Busting Silos with a Student-Centric Website

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Jaime Hunt: Hi, I'm a higher ed CMO and I have a confession to make. I have been through at least five website redesigns over the course of my career. And honestly, thinking about doing website redesigns makes me a little bit weak. Um, the thought of going through the process again is absolutely exhausting, and yet it's something that we do year after.

[00:00:22] Um, we have to refresh our websites. We have to change everything that we're doing in that space, and I think it's also an opportunity for us to look at breaking down some of the silos across our organization. And that's why I'm really excited about this week's guest, Kimberly Osborne, who's gonna talk about some of the ways that she restructured their website to be a really student-centric, student-focused website that serves the audience rather than following the hierarchy.

[00:00:50] The organization, which in her case is UNC Greensboro. So I hope you enjoy this week's episode.[00:01:00] 

[00:01:10] Welcome to Confessions of a Higher Ed cmo, the podcast design for Higher Education marketers. I'm your host, Jamie Hunt, and I am so excited to have this opportunity to share insights and inspiration with Confessions of a Higher Ed cmo. I'm designing a different kind of podcasting experience. With each episode, I'll be bringing in a guest for a deep dive into the challenges and joys we all face in higher education marketing.

[00:01:36] After each episode, you can join the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag higher ed cmo. I would love to see this become like a book club, but for a podcast. And be sure to follow me on Twitter at at Jamie Hunt i m C, that's J A i m E H U N T I M C for more opportunities to connect.[00:02:00] 

[00:02:03] I am so happy to be here with my old friend, Kimberly Osborne, who is the Associate Vice Chancellor of Integrated Marketing Communications at U N UNC Greensboro. Hey Kimberly. How are you? 

[00:02:14] Kimberly Osborne: I'm good, Jamie. How are you? I'm happy to 

[00:02:15] Jaime Hunt: be here. I am. Great. I'm happy to have this conversation about, um, the N C G website and the approach that you've taken to that project.

[00:02:25] but first, can you tell us a little bit about your higher ed journey? 

[00:02:28] Kimberly Osborne: Sure. It's, I think it's a unique journey. I actually started right outta college in entertainment television, but had always wanted to go into broadcast news. And so that was only like a six month stint and then spent, uh, about a decade in broadcast news.

[00:02:43] And, uh, certainly earned my masters in integrated marketing communications and went to the quote unquote dark side and, um, started to work in government. I worked for the Department of Revenue in the state of West Virginia, and then I was recruited to be the press secretary for Governor Tomlin when he was [00:03:00] serving in that role.

[00:03:01] And from there I left and went into higher education. And so I. , um, I think I forget how many years at, uh, West Virginia State University. It's an H B C U in the heart of West Virginia. Uh, then came here to UNC Greensboro back in 2017. And so I've always been in communications, marketing, PR roles of various areas.

[00:03:27] Um, but uh, I really enjoy Greensboro. It's a beautiful town and, uh, work with some really, really great people. That's awesome. 

[00:03:35] Jaime Hunt: And I. Met Kimberly when I was at Winston-Salem State, which was just down the road from U N C G. So it's been great. I guess we've known each other for about six years now that Yeah.

[00:03:45] Yeah. That time flies. Time flies, . Everything from 2020 before 2020 feels like a lifetime ago. It really does. 

[00:03:52] Kimberly Osborne: It really does. 

[00:03:53] Jaime Hunt: Yeah. Yeah. So U N C G recently launched what you're calling the quote unquote, next [00:04:00] generation. Can you tell me a little bit about what you mean by that? 

[00:04:04] Kimberly Osborne: Sure. We call it the next Generation website project because it was much more than, Hey, we need to redesign our website.

[00:04:12] Right? We, um, created a design system. We were impacting 400 websites that the university has, cuz the university never has one. It has, we have about 400, um, and we were organizing. Based upon the user need, not the business structure. And our website, um, had been the way it was for at least 10 years and was the old style where, you know, we were really cut with our borders.

[00:04:42] We couldn't go full screen, and we were organized based upon our internal business. We were not organized in a way that would actually help the end user, in this case, prospective students first, not only, but prospective students first to navigate their way to learn about the university and to [00:05:00] be able to acquire the knowledge that they needed by visiting the website.

[00:05:03] So we needed to call it something substantial cuz if we just said website redesign and then started pulling on and, and bringing people together, they'd be like, why am I here? I don't do design, I don't do. And so we had to pull folks into this website world. Um, many of them who really hadn't been there, you know, they might have said to a colleague, Hey, can you post this on our website?

[00:05:27] But they were not in the day-to-day, like, how should we organize our website? So we had to do a lot of education and we felt we needed to note we were decentralized, uh, web presence, uh, which is not uncommon in higher ed. Um, but it was pretty. And we found other folks on campus saying, we wanna be more dynamic, so we're gonna use this plugin and we're gonna do this and we're gonna do this.

[00:05:51] And very quickly that decentralization, uh, of things started to impact the brand. Um, you know, [00:06:00] as you know, brands more than colors and logos. Yes. Um, but we found ourselves going, you know, a student who's coming in might go from this website to another, and it looks like it's at a completely different school based upon the experience they're having.

[00:06:14] So when we said we need to, we need to hone this in, we need to create something that an average person can use. You don't have to be a program. to put up a website and a webpage. Um, and we really looked at it and said, you know, what are the elements that we need? Whose input do we need? And, and we, we attacked it.

[00:06:32] We were very, very, um, you know, robust in our effort. . Um, and there's a lot of lessons learned through that. Um, but, but we, we really went for it. You know, our, our chancellor often says, I'd rather you take a giant step and a leap and miss than just go for a 1% increase. And we. . We really, we went for it. Um, and I'm proud to say we, we pulled it off longer than we anticipated, but we pulled it off and [00:07:00] we did that because we had the support of the, the entire campus community.

[00:07:03] So 

[00:07:03] Jaime Hunt: this is really a fundamental re-imagining of the website. Mm-hmm. . And in a former life, when I was, um, the director of Web and Interactive Media at Radford, we tried to talk to people about how the siloed way of structuring things, um, is just not serving our audiences. But having been through at least five website redesigns in the last 18 and a half years, that's always where people end up wanting mm-hmm.

[00:07:33] like that's the, that's the structure they can picture. And it's like nobody's gonna look for, um, I'm just gonna throw out a hypothetical, but let's say campus police reports the chief of staff, that it doesn't make any sense for you to have to go through the Chief of Staff's website to get to campus.

[00:07:50] how did you have that conversation with your end users and with your, um, the departments that had websites? 

[00:07:57] Kimberly Osborne: Sure. Um, well, I think [00:08:00] we, we started at a good place and a colleague, I'll steal his, his words, he said, you know, we had a, a lot of people in the room who wanted to do the right thing. Hmm. Whether or not we agreed what was the right thing, , that's, that's, that's where the rub comes.

[00:08:15] Um, but we kept coming back to, we knew the enrollment cliff was. and it was, this website is not serving our prospective students well. So how do we serve our prospective students well? And when we would have that conversation, it would make sense. People would nod their heads and they would say, okay, yeah, we, we need to do that, but I also want this

[00:08:37] And it was, it wasn't an immediate No, it was, okay, let's put that on our list. Let's see how else that comes up. Let's see, where can we use. Um, because if multiple people wanted something and it did meet the need of the prospective student, we did it. At the same time. I've heard, we almost went too far in that direction because I've heard people say, [00:09:00] well, you know, we, we can't do this anymore because the website's not for Stu, our current students or the website's for faculty, and I would have to hold the reins and go ho on a second.

[00:09:09] I said, his prospective students first, not only. . And so we really, you know, coaching them through the content, coaching them through, um, the information architecture. That was probably one of the biggest challenges was to really wrap their minds around. Because you work in your unit and your silo, we have to think about how your services, especially for students that might be under the division of student success, Also connect with what's happening in the academic colleges and such.

[00:09:40] And so once we had the information architecture set, we pulled, um, a content team together. And this was more than a hundred roles across the university. And I say a hundred roles because some people were. In multiple areas on the website, we knew we not needed their knowledge in multiple areas. So based upon [00:10:00] the information architecture, we set up a team that handled admissions.

[00:10:02] We set up a team that handled campus life and resources. And for some folks, this is the first time they were talking to each other. where, you know, campus life and resources is all this. And this is everything from, as you mentioned, police to student health to mm-hmm. housing and residence life to, um, you know, making reservations at the student union.

[00:10:24] So we really pulled those groups together and that's how we, we tackled it, is we really separated it. Um, I hate to say it, but by silo, by the information architecture of the site. And we appointed a person within either university communications or an expert in that field to lead that team. So for instance, for campus life and resources, um, we called them content liaisons.

[00:10:46] Our content liaison was over student affairs. And so she knew most of the people. Um, Um, admissions of course, was led by our director of admissions, uh, marketing and communications. And so she was pulling [00:11:00] together the online team and the graduate team and the undergraduate team and the international team, and that's how we were, we were able to survive because throughout this all, we started in March, 2020 and, the pandemic came

[00:11:15] Jaime Hunt: Right, right. Just, and one or two things 

[00:11:17] Kimberly Osborne: happened. Just a little thing. We kept going. Yeah, we did the infor, we did the site audit, we did information, a, uh, architecture, focus groups and stuff all through. video conferencing and we kept going. And um, then, you know, the great resignation came and that impacted us as well.

[00:11:33] Some people who started with us did not end with us. And you know, when we launched I was sending notes going, Hey, it's up. And they were excited to see what their work was. Um, but it was, it was a challenge. It really was. . 

[00:11:46] Jaime Hunt: Yeah. We had one or two other things that we had to do during that. That Just a little.

[00:11:50] Just a little bit. Just a little bit. . Wait. You mentioned earlier the enrollment cliff. Is that a big piece of why you were focusing on prospective students or what [00:12:00] led to that 

[00:12:00] Kimberly Osborne: decision? It was a big reason why. . Um, we, we know, and you can look on, you know, I can name drop a bunch of vendors that study how students find their way to, uh, institutions and where they do their research.

[00:12:14] We, but, you know, without dropping names, we know it's social media, we know it's website. Mm-hmm. , we also know what's word of mouth. Um, but those are huge. And so, Our website we knew was something that was not up to par. It was not modern. Um, I remember distinctly sitting in a, a meeting of a governance group over our web and mobile operating, uh, options that we have here at the university, and I said the one thing I want us to keep in mind is we go through this project.

[00:12:42] It is not the end user's responsibility to understand our bus business structure in order to navigate our website. 

[00:12:49] Jaime Hunt: That right there is an amazing. That I suspect many listeners are gonna write down. I 

[00:12:55] Kimberly Osborne: said it twice in the meeting, , and I said, and if I have to put it up on a banner, you know, [00:13:00] as we meet, it's not the end user's responsibility to understand your business structure in order to do business with you.

[00:13:08] Jaime Hunt: Hey all. I hope you're enjoying this episode of Confessions of a Higher Ed C M O. I wanna take a moment to thank my friends at mindpower who are making season two of this volfi podcast. Possible. Mindpower is a full service marketing and branding firm celebrating nearly 30 years of needle moving thought, thought-provoking, research, fueled creative and strategy.

[00:13:28] Mind power is woman founded and owned, W B E N C, certified nationally. And serves the social sector, higher education, healthcare, nonprofits, and more. The mind power team is made up of strategists, storytellers, and experienced creators from market research to brand campaigns, to recruitment to fundraising.

[00:13:48] The agency exists to empower clients, amplify brands, and help institutions find a strategic way forward. You can learn more about their work in the world by heading on over to mind power. That's M I N [00:14:00] D P O W E R I N c.com. And be sure to tell the crew that Jamie sent you their way. 

[00:14:08] Kimberly Osborne: I think that there was silence in the room when I said that.

[00:14:10] At the heart of it, that's what it came down to. And so we knew the enrollment cliff was coming. We also knew we were already behind in terms of being a modern website. We're a modern university, diverse, inclusive, you know, we, we have es. , you know, and that's an academic program. Like we, we are innovative, but our website didn't, didn't, didn't reflect that.

[00:14:33] And so people knew that. People knew that and they knew how important it was for an enrollment. And so, and, and many of our folks even on campus have family members or friends and family and such that would say, you know, it's hard to figure out UNC Greensboro's website. Yeah. And so just having that internal know, Really put the step forward to say, all right, we've got a lot of people who wanna do the right [00:15:00] thing.

[00:15:00] What is the right thing? And if the right thing is, you know, no one, none of us are here without the students. So we have to put our best foot forward for our current students. , but most importantly, our prospective students, so they understand the U N C G experience because once they get here, you know, they love it, they know it.

[00:15:18] Right? And many institutions feel that same way, but it's getting that first impression. And our website was not making a good first impression. 

[00:15:26] Jaime Hunt: Well, and it's often the front door for our institutions. Mm-hmm. , the, for our institutions, the first place people go. Yes, we have, you know, we're at similar size institutions right now, you know, around that 25,000 student mark.

[00:15:39] Yeah, there's thousands of stealth prospects that you do not hear from. Mm-hmm. , um, until they apply who are doing all their research on their website and on social media and all of that. But if your website is not telling your institutional story or doesn't reflect who you are, yeah, you're gonna lose those, some percentage of those students and you, because you don't know who they [00:16:00] are, you can't convince them with other means.

[00:16:02] Mm-hmm. , you know, email marketing. Or targeted ads or any of that. 

[00:16:06] Kimberly Osborne: And I think, Jamie, I'll give you an example. One of the things, um, that we were talking about was we were really bringing admissions into the fold, into the website. Cuz we really, it was, it was a small website and that you could maybe go three clicks deep and then you were, you were off.

[00:16:22] But there wasn't that much content on those three clicks. Right? A lot of it was just links and such. But when we're talking to our folks with admissions, um, they said, you know, we, we really need to improve our program pages because that was something they did and we wanted to bring it into the, the main website.

[00:16:38] And so I went to a group, um, that we, uh, call our cross-functional marketing communications team, and that is every unit on campus business unit or college and school that has a communications director and. Fluctuate. You know, are they more marketing? Are they more pr, are they more, you know, talking with students, but brought that team together and said, this is what [00:17:00] we need.

[00:17:01] We need robust program pages that admissions has, but we need them here and we need to rebuild them and we need to funnel, um, through forms to admissions. They started with a new, uh, crm and again, it was another time where there were silence in the. and I let them come to the conclusion of, we need to do this.

[00:17:25] Mm-hmm. , we collectively need to, that's awesome. Do this. And so all of a sudden it became our College of Visual and Performing Arts, director of communications was working with faculty to say, you know, okay, all of our programs, this is what we need. We set up a template and we said, here's, you know, we need the headline.

[00:17:43] We need your meta des. We need your image, um, we need you all texts for that. Like went down in the weeds and we taught our comms directors and our content team, and then they taught the faculty, this is what we're looking for. And now it's one of the, one of the most [00:18:00] challenging sections of the website.

[00:18:01] Still could use some improvement, but it's probably the biggest piece that I'm proud of is when folks will come to that, they will see this is what this program's about because the colleges and schools have the department of. Mm-hmm. on their website. Yeah. But that's, that is, Hey, this is what our faculty are doing that is, Hey, current students, you can come here that is not prospective student.

[00:18:23] This is what you're gonna learn. This is what you could do with a degree for your career, and here's how to find out more information. So we worked on that and it's, it's, um, we're really hoping that that section, um, is loved by prospective students as much as we love it. I, 

[00:18:39] Jaime Hunt: I can say from experience. At my last two institutions, that program page, landing page was consistently in the top 10 and often in the top five most visited pages on our website.

[00:18:53] Cuz that's what students want to know. Do you have the major? What do the classes look like in that major? What can I [00:19:00] do with that major? And they don't want to wade through, to your point, departmental structure or to even have to guess that the Department of Political. Has the major in criminal justice or, or fill in the blank.

[00:19:14] It's, I love what you said about not expecting the end user to understand your structure. That is such a big problem I see. With those college and departmental websites. Is it, they have the curse of knowledge and our perspective students don't have that knowledge. That's why they're there. 

[00:19:32] Kimberly Osborne: Yeah. They're, they're starting with, I would like to go to college.

[00:19:35] Yes. And I have no 

[00:19:36] Jaime Hunt: idea anything else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's exciting. . So did you have any challenges convincing faculty about those um, program pages being necessary? Cuz I can say I have in the past, had those challenges. 

[00:19:51] Kimberly Osborne: Um, I think we did, but I think once we were able to put forward like a pilot and to show folks, this is what we're talking about, [00:20:00] and that's, that's a key piece was that we communicated regularly where we were.

[00:20:05] Um, sometimes it was every two weeks, sometimes it was once a month, and it went through our internal newsletter and we showed people, Hey, here's the designs, here's what we're doing now. Um, and here's why we're doing this, and who to work. So we tried to be very transparent, um, through our, you know, campus, uh, eNewsletter.

[00:20:24] Um, and, and for the most part we didn't hear that much faculty asking, you know, why it was more, what's the difference between that page and my department? Does that mean my department website's going away? And we were booked to say, no, it doesn't mean your department website's going away. In fact, we want you to put a link to your department website on here because if you get a student who really wants to learn.

[00:20:47] Political science. Put a link to the department there so they can dive in and learn about the great expert faculty we have. What you're doing, because we also know that's a huge piece for a lot of students is to look [00:21:00] at, I wanna learn from somebody who's the best. Yeah. So where can I find that they're the best?

[00:21:05] And that's on the department website where they put information about different opportunities that are going on for our current students to really give them a, a glimpse at that. But our first piece is here's the program and here here's the high notes, right? Mm-hmm. , it, it's real, it's high notes, but it's also linking them off to the application, licking 'em off to the department.

[00:21:25] And we often, uh, also do, um, similar. Mm-hmm. , because we find a student who's like, I think I wanna go into nursing, but what if I don't pass whatever, you know, credentials? Can I still do some sort of health career? And so we have similar degree offerings on that same degrees and program page. 

[00:21:44] Jaime Hunt: That's awesome.

[00:21:45] I think, um, a lot of times the department websites can kind of dump content in, like the catalog. Mm-hmm. , we need to have all this information for. Accreditation or for whatever that content does need to exist, but a student [00:22:00] doesn't necessarily need to read all 28 course descriptions, um, to get a sense of whether they want to attend college at U N C G or, or anywhere.

[00:22:10] We 

[00:22:10] Kimberly Osborne: had a big conversation, uh, with our deans, uh, provost counsel about, well, but the, the. and yeah, we had some folks very, some very adamant folks who agreed with us that the catalog is necessary. It's necessary for accreditation, it's necessary for students, but it's a business function. It's not a marketing tool.

[00:22:32] But at looking back, Dean said, I want control over what is said on the Degrees and Programs marketing page. And I said, you will. But there are also some things that enrollment has to have on that page. So we would bring the enrollment team together and the college and school team together. , we try to standardize certain, certainly.

[00:22:52] So that way, again, when the student is coming to check something for nursing or check something for kinesiology, they're understanding the [00:23:00] structure of that page, even though two different people wrote it. Mm-hmm. and two different colleges. Um, but it's got some key things on it that every student would expect.

[00:23:08] The apply button, the department button, those kind of things. So it was a challenge. That was the biggest part. And, and Jamie just so. , uh, to put it into perspective, um, that part of the website alone, I believe off the top of my head, was more than 400 pages. Wow. So that was, that's a lot of programs. That was Well, so, 

[00:23:28] Jaime Hunt: and 400 conversations.

[00:23:30] Yes. 

[00:23:31] Kimberly Osborne: Plus plus. And so that, so that was just one section of the site that was in all the other, other areas. So that, that explains why it took us from March, 2020 to December. 22, uh, to launch. Um, but, but I think it's really, uh, in the end a lot of people doing the right thing. I think we got it. 

[00:23:53] Jaime Hunt: I was in a meeting just yesterday where, um, somebody mentioned that we have over 110,000 [00:24:00] webpages on our website, and I just, it, it puts this feeling in my chest.

[00:24:07] We need to look at every one of those and see which ones are still relevant, which ones are working, which ones aren't. Can we just like say this, all pages that have had fewer than 10 visits in the last year, we just cut them. You know? It's a daunting task to tackle a complete redesign. Was your site a complete redesign or did you re-skin anything, or were you moving everything manually into.

[00:24:31] New system. How did you do 

[00:24:32] Kimberly Osborne: that? We changed everything. Um, the entire information architecture changed, so we, we rewrote every page on that, and it was a decentralized rewrite, so what that required us to do was to get training and training for all those writers. So we had training on. Search engine marketing, search engine optimization keywords.

[00:24:55] What makes good content, what doesn't make good content? We really tried [00:25:00] to make sure that, um, we had what students needed. One of the things that we did before we started the project was we created a committee, the web and mobile operating committee. That's the governance committee, and then we created the team.

[00:25:15] This was a team that was led by myself and a colleague at a university communications and the university webmaster and its project manager. It was four of us leading this. One of the things that we did was we started about, uh, writing up procedures for content life. Um, when do we, we talk about when do we sunset?

[00:25:34] Mm-hmm. content. Mm-hmm. , we don't talk about archiving it. We don't know. How about taking it down? We just say sunset. That seemed to be a word that people could mm-hmm. could g get grasp. And I actually pulled from my West Virginia State days, um, it's a one sheeter content audit and asked people to look at that.

[00:25:51] So we started at, um, providing everybody what we called the. , which was, we're gonna, [00:26:00] its would scan your website and say it's an Excel spreadsheet. Look at this and tell us, is this redundant? Is this outdated? Is this trivial? And then do you wanna keep it as is? Do you wanna keep an edit? Do you want to remove?

[00:26:15] And so we did that for many of the places that we were pulling into. And now units are doing that on their, on their own sites. Um, but it's. to sit there and say, do we really need all these 110,000 pages? Um, the answer most likely is no. Mm-hmm. . And I also think, Jamie, you know, um, not only traffic, but like your broken link checker mm-hmm.

[00:26:38] if you ever saw your broken link checker and how many things have broken links, it's, it's like a knife to the heart. Um, so yeah. You know, we're working through those things too. But, but having that structure in place, we've, we did not really content audit what we. Um, I expect a year after launch we will enter our contact content audit phase, where we're really gonna [00:27:00] rely on people to say, okay, are you using periods with PhD or not using periods with PhD?

[00:27:05] How are you writing your phone numbers and, and that kind of thing. Um, it's kind of a one step at a time, but it's a, a step that takes like a year. Yeah. , uh, um, but there, there's a lot of, um, looking at the data. Do we really need this? Is this the information for the intended? And there were some things on the site, let's be honest, that we have to have on the site for accreditation purposes.

[00:27:28] Yeah, right. We know there are some of those things, but again, it's prospective students first, let's get what we have to have on there. But perhaps that's not the first. It's not in the ia, you know? Yeah. It's not in the top menu. 

[00:27:39] Jaime Hunt: I think the idea of creating program pages helps get around some of that stuff.

[00:27:43] Like you have the pages that are marketing E and then you have the pages you have to have. One of the things that nobody reads, but it seems like you have to have her dean's messages. I, I love you deans. I, I, I cherish my relationship with deans, [00:28:00] but, um, no. 18 year old is reading a Dean's message. No one in the world.

[00:28:06] So now that you've launched the website, what's the feedback been like? You launched a couple months ago, right? In December. We launched 

[00:28:13] Kimberly Osborne: a couple months ago, um, right around the holidays. So most of our, our students were gone. Faculty were gone and, and that was also a request cuz at one point, you know, that date moved several times throughout this project and we heard from faculty said, please don't make us make this move in the middle of the semester.

[00:28:29] And so we, we. We launched December 19th. Um, there was a couple of bets going on that, um, but we did launch. There was the, the, the infamous, you know, do we go, do we not go a meeting on a Friday before the Monday launch? And we would go, go, go everybody around the table. Um, but the reaction has been a little of, um, you know, we were afraid it was gonna be, I can't find this, or I can't find that.

[00:28:54] And, um, you know, when you're thinking about the information architecture and you're doing a complete web [00:29:00] redesign, you really hold your breath for those because did you miss some sort of intuitive piece that people use every day that they can't find? Is your, did you miss the mark? Um, and I'm proud to say I don't think we got a single one of those.

[00:29:12] Wow. I think if anything it might have been how do, how do I find this? And it's like, okay, this is a dropdown. You just missed the dropdown. Oh, mm-hmm. . Got it. Um, So far, so good. Now instead we're hearing when can I go next? We, from the units we're hearing from the schools and, uh, information technology services is working with them to coach them up on what do they need to do and when will they be ready, when will its be ready and, um, rock it out.

[00:29:43] So they're, they're hoping to launch a pilot group, um, because now it's, we created this design. . We have three different website looks. We call them microsites, complimentary blocks and looks, and things can be switched out. And [00:30:00] we're trying to launch about three of our more complicated unit sites first, and then we'll open it up and hopefully get those that are not as complicated rolling pretty quickly.

[00:30:10] And they're hoping to do them all within a year. Wow. That's aggressive. It's very aggress. , it's very aggressive. Um, not to mention other projects that they have. Right. You know, and I, I think that's one of the things, and, and I remember thinking of this and um, you know, as you said earlier, we just had a little thing like the pandemic going on.

[00:30:28] Didn't have anything else to do, um, during this. But I wish if we had the opportunity to take that core team and the many folks that were working on this, at least at a time out of their daily, And say, I need you to focus on this. Now, whether that was a writer and they needed to focus on rewriting that website content and maybe it was a week that take them out of their daily duties, but nobody did that.

[00:30:55] Everybody added this to their daily duties. Wow. And we fitted into the, into [00:31:00] the day. So cuz I've been, you know, part of government when they have a new, big initiative. , you start with the new people and then at some point you realize the management realizes we need to dedicate these folks here. We knew we needed to dedicate those folks.

[00:31:15] We just didn't have 'em. Yeah. Um, and so in the end it became wealth. Let's stretch out the timeline. Yeah. So 

[00:31:21] Jaime Hunt: that's what happened. Is there anything you would do differently if you did it over 

[00:31:25] Kimberly Osborne: again? Um, I think I would meet more regularly with the. Hmm. Um, I think I would definitely do that to explain, cuz we, you know, they're busy.

[00:31:37] Um, and we would communicate regularly to campus through our e-newsletter, but it doesn't mean the Dean had time to read it. Mm-hmm. and then they might have someone coming to them that's serving with us and working on it and being frustrated with a certain piece. And the dean didn't see the, the bigger.

[00:31:55] Right. They didn't hear our side. And then we get a phone call of what's going on? What are [00:32:00] you doing? What, what do you mean we can't do this? And we're like, no, that's not the case. So I think looking back, that's what I would've done differently. And again, if we had the opportunity, I would've pulled some folks off and said, you know, we really need, like this week only do this.

[00:32:16] And, and we do that. The university does that with stuff like accreditation, right? We've, I've been through accreditation. There are times I remember, um, hearing the lead on that say, when I need your people, I need your people. Mm-hmm. , right? Um, and so, um, I, I wish we could have done that, but I definitely would.

[00:32:33] Uh, like to have a regular cadence in meeting with the provost council, which is comprised of the deans, just to keep them feeling like they were, um, better attuned to what was going on. Cuz our mode of communication, um, I think worked for the masses, but perhaps did not work for that group. 

[00:32:51] Jaime Hunt: Yeah, I think about in, in my role, the fact that I can go to a meeting and come back and have 32 emails an hour.

[00:32:59] and I'm [00:33:00] sure the deans have that. Um, absolutely. If not more, you know? Mm-hmm. , depending on, and, and so many challenges that they have in their jobs and even the meetings that I have, how do you make the information that I'm sharing stick with that audience? Cause they just have so much going on in, in their days.

[00:33:18] And I, I think it's a combination of that, that meeting cadence and then, you know, the casual phone calls or the casual. Touch bases, that kind of thing, to keep them sort of in the loop. So Kimberly, what one piece of advice if you could say to anybody as they're thinking about tackling something of like this, what one piece of advice would you give?

[00:33:41] Kimberly Osborne: Um, I would, oh gosh, only one piece. Um, , I would say have a good partner. Have a good partner in your it. Myself, I'm very fortunate to have a very good relationship with our university, one Master, and we actually, uh, co-managed two [00:34:00] individuals, um, that report to both of us. And we started that before we started this project.

[00:34:05] Mm-hmm. . So we got to know each other pretty well. And you know, we're both very busy. and when it becomes, Hey, do you have a second, got a personnel thing, or, Hey, I I need to pull this person off this project, is that okay with you? You know, how much, because they would've different projects coming out of his shop and my shop.

[00:34:21] And, um, but having, having a really good relationship with it is vital. Um, and again, having that, that outlook of a lot of people who want to do the right thing and being open to what is the right thing, um, sometimes you gotta put your foot down, right. Not the user's responsibility to understand our business structure in order to navigate the website.

[00:34:43] Um, but other times it becomes okay, well yeah, if you want that button on that page, we can do that. Um, so, but I, I don't think this project would have been as successful as it was if the university communications and its didn't have such a strong working [00:35:00] relationship. You know, there were four people who were leading this and it was split evenly down, down both.

[00:35:05] Um, and it was keeping one another in the know too. So and so just reached me out about this and about that. Um, and so, um, what's funny, Jamie, is, you know, we talk every Thursday for now about three years. Every Thursday we have a meeting with i t s, um, and. Uh, we saw them in person not long after the pandemic and I was like, I forgot how tall you are,

[00:35:27] Cause you're just used to this, you know? Yeah. Um, and I'm sure the people experienced that too, but particularly with that group, that, that really stuck with me. So I would say absolutely. Have a good relationship with its, um, be a good partner. Uh, I would also say do your reading on content strategy. Okay.

[00:35:45] Um, I read a book and, and actually the webmaster recommended the book, it was Content Strategy by, uh, Christina Hal. Oh yeah, it's an older book. Um, but I was like, okay, I'm gonna read this. And I did. And then that also showed us, it helped me find the [00:36:00] holes that we had of what training that we needed to have in university communications, let alone what other units and other folks who are of other duties as assigned as communicators or as web folks.

[00:36:12] You know, that's not their primary job, but, oh, you're comfortable in WordPress. Go ahead. You put this up on the. , what training do they need to make sure that we are being inclusive and we're keeping accessibility in mind. Mm-hmm. and we're helping with search engine optimization. And so, um, I would, I would definitely say read up on it and make sure you have a good and open partner, uh, in its that 

[00:36:33] Jaime Hunt: you sort of answered my, my last question.

[00:36:36] Mm-hmm. with that book recommendation, but are there any other resources you'd re. For people who are interested in, in taking the same approach. 

[00:36:45] Kimberly Osborne: I would say any webinars on search engine marketing and search engine optimization, I think that would be fantastic to do. We did that as well. We would look at things and then we worked with our vendor and, and got training in tutorial and um, I looked at it just [00:37:00] the other day and we're reusing it.

[00:37:02] Um, as its goes and works with other units. We're reusing those pieces. Um, there's value in going to those webinars. There's value in signing up for those additional trainings. But definitely reading, um, content strategy is not as exciting as the latest Colleen Hoover book. But, um, you know, it's, it is necessary and it really helped us formulate what do we need to do?

[00:37:25] How should we structure, how this whole thing should flow? Um, so we don't have the burden on one person and we have multiple people working together toward that right thing. 

[00:37:35] Jaime Hunt: That's. . So if people have questions for you and your approach, where can people find you? 

[00:37:40] Kimberly Osborne: Um, you can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn at k Osborne n Y w V N C.

[00:37:46] Uh, I'm there. You can also email me at k underscore osborne osb o r n c g.edu. 

[00:37:54] Jaime Hunt: Awesome listeners. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. As always, you can find me on [00:38:00] Twitter at Jamie Hunt I m C, that's J A I M E H U N T I M C, or on LinkedIn. I'm happy to chat, and as always, use the hashtag higher ed c M O to join in the conversation.

[00:38:13] and thank you so much, Kimberly, for, for coming on and talking about this massive project that pretty much all of us face at some point or another in our, um, higher ed careers. And as always, let's go bust some silos and, and follow Kimberly's advice about business structure. 

[00:38:31] Kimberly Osborne: All right. Thank you, Jamie.

[00:38:33] It's been a pleasure being here. Really appreciate the opportunity to chat about what we did undertake in those silos that we busted down well. And 

[00:38:39] Jaime Hunt: thank you for busting silos.

[00:38:45] Zach Busekrus: Hey y'all, Zach Here from Enrollify. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Confessions of a Higher Ed CMO with Jaime Hunt. If you like this episode, do us a huge favor and hit that follow and subscribe button below. Furthermore, if you've got just two minutes to spare, we would greatly [00:39:00] appreciate you leading a rating and a review of this show on Apple Podcasts.

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