Month: November 2015

(watch it online. I may have to do that myself, because reasons.)

these notes may be extra-terrible, because I’m still coming down from my talk.

we (still) need a core content strategy statement. the Origin meals example is really handy.

OMG We could use the audience and goals worksheet to establish a core strategy statement for their site.

Oh hey it’s content strategy bear. “Don’t be this guy.”

“start asking smart questions”

(just start doing the thing seems to be a core theme of ConfabEDU)

talk to the people you don’t want to talk to. if you don’t bring them along for the ride, they might derail you later.

some tools that she’ll try to link to later

the content strategy madlib.

MY PRESENTATION, Y’ALL. (slides on slideshare)

Didn’t faint. [check]

Mic on correctly. [check]

Drank water. [check]

Didn’t lose my place in presentation. [check]

Stayed enthusiastic. [check]

Stayed in time, but not too short [check]

WHEW.

---

Notes [added later]

Something I forgot to talk about that I only remembered later, spurred by Amanda Costello’s “silo” keynote: often we’ve found as we work through the topics that we need to bring in people from other areas. Sometimes sessions have to be devoted to who “owns” which pieces, who’s willing to keep them up-to-date, etc. It’s even happened a few times that people working on overlapping subjects have MET each other at our work sessions.

---

“content repository user experience”

their team is in IT

@esses moved from architecture to web

“we’re all drowning in content”

“improving communication in the middle layers”

building something that will be remodel-able

designed for sharing

phased approach to a shared content repository

they’re on Drupal

during the migration, they worked with editors to at least break existing content into chunks with subheaders and lists. getting the mindset of chunking into people’s heads. (I wonder if that’s an option for the “speed-dating” version)

overlap! allowing people to curate content from a “single source of truth”

started with event calendar & faculty directory (YO THIS IS US)

didn’t need every possible functionality up front, better to go with “minimal viable”

“aiming for gymnist (vs contortionist)” in using Drupal’s flexibility

web averse vs web comfy vs web savvy

I like this slide describing someone who is “web comfy”

before, their training focused on technical

teaches users how to do their

“writing & editing for the web” is part of their training curriculum for editors

now must complete 2-part training: part 1 is writing, editing, taxonomy, editorial strategy, content types; part 2 is technical training.

(totes wanna steal their curriculum)

interesting idea: training on Portfolio?

octopus vs candalabra: I think we’re going to have to split the difference, because of how the information is actually managed. (but I need to figure out WTAF is going on with entry in the staff directory)

need to talk to JM, also, about some of the in-theme author experience issues (tabs, draft pages)

be realistic about bumps in the road

options for personalizing links on audience landing pages, options for submitting events & announcements. as an early phase towards crowdsourcing content.

can filter in events on your page that belong to other groups. (how intriguing)

most of the “sites” that they’re talking about are academic department sites, which is mostly not relevant for us. (and for which I’m often grateful)

“things that are maybe less than optimal”

most of our team agreements are implicit, rare to make it explicit

(I think is something we’ve been working towards in our work sessions)

happy teams: communicate well, share a common vision

unhappy teams have broken contracts (probably implicit)

“what’s their expectation of what I’m bringing to the meeting?”

“curating” the skills of a team — tell people at the outset what you expect

“what if…we put everyone in the room at the beginning!” poor communication, treating people differently, realize who is actually ON the team.

“one of the more insidious problems is failing pretty” – we let it go on too long. people don’t go to the meetings or respond to emails, but somehow there’s no consequences?! but if you’re not talking about what’s going wrong and why, it’s still failing

a really great team where they invented a person to blame everything for. “Tony forgot the coffee. Tony broke the printer. Tony put that bug in the code.”

getting teams to flow: if you’re building a team (hi Susan!) you have a lot of flexibility.

how do we build a team that communicates well?

slide will have book (etc) recommendations

“the invisible, non-work-oriented work of being on a team” – the social part of that, knowing each other as people.

“the fluffy things aren’t fluffy”

(so some of this is actually connecting with things that I’ve been talking about with my therapist, altho in re: social anxiety. weird.)

happy teams are balancing their workloads.

PROCESS.

make your contracts explicit

write down the things that you’re going to do as a team.

what is the goal of our team? might have to a meeting, may discover that not all agree.

the question of tools. “I don’t know anyone who’s email isn’t the bane of their existence”

the process work of putting things together (categorizing, etc) seems like a lot of time, but is really, really, really important. it has to be intentional.

“most people were perfectly happy bitching about their email”

giving people a REASON to use the tool(s)

having a cadance (a pattern of working, agile, weekly meetings, whatever) is important, something the whole team buys into.

conversation with Jared Spool about skills vs roles — what happens when you have more than one person with the same skillset? And in our area, our intentions of what to do may overlap! (UX, Content strategy, etc, etc) you can cross-train with your skills, but who will make the decisions?

not team leader, but process leader; the person who builds a framework to help uphold the contract. to help you answer “are you getting what you need to reach the goal?” and say YES. in Agile the person who “removes the blockers” — neutral faciliation role

what if you’re not the person building or running the team?

sometimes it’s enough to just ask for those things; go in assuming the best until otherwise.

otherwise: be subversive. not talking behind people’s backs, but creating the environment in which you want to work. (which is pretty much what I used to do with Dale)

just start communicating well. be in charge of getting the team to know each other. start asking what the goals are. going out for coffee. being the bridge (my words, not hers).

an introvert who has practiced the craft of networking. her story is sort of the opposite of mine, only in so much as what I’m learning about meeting people I’m learning from someone who is AMAZING vs the cautionary example.

LOL. (I’m starting to think that there’s a lot of introverts who are really into making connections between people who “ought to” know each other.)

[minor personal revelation about previous job and small talk. talk to Oakwright.]

“reset” is probably the best idea for teams that have been working poorly for a while. can you bend the team leader’s ear? “Can we have a check-in on how the *team* is doing?” Every team has something working well, start with that!

forcing ourselves to be intentional (I think that’s one of the overall lessons of this) — “what’s important for us to agree to?” (I wonder if the Social Contract is a good model for this?) you don’t call people out for failing it, but build a culture where that’s just how it is.