Who Manages the Content Managers?

The City Web Team trained over 80 content managers to use Drupal at the City of Colorado Springs

What you’re here for

In this presentation we'll explain what our strategy was for getting all of our content owners up and running on Drupal. We'll explain how we approached this training and what we found that worked. Also, we'll report on one full year of running of a Drupal website with content managers from over 30 different departments.

Owen MorrillCity of Colorado Springs

Twitter: @owen_cosprings

IRC: @owenpm3

PS3: delterrin

Tech Writer!

Where this all started for me…

And then…

And now…

Our launch story

What they thought would happen

• Build the site• Dump all of our old content into the new site via feeds• Have content owners fix/update content• Launch new site on January 20th 2014• Shut down old website by December 30th 2014

What actually happened

• Pay for website

• Hire web admin, learn about content strategy

• Train content owners

• Push back go live date

• Pay for upgrades to website based on content owners feedback

• Push back go live date

• Train content owners

• Realize applications won’t be easily replicated on new site

• Push back go live date

• Train content owners

• Never shut down old site

• Pay for upgrades to new site

• Launch new website 5 months after initial launch date

• Run two websites and drink away your troubles…

Why it’s important to invest in content

managers

What’s the cost of content?

About 4 months of extra content work, training, and consoling leads me to the following guess at cost of underestimating content:

• ~37 content owners (assuming 1/dept.)• Average salary of $66,369 (KRDO report for 2012, close enough)• Assuming only 1-2 hours a week by content owners• $32-$64 by 37 employees for ~15 weeks• It cost us about $17,760 to $35,520 in content work • This is an extremely low-end estimate!

Quick side-note

• If content managers are moving to a new CMS, in our case, Drupal, this can cause them to lose sleep over it, get frustrated about it, and even work against the change.• Take time to get them up to speed for everyone’s sake.

Content costs money!

The more it’s neglected, the more it costs.

The three types of content managers

•High ability, high motivation•Long-term caretakers•Grunts

Why was this helpful to know?

• Everyone wants to do a good job•Different types of content managers need different

types of help and information• If they failed, it was because we weren’t able to

instruct them well enough

We believed in the new strategy

• The term “evangelist” had a whole new meaning for me because we had to convince the content owners that this was the correct path to take.

Paul Boag reviewed our site:

They (Headscape) reviewed our site on a request from our vendor • “What makes this website work is the Information Architecture.”• “A relentless focus on the user has led to the Colorado Springs website

having clear navigation and quick access to top tasks.”• “The information architecture shines on this site and that’s why I

wanted to highlight it really. Because I know how hard it is to do that kind of thing for government and public bodies.”

Did this training help?

• Real Estate and the City Auditor (a very small department) came to every training session they could.• Two departments fought back, held off on coming to training sessions,

and even tried to bail on the new site… initially.• The rest fell somewhere in between.

It was nice to have the Mayor behind the project.

Success?

• Their success with the site seemed to be directly proportional to their willingness to communicate with web team.

• All departments are now up and running on the new site!

How we got everyone up and running on the

new site

First off: The web team has rules

Rule number 1: *We* don’t publish anything

“No thank you, please.”

Rule number 1: *We* don’t publish anything• We maintain that content should be owned by the separate

departments.• We can help/assist/hover on content work, but the content owner

needs to be able to do it on their own after we leave their office.• With about 60 active content managers on the site, we can’t keep up

with content, development, contracts, ecommerce, and the rest without help—so we made every content owner a part of the web team.

Rule number 2: It’s our job to help you do your job

“Anything that helps you do your job is part of your job”

-Mike Monteiro

Rule number 2: It’s our job to help you do your job• As a subject matter expert (/content owner for your department),

content managers are the source of information visitors to the site will be looking for.• If their job is to get visitors to the site that information, learning to

use the website is part of their job and; therefore, our job to train them.• Worst case scenario, our job is to get them introduced to someone

(*cough* tech writer *cough*) who can get that information down in a format that visitors to the site can use.

Our job

• We wrote a lot…• Style Guide• Content Management Strategy• Definitions• Content Editor Training• Very basic content models

• We trained a lot…• Individual, one-on-one trainings at their desk• Open training days, all training, all day long, drop-in and stay as long as you need• Monthly presentations, writing for the web, introduce new walkthroughs, etc.

Our strategy for training going forward…• Every month we have a content workshop (ours is the second Tuesday

of every month)• We remind everyone that they can schedule training at any time for

anyone at any place• We write up any documentation, walkthroughs, help articles, or

updates and post them on our content owner section of our intranet

• There’s been talk about creating a content manager course in a to-be-determined LMS later on

This works for everyone

For them:• Content managers regularly reach out for help• People regularly attend the monthly sessions• Content owners know that we’ll respond quickly

For us:• We use training sessions as pseudo-UX testing• We build feature requests from watching and listening, not from asking• Monthly sessions are also deadlines the motivate us

The training program

I hope you all like training, because me and the Sergeant Major…

We love it.

Initial Training

• Classroom with two trainers• One-one-one at *their* office• Online documents• Online videos

“We provide relevant, accurate, and authoritative information”

Initial Training

• Migration deadlines for content • Persuasion without authority• New strategy/direction vs.

entrenched culture

Initial Feedback

• “We want (understand) the old site, just bring that back” • “Wait, content != presentation?”• “Where are my pages?”• “People will be angry if they

can’t find my pages!”• Navigation change was a shock• They weren’t wrong about some

of it…

Drupal, yes, but much more…

• Our training covered how to technically use Drupal to get content out on the web, but that was really just the baseline.

• We realized early on that we needed to train them on how to fit content management into their normal work routine without upsetting the system into chaos (that is, getting calls/meetings with directors and managers).

• Most importantly, we needed them to be able to find their own answers and self-correct.

We gave them a checklist for content…This was part of our response to feedback from content owners:

• Is the information still relevant, accurate, and authoritative?• Has the format been corrected?• Is it properly categorized?• Has at least one other person read through it?• Has it been published live to the site?

We set goals for content…

What’s the content goal for your department?

“Self-service for information, payments, and forms that are easily accessible by our citizens, business partners, and visitors.”

We gave them quick tips to remember…• Categorize correctly• Headings, headings, headings• Split up text—doesn’t matter where• Check your primary category• Work with us if you need to change up categories• Use featured images and videos• Put links and documents on top and bottom—avoid “hiding” them in

paragraphs

We talked about writing for the web…*Owen’s personal caveat about longer content:

“Technical information, processes, walkthroughs, as well as legal information are somewhat defined by their lack of brevity. This is not a

bad thing—imagine getting only half of a recipe because the author figured you wouldn’t want to read all the way through it.”

Nica Lorber from Chapter Three has an excellent article about writing for the web…

We put meaning to the work…

“As a City website, our value is based off of our ability to categorize, organize, and

manage our content.”

This worked!

• The dedication to supporting content owners was almost more important to them as the technical information they learned• We gave them technical know-how as a base and then built off of that

with strategy and goals—once understood, they joined our cause• In fact, the more information we gave them, the more they began

sharing that information with co-workers and management… (Bounce Rate)

Fin.

Twitter: owen_cospringsIRC: owenpm3D.O: owenpm3