As delivered at HighEdWeb New York, June 12, 2015

1. Building Internal Communities
to Support Your Content Strategy
Georgy Cohen
OHO Interactive
@radiofreegeorgy
#hewebnyhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558

4. Building Internal Communities
to Support Your Content Strategy
Georgy Cohen
OHO Interactive
@radiofreegeorgy
PSUWEB 2015https://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558

5. Georgy Cohen
OHO Interactive
@radiofreegeorgy
PSUWEB 2015https://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558

6. What did I learn?

7. https://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558 https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitneyinchicago/3541505856
People liked
being connected
to information,
and one another.

8. It was easy for me to
find the rockstars.

9. I had an easy way
to disseminate
information.

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

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

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

14. “When it comes to content, people are
far more important than software.”
Gerry McGovern
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/decentralized-publishing-equals-amateur-web-management

16. So, what can we do?

17. “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 McGovern
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/decentralized-publishing-equals-amateur-web-management
FROM
THE
TOP
DOWN

18. FROM
THE
BOTTOM
UP
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oimax/2260643716

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

20. Living, breathing,
walking, talking
governance.

21. 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

22. “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

23. Tools of the trade
In-person
meetings Slack Wiki
Mailing list
Facebook
group
Blog
Conference
calls and
video
recordings
Website

24. Subvert
politics
and turf
wars
Don’t
dominate;
facilitate
Making it work
Identify
goals,
make it
relevant
Convert projectteams or drawfrom existinggroups
Showhospitality:Bring food,rotate hosts
Make it
outcome-
driven
Skunkworks?Maybe.
Publishminutes,notes, session
video or PDFs

25. Analytics
training and
reports
Contentreports
Brainstorming
ideas
Projectcollaboration
Share
templates,
techniques, &
resources
Large (moral)supportnetwork
Information
sharing
Pool resourcesforprofessionaldevelopment
Providing incentive

26. Let’s check out some case studies.

29. The landscape at UA
Large and
decentralized
No centralweb shop
Mix of teams
and “lone
rangers”
No contentgovernancein place

30. 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.

31. “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

32. WebTide at UA
Slack, listserv,
monthly
meeting/
presentation
5-member
planning
committee;multiple units
GitHub forcode sharing
Student
mentorship
and campus-
wide training

33. “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

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

36. “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

37. Monthly
gatherings
and Google
Group
Started group by
drawing from active
network users
20-30 people attend
each gathering
(10% of all users)

38. Previewing design
changes helped
earn buy-in
Users’ interactions with
web team were more
positive and patient
Goal: for users to
depend on each
other for support as
well as web team

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

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

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

43. The landscape at OSU
Very
decentralized
Drupalcampus
Lots of
“armies
of one”
Range ofcommitment(full-time to“other duties”)

44. 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

45. “It’s a good way to talk about things
people don’t usually talk about.”
Erin Martin, Oregon State University

46. Drupal Web
Communicators and
Content Strategy
Group at OSU
Organize
around
Drupal
community
2 meetings,
~30 at each,
~56 on
mailing list
Guestspeakers fromother units
Breaking
down silos
with Slack

47. Organize
around
Drupal
community
2 meetings,
~30 at each,
~56 on
mailing list
Guestspeakers fromother units
Breaking
down silos
with Slack

48. Also: OSU College of
Agricultural Sciences Site
Coordinators Group

49. “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.”
Erin Martin, Oregon State University

50. 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

51. OSU College of
Agricultural Sciences
Site Coordinators
Group
Mailing list
(no Slack…
yet)
~30 members(mostly “other
duties as
assigned”)
Plan biannual
and quarterlymeetings
Comms.
managers

52. “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.”
Erin Martin, Oregon State University

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

54. https://www.flickr.com/photos/bexwalton/10133921476
Session video
and slides
archived
2/3 of 250
users have
attended atleast 1 session
From “armiesof one” tofully-staffedunits
“One to
many”
coaching

55. “No one has to do anything a certain
way, but you do have to have the
right outcomes.”
Rebecca Bernstein, University of Buffalo

56. https://www.flickr.com/photos/bexwalton/10133921476
Don’t call it
“content
strategy”
Treat
everyone like
an active
member
Offer lots oftraining andresources
IT/Marcom
partnership

57. 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

58. Another model:
pop-up shops

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

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

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

62. “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/

63. In conclusion:
• It will always start small, but what
matters is that it starts
• A good content community ultimately
serves users at all ends of the process
• Any community requires purposeful
leadership to flourish

64. Thank you.
georgy@oho.com
@radiofreegeorgy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/2459391558
“None of us is as smart as all of us.”
Japanese Proverb