Additionally, John and I have been working on the new Information Technology website for most of the day. We’ve received a lot of feedback over the past two years from those of you in the trenches and are putting that feedback into practice in many instances. The end result will be an easier-to-navigate IT site dedicated to getting you in, out, and on your way. We’re also using WordPress MU to power IT news, IT outage information, and tips, tricks, and news from the folks manning the Faculty/Staff Helpdesk.

• I went to the Cascade conference and did indeed survive the return trip (those who may have been following me exclusively by way of my work blog would have likely concluded that I met my demise somewhere on I-85 based on my lack of posting).  More importantly, I’ve been able to implement some of the strategies I picked up at the conference in our own CMS implementation.
• Web Strategies added a new member to the team — John Turner.  He comes to the College from several Web startups and is serving as a Webmaster alongside me.  You may have already worked with John on a few things.  He’s a bright guy, with lots of WordPress background, and that’s already been instrumental in several improvements to the blog server that are in the works.  Please note that with the addition of John to the team, it’s imperative that any Web service requests be directed to webmaster@cofc.edu to ensure that we both see them. 
• We moved.  (Yes, again, for those keeping score at home.  )  We’re on the second floor of Bell now, in the 203 suite.  Our previous location on the third floor, while easily accessible, was also not ideal for housing a team of more than two people.  We’re now all together again (John spent his first week and a half or so on the fifth floor) and reasonably settled in.
• I went to ConvergeSouth in Greensboro, NC last weekend and learned of a number of cool tools that we could potentially use at the College to further project our image, as well as enable a number of interesting educational opportunities.

We’re plowing ahead with the Web Development Project.  In case you missed it, check the Web Development Blog for a video of mStoner’s most recent visit to campus, where the new templates were revealed.  (Note that these templates were in a bit of an earlier phase of development; there have been visual tweaks since then.)

There’s definitely more down the pike.  Besides the Web Development Project, we’ve been busy with a searchable course catalog, as well as maintaining the site for educational outreach for NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, which just launched aboard India’s first moon mission, Chandrayaan-1.

Things will be ramping up soon — just stay tuned…things are about to get really exciting. 

I’m looking forward to bringing back gobs of information to help make the College’s content management system really rock out in the coming months. I’ll be blogging the conference here, so stay tuned!

People often ask me what my job’s really like.  I figure the best way to answer that question for one and all is to start a blog that gradually attacks that question.  Life as a webmaster is an ever-changing thing — there’s some new technology, challenge, threat, you name it — EVERY DAY. So, this is where I’m going to chronicle these events, with tips and tricks and some fun anecdotes along the way.

Comments are wide open and will be wide-open throughout.  Blogging is a two-way street, and it’s nothing but a broadcast if you’re not interacting.

So, without further ado…here goes nothing.