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Max Green, Director of Interactive at HMS, discusses his team's digital strategy and new website.
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Digital Roundup LiveSeptember 21, 2012
Max GreenDirector, Interactive Media
Harvard Medical School
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OFFICE OF
Communications & External Relations
Overview
• HMS mission
• Web strategy
• A few issues we’re dealing with
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Communications & External Relations
Communicating the HMS Mission
• The mission of Harvard Medical School is to create and nurture a diverse community of the best people committed to leadership in alleviating human suffering by disease.
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Communications & External Relations
Aspects of HMS’s mission• World leader in biomedical & scientific research
• Excellence in medical education
• Diverse community & inclusive culture
• Affiliate relationships º 17 hospitals & research institutesº Mass General, the Brigham, BI, Children’s Hospital, etc.
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Communications & External Relations
Harvard Medicine’s “personality”
Harvard Medicine is...
•Game changer
•Innovative
•Epicenter
•Nimble
•About serving patients
Harvard Medicine is not...
•Reactive
•Stodgy
•Insular
•Slow moving
•Just an educational or research institution
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Communications & External Relations
Translating the mission into actionable, communication objectives
• Two ways OCER serves HMS missionº Steward its public discourseº Defining & fostering the school’s identity
• Education vs. biomedical research vs. serviceº Emphasis on biomedical research often a priority, even if not
reflected in Web traffic
• Audienceº Internal vs. externalº Includes researchers, students, prospective students, alumni,
donors & supporters, faculty, staff, news media, clinicians, community members, consumers
º Varies by project
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Communications & External Relations
Web strategy• Build HMS’s reputation via multiple channels
• Establish a unified brand identity
• Develop our Web infrastructure
• Use analytics to optimize content
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Communications & External Relations
Web strategy #1: Define & foster HMS’s reputation via multiple channels
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Communications & External Relations
Phase 1 of Web site redesign launched March 2012
• Home page, "About HMS," News, etc.
• Drupal 6 content management system
• Other features: Events, blog, and people search
• Successful launch
• High-caliber Web site completed "on a shoestring”
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Communications & External Relations
Since then we’ve been developing our Web channels
• Web site 202,535 visits/month
• Mobile visits 11.5% of Web visits
• Facebook 42,643 fans
• Twitter 21,178 followers
• YouTube 4,974 subscribers
• Weekly e-letter 26,424 subscribers
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Communications & External Relations
Web team launched “Paper Chase,” which searches PubMed
A section of the HMS Website that collects publications listed in PubMed for HMS, HSDM, and our sixteen affiliates.
Launch Date:Sep 20
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Communications & External Relations
What can it do?Allows visitors to search by keyword or MeSH topic, a technical category system used by PubMed and many medical journals.
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Communications & External Relations
Specialized FilteringVisitors can use the links in the right sidebar to filter the list of results by the recognized top ten journals and by HMS, HSDM, and sixteen affiliates
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Communications & External Relations
Mid-summer: launched HMN e-newsletter
• Harvard Medicine News was created as the new vision of the HMS print newsletter, Focus.
• A more timely publication. News now delivered weekly, not monthly as before.
• A more digestible design than the Focus eNewsletter and widely viewed vehicle for our social media channels.
• Inaugural IssueJun 25
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Communications & External Relations
(An important tidbit: HMS senior leadership are big on serif fonts!)
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Communications & External Relations
Challenges• Designed and built
in-house
• Need to support all major email clients, browsers on both Mac and PC
• Create a workflow that works for both editorial and interactive teams
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Communications & External Relations
The future• Automatically
generated code
• More control given to editorial team in entering articles for layout
• Flexible template to accommodate extra content (i.e.: a third second-tier article)
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Communications & External Relations
Other Web channels:
From 700 to 30,000 fans!
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Communications & External Relations
We’ve had a few experiences with “stewarding HMS’s public discourse”
• Gabrielle - 14 year old freshman
• On August 30th, "Make a Wish" fulfilled her dream of “attending Harvard Medical School”
• Same day, Bloomberg wrote story about primate center issue
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Communications & External Relations
We are exploring social media monitoring process, based on Air Force assessment tool
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Communications & External Relations
One HMS channel that needs a little attention:
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Communications & External Relations
Web strategy #2: Establish a unified brand identity for HMS
• Redesigned HMS Web site creates unified brand
• However, it only extends to top-level sections of the site – “Education,” “Research,” “News,” etc.
• Research department Web sites have different logo treatments, color palettes, navigation paradigms, etc.
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OFFICE OF
Communications & External Relations
Phase 2 of Web redesign project to address research dept. sites• Extend current HMS Web site’s look & feel to basic
research department Web sitesº Multi-site Drupal 7 implementation º Custom logo based on HMS branding guidelinesº Main navigation customized to departmentº 3 banner options and 6-8 custom theme variant optionsº Restricted content areas using e-Commons credentialsº Faculty/student list & detail pages with tagging taxonomyº Trumba for external and internal eventsº Accommodation of existing databasesº Google Search Application integration & customizationº Blog landing pagesº Tag cloud
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Communications & External Relations
Web strategy #3: Develop our infrastructure
• Drupal needs upgrade (6->7) to future-proof CMSº Google Search Appliance upgrade needed to improve relevancy of resultsº Enhancements to Drupal CMS' permissions model & content managementº Implement Kaltura for videoº Optimize content delivery for mobile
• Intranet (“e-Commons”) needs significant upgradeº Content not easily searchableº Not easy to communicate events º Piecemeal workarounds are non-scalable & sometimes non-secureº Content to be displayed publically may not always be appropriate º Causing scope increase in Phase 2 Web project, due to need for restricted
content areas
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Communications & External Relations
Infrastructure development: E-newsletter uses Drupal API to pull content from CMS
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Communications & External Relations
Web strategy # 4: Use analytics to optimize content
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Communications & External Relations
A few issues we’re dealing with• Brand fragmentation & decentralization
• Establishing priorities within budget constraints
• Making data driven decisions
• Best practices for stakeholder approval
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Communications & External Relations
#1 Brand fragmentation: Phase 2 to address “letting 1,000 flowers bloom”
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Communications & External Relations
Trying to sensitive research depts. to untapped potential of their Web sites
• HMS brand doesn’t solely refer to visual aspect of website, but rather a user’s total experience
• All components – messaging, navigation menu titles, imagery & visual design – must combine to form a solution that answers users’ needs
• If users don’t feel a site is meeting their needs, they begin to form negative impressions about the site and, potentially, the institution the site represents
• Web sites should reflect HMS’ commitment to excellence
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Communications & External Relations
By and large, Research Directors seem mostly receptive to switching over
• Incentives we’re pointing out º HMS templates with department-specific logo,
main nav & default searchº State-of-the-art CMS allows for easy updating º Advanced functionality for calendaring, faculty &
student listing, content blocks, etc.º Optimized for mobile, multimedia, social media,
searchº OCER to perform the content migration
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Communications & External Relations
#2 Establishing priorities: How do achieve goals, given budget constraints?
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Communications & External Relations
#3 Data-driven decision-making
• Instant results from Web publishing can be a blessing and a curse
• Still, it seems essential to connect to an audienceº Content is expensiveº Always important to show ROI
• In a politicized, decentralized environment, to what extent are you able to effectively use Web analytics to guide decision-making?
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Communications & External Relations
#4 Stakeholder approval: An ongoing challenge for us
• The Project: Develop a video to accompany Dean Flier’s “Welcome to the New Year” email to the community.
• The Proposal: Produce an engaging piece using the “Sideways” editing style.
• The Challenge: We operate in a complex academic environment.
• Reframing the Conversation:
• How can we encourage stakeholders to embrace innovative storytelling?
• What’s the best way to make the case for fewer content points and shorter videos?
• Do you have strategies for managing stakeholder involvement to keep complex projects moving?
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