Content management system – TechCommGeekMom

It’s a good thing.

Posted on September 15, 2014September 15, 2014 by TechCommGeekMom

Taken from http://www.today.com/video/today/51786904#51786904 — See, even Martha Stewart needs to take time on her social media accounts.

I know I haven’t been on my blog all that much. What can I say? Life gets in the way. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve had a busy summer, and it is shaping up to be an even busier autumn.

“Why would that be, TechCommGeekMom?” you may be asking. I’m glad you asked.

Work has picked up quite a bit, in a good way. I’ve spent a large part of the summer working on three significant internal websites at work, and they are all near finalization. But the big news is that at the end of this month, I’ll be having training on Adobe CQ5–which is a new CMS for me to learn–and I’ve been given a high profile section of the external website for the company where I’m consulting. This is huge! In all my years of being a content manager/publisher, I’ve only worked on one “standard” CMS/WCMS, namely SharePoint. All the rest have been “franken-systems”. I’ve been told that eventually the company will be moving all its internal content to that SharePoint, but first they have to get all the current sites into the current system before they can make that move. In the meantime, the external site is moving forward in a big way using Adobe CQ, and I’m being brought into the fold with a big project.

There are several things that excite me about this project:
1) I get to learn a new WCMS, and I like the challenge of learning something new and useful.
2) This WCMS is one that will help bring the company’s website into the 21st century–there’s a big push on responsive design, social media, and localization for the website, especially the section that I will be working on. I’ve only been learning about these kinds of sites for the last two to three years, but not being able to put what I’ve learned into practice. Now I can!
3) I’ve been given a preview of how the website will be structured and how the content has been chosen and mapped out. I like the content strategy that’s been decided for the overall project and the direction it’s pursuing.
4) I can’t say what section I’m working on at this point, but when I say it’s a high-profile section, it’s a VERY high-profile section. I’m really honored that the company has asked me to work on building this section of the site. For me, it shows me that they like the work I’ve done so far, and they trust me to make good decisions. That means that it’s a big responsibility, and I can’t be lazy on this project. They’ve placed a lot of trust in me, and I can’t let them down.

So, that’s going to be taking up a huge part of my daytime hours. And quite frankly, work has been exhausting, but in a good way. You know when you have a really good workout, and by the end of the day you feel a genuine tiredness from being physically tired, as opposed to being tired simply because you’ve been up for a while? It’s like that, but it’s mentally. Well, it’s physically for me too, since I’ve started trying to squeeze in actual workouts into my daily routine, too, to try to lose weight since I sit on my bottom all day. Throw in responsibilites for my local STC chapter (which I’m still trying to get a handle on), and mom-related responsibilities–there’s a lot going on! So, getting info into TechCommGeekMom proves to be challenging these days.

I think I earned a cupcake for this--what do you think? Yum...chocolate cupcake.... — I think I earned a cupcake for this–what do you think? Yum…chocolate cupcake….Maybe Martha Stewart can bake one for me!

I haven’t given up on this blog, but being as busy as I am, I’m sure you’ll understand. It was much easier when I started, as I was unemployed with plenty of free time that has slowly diminished as time has gone on once I became employed. Now, I’m taking care of my health and taking on other new responsibilities, so priorities change a little bit. This is still my connection to my tech comm family. And without this blog, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities I’ve had to learn about content strategy or social media practices that I’ll be applying to this project. Like I said, I’ll finally be able to use all the information that I’ve been learning post-grad school from all the conferences and online conversations in practice, and that is exciting to me! The trick for me right now is figuring out how to balance it all effectively, and I’m still figuring that out.

So, if you find that my postings are more intermittant, you understand why. Ultimately, when looking at the big picture of events going on, they are steps in a positive direction. In the words of Martha Stewart, “It’s a good thing.”

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Content Strategy practices are not hard!

Posted on January 30, 2014 by TechCommGeekMom

While I haven’t been an official content strategist/publisher for that long, I actually have been web publishing for a long time now. Over the years, I’ve learned the difference between good practices and bad practices, from experience and through classes and webinars I’ve taken. I’d like to think that from all of this that I’ve learned to be a pretty good content strategist and web publisher. Even so, I still don’t understand why people find content strategy difficult to understand, and why creating a high standard of quality in content strategy and publishing content that’s user-friendly is so difficult. It makes me want to pull out my hair it frustrates me so much!

A recent occurrence of this lack of comprehension spurred my intense frustration again. I’ve experienced this before in many places that I’ve worked, but this was just the latest occurrence that sparked my ire. Among several projects that I’m working on at work, one of them is managed by another web publisher. In our project, we’ve been assigned to revamp a current internal website. Par for the course–this is what we do. The project manager was given an outline by the internal client, along with the main content, which included documents to be linked within the pages. That sounds fair enough. Of course, as most technical communicators know, content written or planned by non-technical communicators usually needs some help to make it more user-friendly. In this case, much of the formatting of the content was…less than desirable. In addition to making the outward facing part of the microsite user-friendly, we also had to make the back end–the organization in the content management system–user-friendly as well, since the client would be maintaining the site after we were done setting it up. This all sounds like a reasonable task, and a technical communicator would be just the person for the task.

However, I found myself frustrated with the process, or rather, the quality of what was starting to go up. The project manager gave me sections of the website to work on and format. I found it difficult to decipher the client’s outline because the outline was written poorly. Nevermind the actual text itself, which wasn’t always well written either. I couldn’t really touch that. The outline was meant to help the web publishers–the project manager and I–understand how the client wanted the site organized. At a high level, the main outline seemed fine, but when getting into the finer details, it easily fell apart for many sections. I often had to consult the project manager for clarification, as I wasn’t supposed to be talking to the client directly, for some reason. Whatever.

The other problem was that nothing was labelled in a way that made sense or was user-friendly for use on the front or back end. I can understand that people have different naming conventions for files that make sense to themselves. But when creating the name of a file that is some sort of document or form to be used by others, and not giving the document a title? I don’t get that. For example, if the document is a quick reference guide about how to use your Lotus Notes account, then the text on the web page should be something like,

Quick Reference Guide for Lotus Notes

and the file on the back end should be called something like, “QuickRefGuide_LotusNotes.pdf,” or something like that in order for the user to understand what they are downloading. The file shouldn’t be called something like, “QFC-LN_ver1_01.02.14.pdf”. Down the road, someone will look at that downloaded file and question what that file is. Wouldn’t it be easier to title the file more appropriately rather than have to open it? I’m sure some would argue something about versioning here, but in our CMS, there seems to be a bad practice of putting many versions of the same document up with different names rather than utilizing the versioning function of the CMS. I use the versioning function on the CMS extensively on the other sites I work on, so this confuses me that others think it’s okay to clutter up the system with many versions of the same file under different file titles.

To add to the grief, the client sent files in zip files which yielded unorganized folders and files as well. In this instance, the project manager would keep the folder convention the client had given, even when it didn’t make sense. When I questioned the project manager, I received the response of, “The client had them organized that way, so we’ll leave it because they’ll be maintaining it later.” NOO!!! The organization didn’t make sense, it didn’t follow the client’s own outline, and complicated the back end so that it didn’t make sense! I am confident that the client just slapped some folders and files into a zip file, and sent it along for us to decipher it. I spent the past year cleaning out another department’s very large microsite doing just this–giving files more appropriate names and creating a folder system that would make sense to ANYBODY going into the site to find the page or document needed that followed what was on the front end. And now, when changes need to be made, it’s easy to find the appropriate documentation.

As I’d do the pages I was assigned to do for this new microsite, it became clear to me that the project manager didn’t care. Granted, it’s a big project, and we want to get it done quickly. It would be easier to be able to merely cut and paste content into the site and be done, but it’s also our responsibility as content strategists and technical communicators to make things easier, more streamlined, more user friendly for both the front end and back end. The mantra for all technical communication is always user advocacy– for all aspects of the project, whether it be digital or print.

This means that there needs to be attention to details, thus the “copy and paste” method of entering content into a CMS system alone is not enough. I used to be known at one job as the “Table Queen” because the CMS used didn’t like the copy and paste of tables from Word, so I usually had to go into the HTML code and fix everything so it displayed correctly–or if I could, make it display even better. Tables are something simple to figure out in HTML, but even so, it was something that other people at that particular job with the title of “web publisher” did not know. (They didn’t even know HTML at all, so why were they called “web” publishers?) It was important to make the pages look consistent and be organized in a way that would allow the users to find information quickly and easily.

In this project, I’ve found that the project manager isn’t taking the lead in setting the standard for the website. I’ve been disappointed that the same standards that I would expect aren’t being displayed by this person. It frustrates me, but like I said, it’s not the first time I’ve encountered this reluctance to make a website work.

Do understand that I’m not a perfectionist. I let things slide to a certain point, too, and post things that are “good enough”. But in the end, it comes down to the foundation of the website. If the foundation and the building blocks aren’t sound, it’s not going to hold up. In content strategy, if the infrastructure of the site isn’t sound, and the content isn’t well defined, then the website will reflect that disorganization.

Content strategy, at its core, is really easy. It’s all about organizing information in a way that it can be easily searched and retrieved. It’s about labelling files and folders so that they make sense. Val Swisher’s analogy about content strategy being like one’s closet still stands at the heart of it. If you can organize your closet and identify the different clothing pieces in order to categorize them, then you understand how to do content strategy. The only difference is that instead of having shirts, skirts, pants, and shoes to organize, you have folders of documents, webpages, and multimedia. The method of making sure that users can find those documents, webpages, and multimedia should be streamlined, clear, concise, and user-friendly. As content strategists and user advocates, it’s all about making sure that what the audience is viewing looks and reads well, and what the content managers can maintain easily.

Ultimately, when creating a content strategy and setting it up for maintenance, do it correctly now, even if it’s time consuming. If for no other reason, it’ll save time and headaches later. It’s not difficult. It’s just common sense.

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TechCommGeekMom’s 2013 Year in Review

Posted on December 29, 2013 by TechCommGeekMom

TechCommGeekMom visits Multnomah Falls during her Lavacon/Adobe Day 2013 visit to the Portland, OR area.

Okay, I’ll admit this is going to be a slightly self-indulgent (and slightly long) blog post. I read something recently that said that there shouldn’t be so much “self-promotion” in promoting your blog. This has always been a blog that not only encourages community, but it also tracks my own journey through technical communications, for better or worse. Taking the time to do the year-end review of what’s gone on in the past year is a good exercise for anyone.

At first, I thought my year wasn’t all that great, meaning that it wasn’t exciting. I hadn’t achieved some things that I wanted to do; I did not fulfill all my tech comm resolutions for the year. But as I looked through photos of the past year on my mobile devices to come up with something to put in this blog post, I realized that a LOT of good things still happened this year.

The year started off with a bang, as I was finally working full-time after a year of unemployment. The new job ended up being a good opportunity. I get to work from home, I’m being paid well (a lot better than I ever had before), and it’s doing something that comes naturally to me–content management. I have had the chance to use my UX and web design abilities during this position, too. Things have gone well enough that my contract has been extended for another year. I know that there’s a good chance that later in 2014, the company I’m contracted to will be switching CMS software, so it’ll be an opportunity to learn a new system and flex those content management muscles. I’m looking forward to it! It’s been a long time since I had a job that I truly enjoyed and feel appreciated for what I do. In past positions, I would offer my suggestions and advice based on what I had learned from my social media connections, graduate school courses, conferences, and personal experience, and I’d be ignored. I don’t mind if someone doesn’t take my suggestion if there’s something valid that will discount it, but using the excuse of “that’s the way we’ve always done it” or “that’s what the end user is used to, so why change it?” doesn’t cut it for me. There’s always a better way. This was the first position that actually gave me a chance to use my voice and makes some executive decisions that would benefit the end user. My manager supports my decisions 99% of the time, so that’s been a huge load off my shoulders. Stress has not been a major issue with this job, and I know I’m fortunate to have made this employment connection.

Having a job, and a good job at that, would make for a good year. But there’s been more.

2013 was the year that I started to go out on the public speaking circuit. It started with my first conference presentation at the STC-PMC Conference in March, followed by two webinars this past fall. Three presentations might not sound like a lot, but considering that I have only presented to my tech comm peers twice beforehand (my capstone presentation at grad school and an Adobe Webinar that Maxwell Hoffmann helped me with immensely in 2012), and all these presentations were STC-related, I figure that’s a pretty good feather to add to my cap. I’ve been told that the presentations were well-received, and I have gotten some good feedback, so I consider that a big success.

I also added an additional writing credential to my repetoire. I started writing a by-line for the STC Notebook blog that started out as a column as a newcomer for the 2013 STC Summit. That column has now turned into a regular monthly column for the STC Notebook called Villegas Views. Again, I feel like I’ve received some good feedback on my writing there, so that’s another success.

I attended three conferences this year, namely the STC-PMC Mid-Atlantic Technical Conference, the STC Summit, and Lavacon (although I was only at Lavacon for a day–hey, I still need to write about that! I’ll try to get to that soon!). The biggest one, of course, was the Summit, which was mindblowing for me. I loved being able to travel, considering I work from home day in and day out. (I’m not complaining, but it was a welcome change of scenery.) Actually, all the conferences were wonderful and overwhelming at the same time, and that sense of feeling somewhere that I belonged was never more evident than when I attended these events. I’m SO glad I did, and that leads me to the last thing that I found to be the greatest part of this year.

While I had started to develop some professional connections in 2012 through social media and through my first visit to Adobe Day at Lavacon in 2012, both social media and these conferences enabled me to expand my professional connections exponentially. However, it became more than just professional connections. I’ve ended up making some fantastic friends along the way. I know most people don’t think of me as being shy or introverted, but I actually am. I’m horribly awkward socially , and I know it. Social media helped with the introductions, for sure. A few in-person introductions have helped as well. I’ve said this before, and I’m sure I’ll say it many times again, but I have found that technical communicators to be one of the most friendly and inviting groups of people I’ve ever met. I have appreciated every person who introduced himself or herself to me in person when knowing me from my blog or a social media connection. I’ve appreciated the friendships that have developed over time from these connections. I’ve loved having some of these friendships with those who are industry leaders develop into mentorships as well. When one of those supportive mentors encourage me or tell me how proud they are of my accomplishments, I want to cry tears of joy. (Heck, I’m crying tears of joy just writing this!) For so long, I’ve felt like an outsider, so to have my professional peers look to me as an equal and show me constant support and encouragment is a huge boost that I’ve needed for years.

This blog has grown, too. The numbers aren’t done for the year yet as I write this, but I’ve added a lot more readers and had more response to TechCommGeekMom in 2013 than in 2012. I’m sure I’ll be doing more celebrating when the blog hits its second “birthday” in March, but for the calendar year, it’s been great. I know I haven’t always been able to keep up with this blog as much as I liked during this year, but I feel like the efforts that were made to grow and expand have been supported by the tech comm community.

So, thanks to all of you for reading my posts either here, on the STC Notebook, or in social media. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me and share ideas with me. Thanks for continually teaching me more about technical communication, and helping me to expand my mind and my understanding of this profession, and teaching me how I can continue to grow in this profession.

2014 is already shaping up to be an exciting year as well. I will be attending three conferences before the year is halfway done, of which I’ll be presenting at two of them, I believe. I know, for sure, that one of the conferences I’ll be presenting at is the STC Summit 2014! That’s a big deal to me. I mean, think about it–only out of grad school two years, and already presenting at the annual Summit? Not too shabby, I would think. I’ll be continuing to write here at TechCommGeekMom, and I’ll still be writing my by-line for STC Notebook, and I’m hoping that there will be some more opportunities to do presentations either in-person or in webinars.

2013 has been quite the year for me…time will tell how 2014 will be!

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Hurry Up!…and Wait

Posted on January 13, 2013 by TechCommGeekMom

One of the things that I can’t stand–and I’m sure I’m not alone in this–is that feeling of “hurry up and wait” for anything. I hate having to rush only to find that I have to wait for a long time. I feel like I’ve been in this mode for a long time, so perhaps I should be used to it by now, but I guess I never am. I suppose it’s part of that “instant gratification” that many expect, and I’m no different. It makes it all the more difficult when it’s something that’s out of your control.

I started my new job on 3 January. It’s good so far. But there’s not much to say, even after slightly more than a week. Out of a week, I’ve only actually worked a day and a half so far. I went to the home office for a half day, and all seemed to go okay, but due to some paperwork that hadn’t been done (not my fault), I couldn’t get my ID card, which allows me to use the company computer and network. Okay, that’s no problem. I had my basic orientation, and then lunch, and then I got to go home early. I was given two business days off, and I was scheduled so that I could go in for another day when I could get my ID done, do some training, get my computer set up, and then I could continue some of my training at home, where I would just be able to start playing with the CMS so that I got comfortable using it before really starting in with the work. The training went fine. The CMS I have to use is relatively straightforward, and I just have to familiarize myself with the ins-and-outs of it better, and become more familiar with the content. It’s an internally created CMS, so there’s no way for me to brush up on it as if it were SharePoint, Adobe CQ, or some other CMS out there on my own. I just have to play with it a bit directly.

The problem that day was that I still couldn’t get my ID card. There’s only one person in the company that makes the ID cards, and she couldn’t be tracked down. We found her back-up, but then he said that the computer wasn’t working right. I felt really bad for my manager, as I could see him keep his cool while simultaneously having his face turn beet red. He was not happy, and I could understand why. He was frustrated. I was too, because I’m just so ready to get started and dig in! But again, it was something that was out of our control, so there was no use in getting too worked up about it.

Later that day, we tried a back door login on my computer laptop that would bypass needing the ID, and allow me the access I needed. It seemed to work so my manager put the laptop on “hibernate,” thinking that the login would hold until I could plug the machine into an outlet at home. Yes, you guessed it, it didn’t work. And to get the back door recovery password again, I had to go through the help desk, and the help desk would email the password to my manager’s boss. The problem was that the manager’s boss wasn’t forwarding the email to me to use. (She’s a busy lady, after all.) I’m frustrated, but again, there’s nothing that I can do. I’ve taken advantage of the time to write an article for the STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter that I was asked to write, and catch up on some curation, but it’s not doing work. I’m not angry at my manager or anything like that. I’m just angry at red tape getting in the way.

So, after all this time, as I said, there’s not much to report about the new job just yet. I haven’t done enough to really get into it to say, “Ooh, this is something that much be a new trend,” or anything like that about content management or content strategy. It’s still “hurry up and wait” mode for me. After waiting a year to get a job, and then waiting more than a month to actually work, I’m just a little frustrated. I like the people I am working with, I like the company so far, and I think I’m going to like the work as well, once I can really get more involved. But understandably, I’m human, I’m tired of waiting, at this point. I wait as patiently as I can, because I know the payoff will be worth it. It’s all out of my hands, and I’m hoping when I go back for training this week, it can all be straightened out.

When it comes to corporate red tape, I know none of this is unusual by any stretch of the imagination. I guess what I don’t understand is how–whether it’s this global company, or any other national or global company that I’ve ever worked for (and I’ve worked for quite a few)–that the process isn’t more streamlined than it is. How many of us have walked in the first day, and the computer isn’t set up, network access administration hasn’t been done, and you can’t get started? Now, on the first day, it is nerve-wracking enough, so it doesn’t have to be the first day exactly, but who doesn’t want a new employee to be able to start immediately with training or doing the work by having everything ready to go? Like I said, I don’t blame my new managers or anything like that. I can see they are frustrated by the red tape as well. It is out of their control as well, and I get that.

I guess the good part is that my new manager and other co-workers are excited to have me get started and flex my tech comm muscles! I think expectations are high, which is a little intimidating and slightly overwhelming, but I’m sure in time, as I get deeper into the actual work, it’ll all become more second nature. At least I have the security of knowing I have the job, and there’s lots to do! I’ve been told that I already have a lot being sent to my company e-mail for things I need to do, and I’m ready to get started! But first, I need that all-critical computer access to the CMS and the network. Until I go back for more training in a couple days, I just have to hurry up…and wait some more.