The skills you need to manage your website: May 27, 2002 issue of New Thinking

May 27, 2002 New Thinking:
The skills you need to manage your website

Website content management

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Books by
Gerry McGovern

Content Critical

Gaining competitive advantage through high-quality web content

The Web Content
Style Guide

The essential guide
for online writers, editors and managers

May 27, 2002

The skills you need to manage your website

By Gerry McGovern

The specific skills required to manage a website will change depending on the type of website. For example, an intranet will have different demands than an ecommerce website. However, there are some fundamental skills that are required regardless of the website. These skills revolve around an understanding of content.

Content is the formal communication of knowledge. The Internet is fundamentally concerned with this formal communication. The vast majority of this communication occurs through the use of text and static images.

Think about it for a moment. What good is email to you if you struggle to get your knowledge down as words? What good is your website if you cannot express your knowledge as words? Words are the bricks that build emails and websites. If you want to manage a website you must be able to master text.

An editor is the person whose traditional job is to manage text, images, and the people who create these. What keeps an editor awake at night? Worrying whether they are getting the right content to the right reader at the right time at the right cost. If you want to manage a successful website that's what should be keeping you awake at night too.

The Internet is undoubtedly different from traditional publishing. In addition to standard editorial skills, you will also require:

A thorough understanding of the organization, what it is about and what it is seeking to achieve.
A sense of evangelism and a drive to convince the organization and external parties of the benefits of the Web. This skill is required because the Web is a relatively new medium and a great many people still need to be convinced of its merits.
An ability to work across departments so as to create a unified and cohesive website that clearly communicates the organization's knowledge.
The authority and stature that will allow you to gain the respect of the departments and groups that you need to knit together.
An ability to encourage and respond to interactivity; from reader feedback to online communities.
An understanding of the strengths and limitations of technology, as it is vital that you have an effective working relationship with the IT department.
An ability to manage the information architecture of your website. You must be prepared to get your hands dirty with metadata, classification, navigation, search, page layout and graphic design.

Does this sort of person exist? Right now, someone with the above skills and experience is scarce on the ground. Currently, the only practical solution may be to nurture someone internally. However, this is an obstacle that can and must be overcome.

As the commercial environment changes, so to do the people and skills that are required to be effective in the new environment. 'Why the traditional CTO is history' was the title of an article by Charles Geoly for CNET on May 17, 2002. In the article Geoly wrote, "As companies face a more sophisticated marketplace, the CTO's role is shifting to include a broader business and financial focus."

On the Web, your role as an editor changes too. However, whether intranet or ecommerce website, it still begins and ends with a mastery of content, and an ability to get the best out of the people who create, edit and publish your content.

Gerry McGovern

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"The term "bible" is now highly over-used in reference to tech books – but if it weren't, that's how I would categorize Content Critical."
Rowan Wilson, Knowledge Management Review

"Content Critical is the best non-technical book on the subject of web content that I have come across to date … For those interested in the ‘change management’ dimension of content and knowledge management, Content Critical may well become the standard text."
Andy Harrison, Content Management Focus magazine

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As the commercial environment changes, so to do the people and skills that are required to be effective in the new environment.

Content Critical is recommended reading at the following universities

Augustana College, United States
Drury University, United States
Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
Indiana University, United States
Monash University, Australia
University of Applied Sciences, Germany
University of Regina, Canada
University of Teesside, UK
Manchester Metropolitan University

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