NIDirect is Northern Ireland’s version of Directgov with the same concept of providing Government information from one main source, rather than citizens needing to understand Departmental functions and structures.

It was a difficult project which seen us migrating content from Oracle to Livelink WCM using Vamosa. The editorial team, franchise managers and content authors worked furiously since the New Year to update every page on the site, a mammoth task which is still ongoing. On the design/development side of things we were challenged so much that the site underwent a complete redesign in just 24 hours last weekend. I’m still working on tidying up code etc but it’s been great to see that the initial feedback we’ve had has been very positive.

Please take a moment to visit and leave me your (constructive) thoughts.

The users of your CMS, your content authors and content approvers are the most important people in contributing to your website. If you have a large scale site say covering 15-20 different departments, the most natural approach is for each area to nominate at least one member of staff to attend training and maintain their content.

Do not do this!

Firstly look at each area. Investigate how often they update their section? Is it daily, weekly, monthly or even quarterly? If you have any area which is update infrequently is it really worth training someone? Perhaps. if they make mass changes but if you’re talking small amendments, take the benefit of my experience and look at other means.

Ideally content management is a tool for non-technical users but that’s an easy assumption to make. Firstly users must have a grasp of website structure. A few years ago I had to deal with a user who knew how to use the CMS but didn’t understand when they needed to create a page and where to put it in the website hierarchy or why they couldn’t link to a document on their hard drive etc. The basic problem was this person was not familiar with the web and quite frankly, was the wrong person to send on the course.

In most organisations there will be a small number of non-technical staff who are quick to learn, they use the web every day and in some cases, run their own websites, blogs etc. These are the people you want to train and take responsibility for more than one area in your organisation. Instead of training tens of people in your organisation, consider smaller, dedicated numbers, people who are enthusiastic and will take your website forward.

I remember talking a few years back to one of our staff trainers who had put through hundreds of people through the CMS course. The biggest problem they faced was that many people lacked basic IT literacy skills. People who couldn’t use a mouse, didn’t know how to cut n paste, were being sent on a course to manage website. Just crazy! But this was all because there was no thought given to a training strategy, no committment from the top to make appropriate resources available, to identify and train the right people.

With the right people in place this reaps rewards for your website, where content is updated regularly, is well written and standards consistently met.

There will be other benefits too as its likely these people will need less support plus individuals can become experts and give on the job training, cutting down on the need to send people on expensive courses.

Consider too giving these people a forum, an opportunity to air their views, share their ideas, concerns as well as good news.