which is all well and good, mind you, but somehow it seems to me like they're putting the cart before the horse.
as a tech geek, i know that technology can't replace process. i mean, adding technology where there is no process in place to support it just usually makes things worse. when it comes to choosing technology, i think the main problem in that is a group adopting the technology really has no idea what they want - what they're trying to do in the first place. instead, they just kind of let themselves be swayed by whatever seems "cool" at the moment, or what the latest and greatest is. (remember laser discs? yeah, me too.) whether or not it actually solves the problem they're having can't be determined - they haven't defined the problem or figured out what the heck they're trying to automate in the first place.
granted, mays business school has a process in place. we know what we're lacking...where we could be better. for us, adopting this cms (probably vingette) wouldn't be too big of a deal. we have established content creators and editors and graphic designers. there are some colleges and departments that have student workers or grad assistants doing any of the above. they're around for a year, three or four if you happen to get lucky, and then they're gone. no one knows what they did or why they did it. no one is able to support the things that they did, so they're back to square one with the design, code and content. repeat this cycle year after year, and it's no wonder no one can find anything. add into the mix that we're supposed to be ada compliant, and it's just a recipe for disaster, what with all the java applets and gratuitous flash floating around web sites.
they talk about hiring a consultant, and i want to jump up and yell, 'pick me! pick me!' i see where we need to go...and believe me, we have a long way. but we need to set a process in place. train people on the correct way to use html. train them on how to use css. show them how to create ada and small-cell-phone-and-pda-screens compliant web sites.
without the process, the technology does nothing.
i'm not saying that the process i use is the be all to end all. but i think i have a pretty good workflow going. i think the place we fall shortest here is keeping an eye on pages whose information is going out of date. and redesigning the page and nav system for pages that have overstepped their original bounds. but i still have to evaluate the nav system for those pages by hand. i have to conduct focus groups and talk to my audiences. the cms isn't going to create a great, easy to navigate web site by itself. sometimes i have to wonder if the university it putting a little too much faith into what the cms can bring to the table.
(1) it will update things like enrollment numbers automatically. For those that didn't reference the number properly, we can spider for that number and change it to the <whatever makes that number editable from a single place>.
-uh, okay. sounds good. what happens when that number is actually the amount of students in your college. or the amount of money you got in grants last year? how can it spider for something like that and be sure that it's correct? how can you get people to remember to reference the master page for things like that - especially if they're professors who are lucky to know how to use word?
(2) it will create an image repository so /everyone/ can use the pictures!
-um, yeah. what if i don't *want* people using my pictures? what about photo releases and graphic designers' and photographers' rights? i hate to think what the current process looks like, much less throwing things out on the web for a huge free for all.
(3) it'll cook breakfast for us!
-what if i'm a vegetarian? don't like eggs? wheat-intolerant? don't eat breakfast at all? well, maybe not, but you get my drift...
what happened to all the project management and requirements elicitation professors? why don't we get them involved? here they teach us all these great tools - how to determine what you need, how long it'll take to get there...and we aren't even utilizing them, our own resources. hmmm. academia.
Posted by kendra at November 19, 2003 01:24 PM