 16-year-old visits the site is, “Oh, that feels like the kind of place where I’d fit in.”

So how do you get to the essence of an institution? How do you discover what’s unique and special about a school or campus so that you can use what you find out in the visual design, features, and copy of a website?

My best advice? Don’t make assumptions. Don’t assume you already know the story.

All of our client engagements begin with a strategy phase and we have a process for the discovery work that becomes the foundation for a web relaunch project. During strategy, we do a deep dive—we take a number of steps to uncover the detail and discover the gems we’ll need to build an incredible web presence. One of the steps we take is referred to as “intake.”

Intake is a series of small group meetings that we host onsite. We come to campus and talk face-to-face with a range of individuals including current students, faculty, senior leadership, and staff in offices like admissions, marketing, communications, and IT. Sometimes, we include groups of alumni, prospective students, and parents. What we hear during these sessions gives us a sense of the campus community—the collective vision and values—and helps us understand the substance. We hear versions of the institutional story.

But listening to the people who show up for the onsite group meetings we facilitate is just the beginning of the discovery work. Here are some additional recommendations to go along with intake:

• review social media sites


• audit the current website


• analyze the sites of peer or competitor institutions


• read strategic plans, communication plans, recent news, admissions materials, and alumni publications


• consider brand and visual identity guidelines

If your goal is translating the ethos of your community into a vibrant web design with just the right tone for the content, do some discovery. Listen up!

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What Project Managers Need Most: People Skills

As we plan web redesign projects with our clients, we are often asked to recommend a structure for the internal team project team. After all, we’re starting a partnership and there is complex and important work to be done. The campus leadership in place for a web relaunch project matters and we have some advice to offer. Ideally, you need everything from an informed web advisory committee to a committed and talented web team to an engaged executive sponsor.

At the start, there is enthusiasm and momentum, so why not capitalize on that by putting together the best internal team possible? During the pre-kickoff planning, we usually ask clients, “Who will be the primary contact for mStoner, the person who will serve as the campus project manager?” Besides working with us, this project manager will usually be a link between the core project team (they do the work of the website relaunch) and a project advisory committee (they review and approve the plan and recommendations). Who would you choose on your campus?

Use this rule of thumb: the individual in the project manager role needs to be positioned high enough on the organizational chart to have the credibility and respect of the campus but junior enough that he/she will dig in and help get the work done. But what else?

The project team, led by the PM, will oversee a broad range of tasks. They will review strategy recommendations. They will figure out how to gather design feedback. They will migrate content from the old site to the new one. Because of this mix of responsibilities, the ideal background for the project manager is certainly a consideration. Clients ask, “Should the PM have an editorial/content background or a technical background?” The simple answer is, “Yes. I’ve seen both work.”

I recommend that the campus choice for a PM focus on leadership ability, not a particular type of background. What matters is the people skills and the personal qualities that the individual brings to the role. So, without mincing words, here are the issues project managers wrestle with lined up with the talents needed to be effective.

The political savvy needed for:

• handling push back and resistance to change


• facilitating discussions and achieving consensus


• knowing when is the right time to involve the executive sponsor


• responding to opinions about design concepts (usually colors, fonts, photos) that are not grounded in expertise and research


• articulating web standards and best practices to persuade naysayers


• explaining why the website is not primarily for internal audiences and not structured like the university org chart


• controlling scope

A love for detail in order to:

• review information architecture and recommend adjustments


• oversee quality assurance on all pages of the new website (e.g., all links work, all formats/styles consistent, editorial style enforced, etc.)


• manage discrete tasks in a project plan so that you can meet your target dates

A passion for the institution that translates into:

• hours reviewing photography and copy decks


• time spent gathering and synthesizing opinions, preferences, and responses during design, usability testing, and soft launch


• a commitment to building a website that meets the needs of target audiences, not internal audiences


• action (you need a can-do kind of person) to do whatever it takes until the bitter(sweet) end

The confidence and take-charge attitude needed for:

• assessing what needs to be done and determining how much time is available


• assigning and monitoring work for a team of people that he/she does not formally supervise


• reevaluating and reassigning as things change


• reminding people about what they are supposed to be doing (with a supportive, but we’re counting on you kind of approach)

Do you agree with this rumination about managing a web project? What other characteristics come to mind for you? What would you add?

For more on my own perspective as I finished out my time as the PM for the William & Mary web redesign project, read this blast from the past: a 2008 post from the mStoner blog written during my client days. Three years have passed since this interview and I stand by nearly all I said.

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What makes a good “Giving” website?

Sometimes I’m asked, “What makes a good Giving website?” Without the intention of sounding flippant, the answer is, the same things that make any website great.

For some reason, people have difficulty translating the best of the web to fundraising. I even get the sense that some think a special potion is needed to produce an effective giving site. I understand that giving sites have a distinct purpose. Still, what works generally for all websites also works specifically when communicating about institutional fundraising goals.

Recently, I’ve spent time digging through a few fundraising sites of educational institutions. I’m not suggesting that these websites are just right top to bottom and through and through. Instead, for each one, I’ll highlight certain aspects that I think are worth consideration.

Don’t confuse me with your lingo.
Often, websites use labels that make sense internally but are confusing to target audiences. Like any world, the fundraising world is full of insider terminology—examples include words like annual giving, stewardship, or corporate and foundation relations. I am drawn to the simple but compelling navigation options on the Giving to Humboldt State University site. The labels are understandable and that’s recommended for any type of website.
Humboldt State University

Give me just the right mix of choices.
Putting together all the right elements on a home page takes a bit of genius, right? In the best of circumstances, you need a mix of content that will produce an emotional response as well as content that allows people to immediately find what they came to the site to do. I think the Giving to University at Buffalo site offers just the right blend of compelling stories and practical tools.
University at Buffalo

Give me some (white) space.
Elegant web design includes the exceptional use of color and white space. When done well, white space provides a clean, professional site that is both uncluttered and fresh. I think the Campaign for the University of Virginia website fits the bill. I also like the way that nearly all the color on the site comes from vibrant photography.
University of Virginia

Let me focus on a narrow area of interest if I want.
The right-column feature on the Support Ensworth site surfaces an option to name a seat in the new theatre. I like that just enough information is offered so that I don’t feel tricked into clicking to find some detail about the amount of money necessary to participate.
The Ensworth School

Give me something that matters to me.
Personalized communication works, and getting inside the heads of your visitors goes a long way. Think about what you can show and tell that will connect people to your goal, and perhaps, encourage them to act. The Ithaca College Building the Rowing Center website includes a blog chronicling the construction of the rowing center, 40 years of newsletters from the crewing program, and thoughts from alumni about the project.
Ithaca College

Let me tell it my way.
People have been making a point through storytelling for centuries. Digital storytelling brings any website to life and more and more there is an expectation that you’ll ask me to share my own. The Annual Giving website at University of Oregon features a Ducks@Oregon blog and a way to Share Your Duck Story.
University of Oregon

How about you? What have you discovered in your own research of giving sites for education? Do you have any favorites to share?

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Strategy = what you don’t do and what you do first.

The word strategy is all the rage these days. There’s web strategy, content strategy, and social media strategy. More than once I’ve even seen this job title: director of strategic communications. Are we also doing communications that are…wait for it…not strategic? Really?

Now widely used in business, the word strategy has a military origin. I took a quick look at Wikipedia and found this, “In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked. How a battle is fought is a matter of tactics: the terms and conditions that it is fought on and whether it should be fought at all is a matter of strategy.”

Much has been written about strategy and I make no attempt to summarize it all here. But when I read the bit from Wikipedia, I had higher education as my frame of reference, and this phrase stood out for me: “whether it should be fought at all.” In my view, strategy is as much about what you don’t do as it is about what you do. Strategy is also about what you do first.

During a time when financial resources for higher education are shrinking, I think strategy is more important than ever. Without strategy to guide your decision making about what to spend time on, anything seems like a reasonable option. Back when more funding and more staffing were available on our campuses, many institutions could perhaps be less strategic—they just did it all with the hope that something would stick. Now, this approach is simply too expensive. Here are a couple of examples of what I mean:

• It certainly makes sense for your communication strategy to include social media channels. However, because of limited resources (maybe you’re a web team of one), you might decide that your tactics will include Facebook and Twitter but not Foursquare specials.


• If the current strategy is to increase alumni engagement, then a new web feature can do that. Yes, you could spend weeks producing a four-minute video highlighting some of your school’s most popular professors. Or, a Flickr photo set with shots of faculty in well-known campus spots with crowd sourced captions might also do the trick.

Once in place, following your own strategy takes discipline. Because so many communication tools and platforms are “free,” there is no barrier to entry and it’s easy to get sidetracked by the whiz bang. When all else fails, go back to the plan. Strategic priorities can help you decide what to do first. For instance:

• If your strategy calls for a focus on recruiting students in a particular geographic area, then managing a microsite project for admission has to take priority over a request to customize a blogging platform for student affairs.


• Yes, it would be fun to redesign your portal. But if your institution is in the midst of a campaign, then a web design for the president’s annual report has to happen first.

At the end of the day, strategy is about making choices. Some battles won’t make the cut. Insist on strategy to guide your way.

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#heweb11 Why all the frenzy about it?

I’m at HighEdWeb in Austin this week. Posts containing #heweb11 filled my personal social stream in the weeks leading up to this annual event that brings together web professionals in colleges and universities throughout the country.

Why all the frenzy? Why such anticipation? I’ve been a member of professional associations for as long as I can remember and I can’t think of any other associations that have been as useful or as directly tied to what I do to earn a living. Why?

Because “the web” can be a lonely business. And, frankly, we get by with a little help from our friends.

Anybody remember the time when the college/university website was considered supplemental? You had to have one, but it certainly wasn’t the flagship communication piece. Battle won, that hurdle behind us. Even so, the infrastructure needed to support the institutional web strategy is still developing. We’re still working to establish the discipline of web on our campuses.

I often meet individuals who refer to themselves as a “web team of one.” They are courageous and enthusiastic about what they do but, still, they face an isolating and challenging work environment because there is no one else who does what they do.

I still meet people who are leading (and nurturing) campus web teams. They are having some success, but their team members don’t yet have the right skill sets and competencies to take their work to the next level. And, what these teams advocate and accomplish is sometimes misunderstood and under appreciated by campus leadership.

I’m regularly asked by our clients to share organizational structures, position descriptions, mission statements, and various and sundry reports from other colleges and universities. (Thanks to all of you who have provided them for the benefit of others!) Web professionals are hungry for data about how to make it happen well.

Enter HighEdWeb. It’s not just a conference, it’s a community.

For the web professional going solo, it provides colleagues. And not just people you exchange ideas with once a year. More often, the HighEdWeb conference is where you finally meet the person behind @putyournamehere for the first time. Because really, you already know each other because you’ve shared ideas, figured out solutions to problems, and provided mutual encouragement through social media.

For the web team with limited professional development funds, the HighEdWeb event provides a stream of content (live from #conferencelocation) that can be an exceptional resource even for those who had to miss it. Even if it wasn’t your turn to go this year, you still benefit because you can follow along.

For every higher education web professional, the conference offers a shot in the arm and, more importantly, a way to realize you’re not crazy. There’s nothing like an affinity group to make it clear that your highs, lows, struggles, and successes in the world we call .edu are shared by many. Some of the smartest people you’ll meet have been where you are. Cool thing is, they’re ready to share. They’ll save you some time, give you an idea, or teach you something you didn’t know. That’s what all the frenzy’s about.

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Getting to know you. Getting to know all about you.

I’m proud of the small amount of paper I brought into my new home office. I used my recent job change as an opportunity to slim down “files” and inch toward paperless status. The truth is I did bring a handful of manila folders that I’ve been periodically sifting through. Flipping through the paper has offered a few trips down memory lane. I found a cocktail napkin where I’d scratched a tag line we later used to market a campus notebook program. Yes, something great first written on the back of a napkin actually happens.

More relevant to my work at mStoner, I stumbled on the list of questions I used in 2007 for hiring an external partner for a university-wide web redesign project.That was four years ago, but I submit that this list is still a pretty good way to get to know a consulting firm.

You know the drill. It typically goes like this: you issue an RFP, you get a healthy stack of proposals, you narrow down, you invite a few to campus. That campus visit is critical but maybe not for the reason you think. Yes, the firm you are considering should be able to give a credible and compelling presentation. Still, before you hire a firm, you really should get to know the people you’ll be working with. And, yes, some of what you need to know can come from a presentation in a window-less conference room filled with your RFP committee. But really, you should prepare a list of questions to guide your thinking. Sharpen your interviewing skills and ask away.

At the end of the day, you’re going to need to know the answers to these questions. Having a list will keep you focused on what you decided was important. Second, you’ll gain from hearing how the various firms respond. Are there inconsistencies? Does the answer given by one person from a firm conflict with an answer you hear later from somebody else? Do they seem to value what you do?

If you’re reading this blog, you might be planning to engage a partner for a web redesign. If so, use this question list for your own. No matter who you hire, take seriously the chance to get to know the teams you’re considering. After all, your institution’s website is the cornerstone of its brand and the foundation of its communication strategy. There’s a lot at stake.

Download the questions as a PDF.

General
How long have you been in business?
How many employees do you have?
What are your areas of expertise?
Have you worked for education clients before? If so, does your approach to the project differ from when you work with non-education clients?
Do you employ subcontractors and if so are you willing to take responsibility for their work? Will we be notified when subcontracted individuals are working on our project?

Work Style
How do you communicate with your clients; by phone, email, meetings, etc? Are you willing to adapt your communication style to a project?
Do you expect a a project manager on the client side?
Do you offer alternatives, or single solutions?
How do you propose to deal with possible changes in scope or direction of a project as it progresses?

Project Management
How much time do you expect your project manager to spend on the project? 
How experienced is your project manager with enterprise-level websites?
 What kind of reporting, issue tracking and financial statements will you provide and how often?

Consultation
Do you have a standard consulting/discovery process?
Do you have standard documentation (i.e., functional specifications, project plan, timelines, etc.) and are you willing to provide samples?
Are you able to conduct focus groups and usability studies?
Where are the focus groups/usability studies conducted?

Design and Programming
What is your process for design approval (i.e., alternative designs, means of and cycles of review, etc. and how long does it take?
Can you provide illustration and photography?
How much experience you have doing animations or video for the web?
Do you do your own video/audio recording?
 Are you aware of and do you comply with Section 508 Accessibility guidelines?
Do you use CSS for layout?
Have you used XSLT? RSS? HTML 5?
Do your programmers/designers follow set coding standards? Are these standards available for us to see?
Are you familiar with a range of content management systems and are your designs able to translate well to CMS templates?
What is your experience with integrating social media platforms?
Have you done any mobile web development? How about responsive design or apps?

Content
Can you offer help with content development and editing/proofing?
Are you knowledgeable about writing for the web and web content strategy?

Testing and QA
What sort of quality assurance do you offer for page elements, multimedia, links, etc.?
Is your work tested in-house by someone other than the person who developed it?
At what point can a client inspect and review your work as it is being built?
Which browsers do you test with and are you able to create a consistent look in multiple browsers?

Training and Documentation
Do you offer training when relevant? 
Is your work documented such that it can be maintained by another group?

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Starting a web redesign project. (See, there’s just dust under that carpet.)

Four years ago, I led a major web redesign project at William & Mary. I remember that I couldn’t wait to begin – I had executive support, a budget, and three incredible firms coming to campus to present proposals. Let’s get going, right?

Hold on. I also vividly remember that getting started with the William & Mary relaunch required project planning and superhuman commitment to a myriad of details. Things can get particularly consuming during the RFP phase. How in the world would we relaunch the university web presence with no extra staff? What if we picked the wrong partner? What if everyone hated the new CMS?

I’ve been thinking about that time a lot in recent days. Earlier this week, along with Doug, I visited a college that is looking for an external partner for their web redesign. As we prepared for our presentation, I was able to rely on my own years of experience leading a web redesign on a college campus. Seriously, I know exactly how this RFP committee feels.

The day before the “pitch,” Doug and I were talking about how overwhelming starting a web redesign can appear. Especially since the typical web and communications teams on a campus are taking on the project work in addition to their day jobs. The decision about engaging the right partner is key. Faced with the same decision back in 2007, I recall a renewed sense of enthusiasm once Voltaire started to explain the mStoner process for web redesigns. It was comprehensive, simple, and made sense. I also remember being impressed that the mStoner team had worked with many, many other colleges and universities. It mattered to me that the four phases of the project – strategy, creative, technology, and training – led to successful websites plenty of other times.

Back to the present. During our trip from the airport, Doug described what we were about to present to the RFP committee as a way to take away the mystique. He said the presentation allows us to “lift up the corner of the carpet and say, ‘See, there’s just dust under there. We’re just going to be sweeping up the dust.’”

It was fun to be the one to talk about the web redesign process with those who attended our presentation. As I described each phase, I explained the activities and results that would occur. As I looked out at the audience, I could see the head-nodding begin. Let’s get started on your project!

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