Personnel

Ted's comments on Web Director

While the delivery platform and CMS are important to get sorted out, it is much less important than to identify a Web Director and Editor for the site.

This role is not a technical role as much as it is being a champion of the content. Content is king, not the technology to deliver it. And that is the most significant problem with the current Website. It is just a haphazard arrangement of stuff that is not well organized (from a user perspective) that also looks unprofessional in appearance. A slick CMS will not solve that problem, nor will having lots of folks in AECT contribute their pieces via a CMS.

There HAS to be someone who is the champion of the content, who keeps on top of the whole site, and who really cares how it communicates -- the content, the content, the content... And who is king or queen of the information architecture and has the power and ability to control that architecture based on its usability and needs of the target audiences. AECT has never had such a person. This is NOT a programming or Webmaster position (what Larry Vernon does mostly). This is not a graphics designer. This is a Web Director and Editor.

I do not see this effort succeeding without this kind of leadership. It needs to be recognized in a significant way. I know that financially right now AECT is not in a position to hire a Web Director and Editor. But finding a solution to this role is vital.

The closest analogy is an editor-in-chief for a newspaper or magazine. We have editors for TechTrends, and for ETR&D. These are significant roles for the AECT organization which are taken seriously and regarded highly. There is no such role for the Website, which is far more visible than either of these two pubs. This is ironic and unfortunate, especially for an organization that purports to be about communications technology.