I have a confession to make: I'm not a techie.
I am, though, a tech believer. A tech advocate. A guy who knows enough to be dangerous. A guy who can make the ITS folks cringe with sentences that start with, "How about we try..."
I'm also a guy whose brain seems to have a finite amount of usable space, not unlike a hard drive, and new info that comes in sometimes requires old information to be erased.
That's OK if the erased data is funny lines from season one of "Scrubs" (there are a lot of those). But it's not great if learning new HTML code pushes out rules for proper comma usage when dealing with essential clauses.
It's a bit of a conundrum. I need to talk knowledgeably with ITS folks about improvements I want made to our content management system, but I also need to be able to coach a student intern who has just written a poorly organized story about a Pulitzer Prize winning author visiting Colgate's campus.
I like doing both. If you're reading this blog, maybe you're in the same situation: working both sides of your brain and hoping like heck you retain all you need to retain and jettison the flotsam.
I hope what I write about in this blog will help as you create content, come up with new ways to share it, and interesting ways to keep it fresh.
Let me know what your problems are and what solutions you've come across. And feel free to let me know your favorite lines from "Scrubs." There's always room for at least one more of those.
Comments (7)
You're not alone in the two-brain overdrive, I run into that too almost daily. I read somewhere that writing makes you use more brain power than any other activity, and I definitely feel it when switching from that to a more technical task. I sometimes picture in my mind a juggler riding a bicycle. Looking forward to more blog entries in here!
Posted by 2chey | March 28, 2007 8:27 AM
Posted on March 28, 2007 08:27
2chey:
Thanks for jumping in and letting me know that I'm not alone. I'm thinking of grabbing three oranges and my bike to see if juggling while pedaling is actually possible. I knew reporters in my past life who ccould sit down and hammer out an 800-word story in 20 minutes, and it would be terrific. It's not that easy for me (which is readily apparent).
Posted by Tim | March 30, 2007 7:26 AM
Posted on March 30, 2007 07:26
Tim, I was delighted to read your post as I'm in the exact same situation! I'm probably one of the few web content managers at my organization who can't html if her life depended on it... My favorite opening line as i interact with IT colleagues on whom i have to rely to deliver the "infrastructure" i need is : "Let me see if I understood what you said" as a prelude to translating the conversations to some language that's understood outside the IT world. Amazing what can come out of that process then... Looking forward to your musings.
Posted by Michele Egan | March 30, 2007 11:17 AM
Posted on March 30, 2007 11:17
As one of those 800-word-story-in-20-minutes reporters to whom you refer, I accept your compliment. And as a fellow non-techie writer who has been forced to speak TSL (Techie as a Second Language), I feel your pain.
I've just entered a corporate world that desperately needs to get more from its Web site and intranet, but will need to scramble through acres of bureaucratic land mines to make it happen.
If only we could share frosties via the Blog, we could catch up on a lot of lost time. Hope life is treating you well and that all that gray hair is just an attempt to look older and wiser...
Posted by Bernie Klem | March 30, 2007 12:31 PM
Posted on March 30, 2007 12:31
Thank goodness there are three parts to a good website: content, design & technology. Too bad there isn't always agreement about which is driving. As a content manager (not to be confused with a content management system administrator) I naturally believe content drives design, and technology is simply there to make it all happen. Regrettably, our IT staff disagrees. So they have created a behemoth CM solution that forces my prose into a little window with limited layout options -- unless you are a genius with tables. As one who loves Word, fears Excel and regards Access with suspicion, I have learned how to use shading and font colors to save my readers from a sea of 10 point Arial black-on-white. My dream -- to hand my words and ideas off to a designer and IT specialist and have them appear in wondrously inviting bytes with all the requisite (and only the requisite) bells and whistles.
Posted by Colgate Alum | March 30, 2007 3:59 PM
Posted on March 30, 2007 15:59
My IT staff groans when I come in with my "can't we try..." statements. I'm an intermediate level web designer, not at all a programmer, but ultimately a PR person who has learned tech. And my brain just works differently. They disagree with me that marketing should be one of the functions of a Web site. Their philosophy is that if the customer needs it, they will find it. Mine is that customers may not know we have a solution available for their particular needs until we tell them. Somehow, we meet in the middle.
Posted by Paloma Cruz | April 1, 2007 6:51 PM
Posted on April 1, 2007 18:51
Paloma: If the customer needs it they will find it? They will, on some other institution's site.
Communications/PR/marketing must be in charge of websites because they are the gatekeepers of the information that is being -- or should be -- disseminated. Glad to hear, though, that you have been able to reach some sort of accommodation.
Posted by Tim | April 2, 2007 1:38 PM
Posted on April 2, 2007 13:38