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10 Years In The Hole: A Possibly Cautionary Tale About Being A Higher Ed Web Geek
Dylan Wilbanks presented at HighEdWeb 2010 after working in higher education web roles for 10 years. He shared 10 lessons learned over that time. The first was to focus on mission over statements. The second was to love users as yourself by being relentless about improving the web and world for them. The third was to understand your audience, as prospective students should be the top priority. He also learned to use data strategically, find allies to push back on processes, have secret projects but ensure other work gets done, teach others, leverage community help, and love rather than be bitter about higher education.
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10 Years In The Hole: A Possibly Cautionary Tale About Being A Higher Ed Web Geek
- 1. 10 YEARS INTHE HOLE A POSSIBLY CAUTIONARY TALE ABOUT BEING A HIGHER ED WEB GEEK Dylan Wilbanks University of Washington Presented at HighEdWeb 2010
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- 4. Cause And Effect Season 5, Episode 18
- 8. If you couldsend back a message to yourself when you first started in higher ed, what would it be?
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- 10. My 60 sec.CV •August 1999: Join dotcom building site for accountants •August 2000: Quit, join firm doing site internationalization + localization •January 2001: Laid off (company was a Japanese tax shelter)
- 11. June 2001: UW Public Health
- 12. I didn’t intendto stay for 10 years.
- 13. I’m in itfor the attache case.
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- 15. Ten years, tenlessons, ten stories
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- 18. Brand Essence: At theUniversity of Washington, we have it: great minds, fierce passions, creative energy, and breathtaking surroundings. We share Seattle values and drive for innovation with leading-edge organizations that are shaping the world. But in keeping with the spirit of our region, we don’t believe it’s “the having” we should celebrate. It’s what we do with it that counts. That’s what animates our spirit of discovery: our heartfelt commitments to building stronger minds and a healthier world that will benefit all members of our global society, and our leadership in producing knowledge and integrated insights that are changing the world for the better. It’s our responsibility to lead because we can and we must.
- 20. TO CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES,SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE YOU, AND TO HEAR THE LAMENTATION OF THEIR WOMEN.
- 21. GENERALIST http://www.flickr.com/photos/keithallison/3770642647/
- 22. My Job •Web design •Trainer •Web development •Writer/Editor •Information •Technologist architecture •Accessibility •User experience •Social media •Production graphics •etc. etc. •Photography
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- 24. So, what doyou do?
- 25. Lesson: Avoid the identity crisis.
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- 27. LOVE YOUR USERS AS YOURSELF.
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- 30. Be crazy andrelentless about making the web better.
- 31. Be crazy andrelentless about making the world better.
- 32. Focus on whatreally matters: making users happy with your product as quickly as you can, and helping them as much as you can after that. If you do those better than anyone else out there you'll win. Marc Hedlund, “Why Wesabe Lost To Mint” http://blog.precipice.org/why-wesabe-lost-to-mint
- 33. Lesson: Fight foryour users -- accessibility, usability, etc.
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- 37. UW School ofPublic Health Web Traffic by Audience (Based on 2009 Traffic, Not Perfectly Accurate) Prospective Students Faculty/Staff/Students Alumni “Google Noise” 10% 5% 15% 70%
- 38. Prospective students are Job 1.
- 39. Web Traffic byAudience, in the mind of research professor (Based on what professor thinks, from data he gathered from his head) Prospective Students Faculty Alumni Prof’s Research Project 5% 10% 5% 80%
- 40. “So why isn’tmy research project on the home page?”
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- 42. Lesson: Find andbefriend the people that can knock some freaking sense into out-of-control processes.
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- 44. YOU SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH, AND YOU WILL BACK IT UP WITH HARD DATA.
- 47. Lesson: Data can turnarguments, but use like a scalpel, not a hammer.
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- 50. FACULTY http://www.flickr.com/photos/peyri/2518883715/
- 51. If you’re facultyand you’re here today, YOU ARE NOT THE PROBLEM.
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- 55. Having a skunkworks saved my sanity.
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- 58. So long asyou’re getting everything else done, you can work on the secret stuff. Which is what Google does with the 80/20 plan.
- 59. Lesson: Always have secret projects, but the spice must flow.
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- 61. MAKE TIME FOR THE NEW.
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- 64. Experiment with new code,new patterns, new tools
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- 67. Lesson: Try. Experiment. But learn to discern.
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- 69. YOU CAN’T KNOW EVERYTHING.
- 71. “I’ve always thoughtof myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw myself passionately into a sport or activity until I reach 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession and degree of specialization that doesn’t appeal to me.” -- Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing
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- 73. I suck atJavaScript.
- 74. Community lets me overcome it.
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- 77. Lesson: Have your Scoobies.
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- 81. 95% of whatwe tweet are links.
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- 84. Lesson: Sometimes, a little is as good as a lot, and it’s always better than nothing.
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- 89. Teaching meant askingwhy I coded things the way I did.
- 90. <br /> Why aspace?
- 91. Lesson: Those who canshould teach.
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- 97. Tuition revenue hasbeen increasing as state funding has been decreasing. State Appropriations I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Operating Fee Revenue University of Washington Office of Planning and Budgeting
- 100. Don’t let highered make you become bitter.
- 101. Love the web Lovehigher ed Love people
- 102. BUILD THE FUTURE Copyright 1962, The Craftsman Press, Inc. Fair use (non-profit education)
- 103. And let’s stopdoing this. http://xkcd.com/773/
- 104. Thank you. Dylan Wilbanks Twitter: dylanw Email: wnalyd@gmail.com Web: dylanwilbanks.com LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.