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Recent Articles from the Blog

March 5, 2010

Why You Need a Content Management System

I was asked this question recently and thought I would post an answer here. I’d like to share some core reasons for having a content management system (CMS) as well as one new one that should seal the deal if nothing else will.

Core Reasons

Separation of presentation and content. Design can be changed without touching the content. Content can be added or changed without touching the design. This enables specialists to focus on what they do best rather than having to be a Web generalist to modify the site.
Content management. The eponymous value! Since content is stored as data, the system can provide tools for reporting and analyzing your content across the site which is immensely helpful in keeping content up-to-date as well as simply knowing what you have in place. The more content you have, the more valuable this becomes.
User management. In most systems you can create separate logins for each person who needs to work on the site and limit what they can do based on specific roles or rules. This allows you to move to a model of distributed publishing, where content experts work on their content and web experts work on the overall site.
Dynamic content presentation. While implied by the separation of presentation and content above, I wanted to highlight that this arrangement opens up new ways of driving traffic to content. It allows you to have the site display content based on content data or user data. Think of how Amazon.com shows products related to the one you are viewing on their site as well as suggesting products based on your purchase history with them. This is dynamic presentation.

There is more to it than that (such as web-based systems allowing you to update the site from anywhere) but most features are some mix of the above. Running a site without a CMS today is like writing a book on an old Selectric typewriter. You could do it but why in the world would you want to?

New Reason

Two words: social media.

If you wish to have a site that encourages collaboration, sharing and participation, the main elements of social media, then you will need to have a CMS in place that can sustain those types of activities. In fact, many of the open source CMSs on the market have strong roots in the social media world.

Implementing social media features on a site not built with a CMS of some fashion would be near impossible.

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March 1, 2010

2010 Snowpocalypse Operations Survey Results

Wes Trochlil and I have posted the initial summary of results from the 2010 Snowpocalypse Operations Survey. You can follow the prior link to the document on Slideshare or view it below.

2010 Snowpocalypse Operations Survey Results

View more presentations from David Gammel.

Some of the most interesting things I noted were:

Organizations with extensive staff telecommuting in place prior to the storms did the best at maintaining operations even if the physical offices were closed;
The above didn’t help much if electricity were out at staff homes or they had children or other obligations to take care of due to mass closures;
Respondent organizations did very well overall despite some of the most challenging weather conditions in decades.

We will release more detailed analysis in the next few weeks.

We encourage you to share these results with your colleagues and peers. Use this data to start a conversation about how your organization did and where you can make changes to better prepare for the next emergency.

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February 26, 2010

Preventing Problems When You Leave a Web Designer

All business relationships come to an end eventually. Needs change, goals change, people change. Here are a few tips, learned from helping many people who didn’t do these, to prevent disruption when you decide you need to leave your web design or development firm.

Own the relationships with your web hosting company, rather than going through your web design firm. You must have total control over your hosting environment (servers, internet connection, back-ups, etc.) by having a contract with a hosting company. Worse come to worse, you can have them cut off access for your web firm.
Control your domain names with your own registrar account. Many smaller organizations will end up with their web designer or firm managing their domains on their behalf. To minimize risk, your company should have that relationship with the registrar and have direct control over the domain name settings with them.
Have fresh copies of all web assets backed-up and archived, including data. This ensures you have the raw material of your site and could get it up and running on another host and domain name in relatively short order.

You can’t prevent all problems but the above steps are very prudent precautions to take if you are working with a solo designer or a major firm. Your website is too important to leave it at risk of significant disruption due to a changing business relationship.

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February 23, 2010

Upcoming Appearances

I have a couple of public appearances coming up in DC that you may want to check out.

Improving Your Marketing Through Technology
I am presenting at this full day workshop for association marketers. My talk is about mastering online marketing techniques to grow revenue and improve the value you deliver to members.

I am the luncheon keynote for the Association Foundation Group’s 8th National Conference, being held on May 20, 2010. My talk is titled, “Accelerating Donor Engagement Online and Beyond.”

Hope to see you at one or both of these events!

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February 19, 2010

Snowpocalypse Operations Survey

Wes Trochlil and I are fielding a survey, The Snowpocalypse Operations Survey, to assess how the repeated snow storms over the past couple of weeks impacted your operations, in particular how you think it impacted your external facing services. Our goal is determine the impact and assess what organizations successfully did to maintain or minimize disruption to their members, customers and others.

All respondents will receive a summary of the results from us and access to a later white paper. Complete the survey here and please feel free to share with colleagues at other organizations.

The short survey should take no more than a few minutes to complete.

Thanks!

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February 9, 2010

Work with Your Board of Directors to Formulate Online Strategy: Free Teleconference

The snow must go on! And the show will too. If you would like to attend a free teleconference from David Gammel on how to formulate web strategy effectively with boards of directors and other leaders, sign up now! This session was originally in the line up for ASAE’s Technology Conference, which has been canceled due to an impending ice age in the Nation’s Capital.

Online and On Mission: Work with Your Board of Directors to Formulate Online Strategy

Your organization’s website makes substantial and tangible contributions to the mission of your organization, and your board of directors is a crucial participant in developing a Web strategy that achieves breakthrough results. Identify key questions you must answer when creating your Web strategy, and walk away with proven methods to formulate and launch your strategy with the full engagement of your top leaders.

Presented by C. David Gammel, CAE. Author of Online and On Mission: Practical Web Strategy for Breakthrough Results.

The call will be held at 10:15 a.m. EST on Friday, February 12, 2010. You will receive an e-mail with connection instructions before the call.

You must follow this link and complete the form to receive the conference call instructions. Register now!

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February 2, 2010

Web Career Tips for High School Students

Someone on a list I belong to asked for tips to share with high school students considering a career in the Web. Here were my four tips:

1. View source.
2. Build stuff for your friends.
3. What they teach you in class is always going to be years out of date.
4. If you want to be successful long term, learn the business behind the site.

What would you recommend to the same audience?

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January 14, 2010

My Counter-Rant on Social Media ROI

David Meerman Scott posted a podcast rant against demands for assessing the specific ROI of social media efforts. Here is my podcast push-back on that rant.

Social Media ROI Counter-Rant [2:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In short: Asking how social media can generate value for the company or organization is a perfectly valid question. Any social media advocate or expert has to embrace answering that question if they want to gain support from decision makers. It doesn’t have to be in dollars and cents but it must be answered in the context of how it contributes to the organization’s goals, strategy and operations.

And thanks to David for stirring the pot on this issue!

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January 11, 2010

eReaders and Association Publishing

Reggie Henry, CIO of ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership, posted the following to Twitter this morning:

Looking at all of the e-reader apps at CES just begs the question of when are we going to rethink association publishing…

Interesting question!

About six years ago a board member of a scientific society with significant publishing operations asked me how I thought the Web would change scholarly publishing. I answered that the peer review process was unlikely to go away, unless we change how we do science, but that the medium in which scientific content is published will continue to change over time. In short: don’t abandon peer review but do be very open to changing how your content is delivered.

I believe the same holds for the new round of innovation coming with ereaders and tablet PCs. The core value of association publications won’t be degraded. However, you have to follow your markets in how they choose to access content. If you don’t, you’ll fail to realize a tremendous amount of potential value.

For example, any journal that doesn’t have an online version somewhere (paid or open) has relegated themselves to obscurity at this point.

I expect ereaders and tablets to integrate quite well with the Web while introducing newer forms of content presentation that will be unique to the platform. Therefore, this transition probably won’t be as drastic and problematic as the print to Web transitions proved for a lot of publications, especially if they already have a strong online presence.

What do you think?

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January 8, 2010

Video Interview about Breakthrough Results Online

The folks over at ASAE & the Center just released a video interview with me discussing my book, Online and On Mission: Practical Web Strategy for Breakthrough Results. In the interview I explain what a breakthrough results looks like online.