The document discusses plans to redesign the Stanford Graduate School of Business website to be more audience-centric, internationally accessible, and driven to engage people around the world. The changes aimed to connect people with Stanford GSB offerings and ideas to drive positive change. However, making these changes required organizational changes and forced cross-departmental integration that created challenges. Specifically, the new design triggered anxiety around redefining content strategies and required the marketing web team to earn trust as they led significant changes.

1. Change a website,
change an organization.
Toni Bird & Sorel Denholtz
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Sneak Peek

2. — Machiavelli*
“There is nothing more difficult to take
in hand, more perilous to conduct, or
more uncertain in its success, than to
take the lead in the introduction of a
new order of things.”
*Yes, yes, we know! It’s a highly relevant quote, even if he isn’t exactly our ideal role model.

3. Vision for the
Stanford GSB Website Redesign

4. To connect and engage people around the world
with Stanford GSB offerings and ideas
so they can drive positive change.
Support the marketing mission
for the school

5. Web Site Vision
PAST FUTURE
Organized by internal departments Organized by external audiences
Intended to inform Intended to drive engagement
U.S.-centric Internationally accessible
Decentralized Coordinated
Flat html pages Shared content management system
Desktop format Mobile responsive
Status quo Innovative

6. Making these changes to the website
forced organizational changes

7. Cross-departmental integration
created stumbling blocks
• Audience-centricity and a shared content
management system required departments to work
together in new ways
• We will demonstrate specific examples and
articulate approaches for anticipating, defining and
managing new working relationships, both within
and between departments

8. New content strategies
triggered anxiety
• Shifting to a site that was intended to drive
engagement, supported by a complex content
management system forced us to redefine the types
of content being created by the school
• This caused stress and anxiety for stakeholders
who were being asked to think differently
• We will share frameworks for bringing stakeholders
from anxiety through comfort — and even getting
them excited about change

9. The marketing web team
had to earn trust
• Asking stakeholders to embrace significant change
presented many challenges, even when our
stakeholders saw the value of the changes
• We will share techniques for becoming a trusted
strategic partner, and show how we led change
instead of just letting it happen.