In my opening talk at IWMW 2010 I was described as a doom and gloom
merchant, with my predictions of large-scale cuts across the sector. In her
opening talk Chris Sexton said we should stop talking about 'economic
uncertainties' as the one thing we are certain of is that large-scale cuts
are on the way - the only uncertainties are when they will arrive and how
large they will be. Chris said we should expect the cuts to be announced in
October's Comprehensive Spending Review. But it seems that the cuts are
already happening - as I learnt from Deborah F's blog post which she wrote
shortly after IWMW 2010:
"After the doom and gloom start to the IWMW event and the later
encouragement that this could be a great time to innovate and to do things
differently [she]returned to work engaged and enthused".
However shortly after she returned to work Deborah was informed that her
"web team was being given to marketing, where there is already a manager".
See http://webpackets.blogspot.com/
I have written some thoughts as to the future of institutional Web teams.
This was influenced by a post on "Death of the web team?" which provides a
UK Government perspective - see
http://neilojwilliams.net/missioncreep/2010/death-of-the-web-team/
I have also just received a tweet from Mark Greenfield who posted a A
Warning Shot Across the Bow back n 2008:
http://www.markgr.com/a-warning-shot-across-the-bow/
We have a vested interest in having a thriving institutional Web management
sector as without members of this list there wouldn't be an annual
institutional Web management workshop event :-) But I do feel that there is
a need for significant changes within the sector in order for Web teams to
survive the cuts and to avoid being marginalised.
Ranjit Sidhu gave a great talk at IWMW 2010 on "So what do you do exactly?'
In challenging times justifying the roles of the web teams". A video (with
captions from the Twitter stream) of his talk is available at:
http://vimeo.com/13543523
Ranjit argued that we should be willing to demonstrate the economic value of
our work - something that we've probably tried to avoid in the past due to
the Thatcherite connotations. However the days of @Education, Education,
Education' are now over :-(
My view is that we need to be more centralised at a national, rather than
institutional level and we need to avoid duplicating work unnecessarily.
For me this means being open when we are developing ideas, strategies, etc.
I wonder, for example, how many people across 160+ institutions are
currently developing new media strategies. How much effort (and tax-payers
money) is being wasted?
Anyway my ideas are expanded in my post at:
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/when-the-axe-man-cometh/
If you don't think my ideas are achievable I'd welcome suggestions as to9
how the sector should respond? Doing nothing isn't an option, IMHO.
Brian
#OK-Blame-Me-I-Voted-Lib-Dem
--------------------------------
Brian Kelly
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, UK, BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: +44 1225 383943
Web site: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/briankelly/
Twitter (automated posts): http://twitter.com/ukwebfocus/
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