Seth Godin recently posted about "Just the good parts (opens new window)", a trap I think that all too many of us fall in to. The Web is no exception here, it's great to have an amazing website, but it isn't something you can make appear overnight or pay a company to produce for you. The quality of your website is a direct reflection of how much time and energy you put into it.

"The very thing you're seeking only exists because of the whole. We can't deny the difficult parts, we have no choice but to embrace them." ~ Seth Godin (opens new window)

Two things happened a few weeks ago that talk to this point directly. The first was that we launched the last of 10 College of Engineering (opens new window) departmental and programs websites as an overall restructure of the College of Engineering Web presence. Secondly, their Associate Director of Marketing and Communications, Kristin Copenhaver (opens new window), sent out this email (opens new window) to sum up the recent changes to the marketing of the college. The message was great to bring to light some of the great things available to the college but it intended to be brief. It didn't get into the details about the process and hard work leading up to what seems like logical pieces of the Web.

College of Engineering "then"

[gallery link="file" columns="4" ids="7847,7860,7859,7858,7857,7856,7855,7854,7853,7852,7851,7850,7849,7848"]

College of Engineering "now"

[gallery columns="4" link="file" ids="7867,7868,7869,7870,7871,7872,7873,7874,7875,7876,7877,7878,7879,7880"]

More than skin deep

Looking at the screenshots above you can tell we made a dramatic change in the visual appearance across every engineering website. Before, every department was able to create their own interpretation of what it means to be part of Wayne State University. In theory, this seemed to work great for individual departments because they had the ability to create highly crafted messages. In reality, the Web was not something in which they specialized. The limited department resources were focused on their research, teaching, and education; the website was often the last thing addressed. This isn't unique to engineering; it is something we see across our campus and across the entire Web.

Dean Farshad Fotouhi identified this situation, allocated funds and hired an Associate Director of Marketing and Communications to work closely with our team to create solutions that worked for each department and the college as a whole. It came down to every engineering department having a cohesive yet unique look, voice and set of values represented online to ensure consistency and success for prospective and current students.

Insightful statistics

The project overall took on a life of its own but we broke it down in to multiple parts and stages, and had a very consistent routine to starting, migrating and launching every department, alumni, student organization, and other websites, to ensure its success.

This is just a sample of what went into the project as a whole (this doesn't include daily maintenance and post launch updates):

• Project Scope: 39 websites, 8 email newsletters, 12 email templates, multiple digital signage templates, internal tools, and more
• 550+ Web Communications staff hours
• 45+ hours of meetings with College of Engineering
• 2 homepage revisions after initial launch
• 1,700 pages on the new site (compared to 5,000+ on the previous)
• 75 unique "templates" across the entire website
• 8 new tools created in the CMS to accomplish goals that are now available to everyone
• 30,000+ of Web visitors per month
• 50,000+ email interactions

Below is some insight into where the 550+ hours of Web Communications staff time was spent. The bulk was spent on transitioning content, this is moving the content from the old website into the new. I want to clarify this is not just a copy-and-paste task. It means evaluating and editing every single page, ensuring it's up to date and possibly splitting it up, removing it, or combining it with other areas across the entire website. This takes dedicated time between the college and Web Communications. We talked daily with Kristin and met every Friday to track progress, ask questions and create a plan for us during the next week. These meetings were grueling but this is exactly a direct reflection of the focused time spent that resulted in a successful website. Simply put, without the talent from the college putting in the hard work, this website redesign would never have been a success.

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Tools that make a communication strategy work

• College website
• Departmental websites
• The ability to share news/events/promotions between them all with a click
• Faculty Profiles with In the News, Publications, Books, etc.
• Spotlight on Faculty, Students, Alumni
• College HTML email template
• College email newsletter
• Departmental email newsletters
• Faculty experts list
• Social media with support behind the content
• An analytics package focused on objectives and goals
• A key employee focused on doing the hard work it takes to bring an entire college together to speak in a single voice to the public

Overview of the Engineering Web content workflow

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View the new College of Engineering website at http://engineering.wayne.edu/ (opens new window)