Tales from Redesignland

An Unsatisfying Conclusion

2010-12-13T10:10:00.000-08:00

Let the hate mail begin!!

This is all true. Prophead has taken a new position as a library dork, and I'm moving out of the CMS world and more into project management.

To be honest, I knew this day was coming. I've made my peace with leaving the web world; the lack of TFRLs since HighEdWeb sends a pretty clear message that it's pretty much done.

I'm not really interested in someone taking over TFRL. If you have ideas for a comic or whatever, just do it! It doesn't need to be based on TFRL.

I do want to say that you folks are wonderful and your support of TFRL has been nothing sort of amazing. I've felt very honored to know many of you and will miss the high ed web community dearly.

Thanks for a wonderful experience; it's been worth every minute of it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything (except maybe large stacks of unmarked bills).

All You Need is Love

2010-10-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

Fortunately, this hasn't happened. Yet. However, I do have a couple of clients that I worry about. For them, having access to their site isn't too far off from giving them a sharp knife and telling them to run around campus as fast as they can. I worry that they will accidentally do something horrible to their site. So far, it hasn't happened, but it's inevitable.

That's why, the sooner I can move to doing something else, something less dangerous, the better. On the Web, your mistakes (and the mistakes of people who then blame you) are very, very visible.

What Has Been Seen Cannot Be Unseen

2010-10-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

Yeah, this really happened. And I blame Prophead.

I was making a backup of the [REDACTED] department website before switching them to the WCMS, and I noticed a very large file go by with the name 'stuff.zip'. I commented on it to Prophead and he asked what was in it. I hadn't bothered to look, but once he asked, I opened it up - only to be confronted with about 20 short mpeg files of - ahem - "lesbian porn".

Most of the videos were of pitifully low quality; I have much better stuff at home... I mean most of it was despicable and tasteless in the worst possible way. Not that I actually looked at any of it. Because I didn't. Not most of it anyway. Well, maybe a couple, but only to confirm that it was actually porn.

I don't know who uploaded this file (I honestly didn't want to know), and it got wiped when we switched them to the WCMS, but really? Porn? In an academic department's website? Not cool. Not in real life.

Seriously. I shouldn't have to deal with crap like that. Really.

Official TFRL HighEdWeb 2010 Session Endorsements

2010-10-06T07:35:00.000-07:00

Several people have posted on the top ten sessions they want to attend at the HighEdWeb 2010 conference coming up next week in Cincinnati. I thought this was a great idea until I saw that my session wasn't listed in any of these posts. ~o_~o

But since it's also election season, I thought it only appropriate that the TFRL "editorial staff" should "endorse" the sessions it thinks are worth attending.

Before I start, I'd like to apologize to all the people who aren't going to get mentioned in this post. It sucks to get ignored, but I blame HighEdWeb for having six concurrent tracks and forcing us to choose. Seriously though, these represent only the sessions I'm personally interested in. You are probably interested in better things than I am.

Monday

APS1: Hanging 10 in Google Wave
Poor Robin Smail; Google nuked Wave after her presentation was accepted (sorry, but I did LOL). I have no real idea on what she will be presenting on instead, but I do know this: Whatever it is, it will be hilarious and will be full of Firefly/Serenity references. I'm going to this one strictly for the lulz!

SOC2: "Hella Drop Shadow": Presenting and Teaching in the Era of the Backchannel
If you aren't familiar with the keynote backchannel revolt from last year's HighEdWeb conference, then "hella drop shadow" probably doesn't mean anything to you, but for those of us who were there, it was something of a transformative event; demonstrating the power and immediacy of the backchannel. I'm pegging this session to be both extremely informative and very fun.

MMP3: Managing Projects in Web Development
OK, now we get down to serious business. Project management is probably where I'm headed, so this session is "relevant to my interests". I'm pretty sure that I know some of this already, but I'm also sure that I'll learn a lot as well.

MMP4: Navigating and Surviving a "Perfect Storm"
Holy crap! This presentation sounds almost exactly like the presentation that I will be doing the following day! I think I have to go to this just so I can either a) incorporate all of their points into my presentation, or b) rebut all their points in my presentation. Mostly, I'm just curious about their experience in doing THE EXACT SAME THING WE DID.

RED3: Maybe the Purpose of Our Redesign is Only to Serve as a Warning to Others
I initially wrote down that I was going to see Mark Greenfield's It's the End of the Web as We Know It Redux, but then I realized that this was the Red Stapler track, and that I was going to be presenting next door. It's a bummer that you have to go to your own session. I've already seen my presentation like 3 times. Boooooring.

XXX5:
I think I may sit this one out. No offense to anyone, but I tend to be pretty wiped after presenting, so I'll probably take a nap or go for a walk.

MMP6: Online Brand Development in a Decentralized World
OK, I'm not a marketing person (All these higher ed web conferences seem to be lousy with marketing people... what ever happened to academics? #justsayin), but I really like the description of this presentation. I like hearing anything that has to do with "limited resources in a decentralized environment". I think that the information in this session will help me help our clients realize "that content and site structure are the keys to success". Sounds like good stuff.

Tuesday

MMP7: 10 Years In The Hole: A Possibly Cautionary Tale About Being A Higher Ed Web Geek
OK, who can resist a session that has a title that pretty much sums up your entire higher education career? This is the session that I think may run away with the red stapler this year in the MMP track (I know for sure I'm not getting it), and I don't want to miss it!

SOC8: The Cluetrain Stops at Higher Ed, Will Anyone Take Delivery?
I pity da fool that misses any Mark Greenfield presentation! Anything that Mark does is absolutely worth listening to, and this presentation, based on the Cluetrain Manifesto, promises to be a high water mark. To tell you what I think of Mark, if I could only attend one session at the conference, this would be the one. I'm just glad that my presentation is not up against his.

MMP9: Confessions From a Wicked Vendor (or What I Learned in My First Year on the Other Side of Higher Ed)
OK, let me start off with a disclaimer: Karlyn Morisette, the presenter of this session, is getting a tattoo of TFRL characters at the conference. So it's clear that she's completely psychotic and unstable and probably on meth. Her presentation is a personal story of her experience as a vendor. Job-wise, it doesn't have a lot of relevance to me. But let me clue you in on something: personal stories are what people like to hear because we connect with them as people. I like sessions that are personal stories because I feel that I get to connect with the presenter. Aside from the tattoo and the fact that she's seriously smart, that's why I'm going to this session.

TNT10: Got Centerpiece? So Does Everyone Else or...
MMP10: Dirty Secrets of Web Directors
OK, this one is a tough call. On the one hand, I want to bring my vuvuzela to Michael Fienen's presentation on centerpieces (hey, we have a centerpiece too!!), and on the other hand I really want to hear what Nick, Chas and Matt have to say about issues facing web directors. I haven't yet decided, but I do know that I can be bribed.

MMP11: Behind the Green Door: Life on the Other Side of a Homepage Redesign
The only reason I'm attending this session is because I'm presenting it. While a part of my brain says "your presentation is fine" another part worries that it's total crap. However, my presentation will have cameo appearances by the Three Stooges, John Belushi, Peter Gibbons (think "Initech"), Approval Guy, The Incredible Hulk, a bunch of baboons, Billy Mays, Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Fonz, David Hasselhoff, Stephen Colbert, Sarah Palin, and the Kool-Aid guy. Oh, and Chuck Norris (but that goes without saying).

So that's our endorsements for this year. Remember to attend early and often. I'm looking forward to seeing EVERYONE next week in Cincinnati! I can't wait!

Wellcome to Are Sight; We Hope U Liek It!

2010-10-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

I'm sure this has happened; probably a bunch of times. But I'm not a content guy. Other than porn (see Thursday's upcoming TFRL), I really don't care what people put on their sites. That isn't my particular problem, and I pay very little attention to what people send us for content. I have enough problems without worrying that faculty members with multiple graduate degrees can't spell or put together a complete sentence.

And we have a very decentralized approach to content on our site anyway. It's called "every man for himself". In other words, departments are pretty much on their own when it comes to content, unless they want to pay money to get help - which is rare.

BTW, we have neither a "Physeology" nor a Physiology department on our campus, so I can't get in trouble for that. And depending on your stylistic rules, there might be 17 errors in that short paragraph.

There's No Place Like Home... There's No Place Like Home...

2010-10-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

OK, now we're back to reality. This really happened. And I have to apologize to a co-worker and former minion for using it, but honestly it was just too funny to pass up.

Honestly, if I stop doing Web support, I'll miss things like this. I think.

I've Seen the End... We Don't Get Nice Things

2010-09-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

OK, my boss must be wondering about my sanity and stability right about now, but this is just a fantasy of a project gone horribly wrong. Now, I would be lying if I said I'd never been in meetings like this before, but not recently.

Fortunately, most of our meetings are quite civil. Maybe not any more productive than this, but certainly civil.

Disclaimers:

I've never worn or even contemplated wearing a bomb belt to a meeting.
I've never brought a loaded weapon on campus, nor considered using one on inanimate hardware.
I have never successfully bribed another employee to do something that I couldn't talk them into doing some other way. And if I were to try bribing Prophead, I would use wine, not cash.

Saying Everyone is Special is Just Another Way of Saying that No One Is

2010-09-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

Hat tip to Dash of The Incredibles for the title of this post.

This is another in the series of exploring implementing change with limited resources. I hate to be a curmudgeon (not really, I love being a curmudgeon), but sometimes the only equitable way to allocate limited resources is to give no one anything.

But that's really just another way to say that resources can't be divided equitably. It's pointless to deny everyone resources just because you can't divide them equally. Faced with limited resources, there are going to be winners and losers. The problem arises when the losers (and sometimes the winners) take it personally.

Just because your project got resources and someone else's didn't doesn't mean that you are better or more important than anyone else. Maybe your project is considered important despite your participation in it. Ever think of that?

Managers have to (though often times they don't) make tough decisions about how best to use the limited resources at their disposal. With everyone clamoring for a piece of the pie, it's not an easy decision to make. Telling someone they aren't getting resources can easily be interpreted as saying "you suck." That's why people need to find ways to get beyond taking it personally.

And managers aren't fortune tellers; they often don't really know what the organization will need in a year or five. This is especially true in IT, where technologies and their uses evolve rapidly.

Combine limited resources, imperfect knowledge and imperfect people... and you have a recipe for an unlimited supply of TFRLs!

Unicorn Pony Rainbows are REAL!

2010-09-23T07:35:00.000-07:00

I'm partial to unicorn burgers myself, though My Little Pony salami sounds pretty darn good too!

Why do we even fight these battles? Well, the answer is right there in the cartoon: limited resources. We're trying to do too much with too little.

I'm not a fan of this.

I got my bachelor's degree in natural resources management (truf!), and that major was all about 'managing' 'resources' - if you can imagine that. One of the first tenets they drilled into your head was that resources are limited, and unlimited use of resources inevitably leads to their depletion.

We do the same thing in higher education that the timber barons did to forests, only we don't end up with massive clear cuts; we end up with people and systems overtaxed and spread too thin. We end up with units with conflicting goals and needs completing for the same resources (whether human, financial, or technological).

Inevitably, you end up getting less done than if you had strategically limited the use of your resources because the resources you have are spread so thin and have so many demands on them that they can't be effective.

And this goes for software too. I'm the only person supporting our WCMS. Imagine if our management - in their infinite and inscrutable wisdom - decided that the WCMS would be used as a wiki and for incident management, as well as for web content management. I wouldn't be able to do any of those things effectively, regardless of how good the program was, because I would be spread too thin trying to make it all happen.

This is all Management 001A (Resource Management for Retards), but it's amazing how quickly we forget that during tight budget times. Rather than trying to do more with less, we should be trying to figure out what we can do without (My God, I'm starting to sound like a Republican. Eek!)

HighEdWeb 2010 TFRL T-Shirts!

2010-09-21T07:25:00.000-07:00

I still have a few TFRL T-shirts left over that I'm going to bring to HighEdWeb 2010 in Cincy.

If you are going to be there and want one, now is the time to order!

Yes, they're $30, which is highway robbery, but I ain't making anything on the deal.

Here's the design:

I've got shirts left in the following sizes and colors:

1 - Medium Navy
3 - Large Navy
1 - Large Dark Red
2 - Large Black
2 - XL Black
1 - XXL Black

Order now before they are all gone! Tweet me @tonydunn or leave a comment and I'll put you down. Bring cash to Cincy to get your shirt.

When the Only Tool you Have is a Hammer, All of your Problems Look Like Nails

2010-09-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

I've never understood the attraction to software that is supposed to be able to "do it all". Just like those printer/fax/scanner things you see on the market, do-it-all software may to it all, but it will do it all poorly.

For example, 'FingerPoints' is supposed to be able to do content management, and at least one person has commented that we could dump our WCMS (which works great) and use FingerPoints instead. We'd save the licensing fees for our WCMS, the argument goes.

But that's a false economy. As we learned when we went through our WCMS process 3 years ago, just because a piece of software says it does something doesn't mean that it does it in a way that is useful or that meets our needs.

Consider one of the WCMS products we seriously looked at. "WCMS editor allows upload of image files": CHECK. Sure, but what that 'check' doesn't say is that only administrators could upload images into the WCMS and all images went into a single common 'library'. There is no way that something like that would be even remotely useful or usable for us or our users.

Part of the problem is asking the wrong questions, or asking incomplete questions. "WCMS editor allows all content editors to upload images to their site space and insert them into page content as desired" would be a better (but still not perfect) question.

Part of the problem is the reliance on checklists of features. We learned this when we purchased our first WCMS. When we purchased its replacement, we required vendors to give us a sandbox and sufficient training to be able to use it enough to determine if it met our needs. Those vendors that refused were stricken from the list of potential products without compunction. Think of shopping for a car and having the dealer refuse to let you test drive it. You wouldn't do that. And software can affect many more people and cost more than a new car.

And part of the problem is trying to use software to do tasks for which it was not designed. Our WCMS was designed to be a Web content management system. And it does that task great. It would be possible to try to repurpose it to be a wiki, but it wouldn't do that task very well. I suppose it could also be used as issue tracking software, but it would completely and totally suck at that. It's not what it was designed for, and though you may be able to make it do something like what you want, it will never be what you want.

I believe in using the right tool for the right job. We have wiki software that works great. It costs money, but because it works well for our needs, it actually saves us money in increased productivity. I for one, would scream bloody murder if they tried to take the wiki away.

They say when the only tool you have is a hammer, then all of your problems look like nails. My response is: invest in better tools because with better tools you get better solutions.

Oh, and a final caveat: I haven't been put in charge of anything, nor is it likely that I'll be put in charge of anything. This is just a horrific fantasy I've cooked up in my mind. One problem with this cartoon is that so many posts have been based on real life for so long that when you do something completely fictional, people think it's real.

P.S. There are still some HighEdWeb 2010 TFRL T-shirts available. But there's only a few left, so order yours now! I only have design #2, in medium, large and XL, mostly in black, but a couple in other colors as well.

There May be No "I" in "Team", But There is a "U" in "Failure"

2010-09-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

OK, some caveats are in order here because I could seriously piss off some people if they thought these cartoons represented my opinions of actual events.

None of this has happened - yet. I'm still happily working in my little WACM world. I've had no interaction with any applications other than our WCMS.
"FingerPoints", despite certain resemblances it may have to real software, is completely fictional (though I thought the name was particularly clever). It's characteristics are a mashup of several real applications as well as applications that do not exist.
The events and interactions here are fictional. They may be based on bits and pieces of real events (or accounts that I have heard of real events), but they are deliberately exaggerated and fictionalized and are not meant to represent real events or real people.

I write this cartoon to make people laugh, not to piss people off (OK, well, there was that one post last year... and I got into plenty of trouble for it too. But other than that, no.) The work we do, and the issues and conflicts we face are serious - and I take my work as seriously as anyone. But it is also possible to take the things we deal with and think about them in such a way that they are humorous. That's what TFRL is about.

So, if you think that I'm commenting on real software or real issues, you are mostly wrong. Do I get my inspiration from real life? Absolutely. But TFRL is not a direct commentary on our work environment.

Hopefully that covers my ass, but if TFRL stops abruptly, you'll know why.

Success is Just a Stop on the Road to Failure

2010-09-13T07:47:00.000-07:00

Nuh-huh. People do so read my cartoon! There's at least five of them... if you don't count my boss, my wife and @prophead. I have the Google Analytics to prove it!

And why don't I like where this is going? Why can't I be the campus "Keeper of the LOLcats"? You know, the guy that gets paid for spending his day reading www.icanhascheezburger.com and Nick Holmes. I'm ideally suited for that job. Project management? Not as much as you might think.

The Beginning of the End

2010-09-07T07:33:00.000-07:00

As I've said before, my job as I know it is coming to an end. A vaguely dark cloud hangs out there on the vaguely dark distant horizon, vaguely foreboding my vaguely dark future.

My boss's idea is to move me into project management, which would be great if most of the projects on campus worked anything like the CMS project. But the CMS wasn't typical. The CMS software actually works, and they gave it to a curmudgeon who scared off anyone who wanted to have any input into the way it works.

It's a lot of work scaring people away, and I'm just not sure I'm up to it again.

TFRL T-Shirts!!!

2010-09-03T07:07:00.000-07:00

Continuing the tradition of bringing TFRL T-Shirts to HighEdWeb, I will once again be... uh bringing, uh, TFRL T-Shirts to HighEdWeb.

These are custom shirts, designed specifically for the conference and available only at the conference. If you want one, the only way to get one is to get it at HighEdWeb.

Sadily, the rising cost of CafePress has forced me to charge $30 per T-shirt... and trust me, I'm not making any money on the deal. I wish I could give them away, but that's just not realistic is these times of budget cuts.

There are two designs:

Design 1 is available in either black or 'cinder' (I'm calling it brown).

And:

Design 2 is available in black, dark red, navy, military green, red, royal blue, brown, charcoal or kelly green.

Don't ask me why one shirt has two colors and the other has a bunch. Cafe Press forced me to use two different t-shirt products for each design.

I haven't ordered any T-shirts yet. If you want one, let me know ASAP. Tweet me (@tonydunn), email me, or leave a comment.

Who Said You Get Vacation?

2010-09-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

Why am I always the last one to find out things? I just learned yesterday that Prophead is leaving today for a vacation in the Caribbean. Who said he could do that? And how does he afford that? I took a week in Oregon - which is literally next door - and it wiped me out! How does he get to go to the Caribbean? huh? Tell me!

Bastard.

I hope he gets sunburned.

BTW, if you don't know what movie the last panel is a reference to, then you should be ashamed of yourself. It's the closing scene from literally The. Best. Movie. Ever.

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

2010-08-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

On the plus side, it's one less email that they will have to deal with.

I'm not sure what's wrong with us, but for some reason we can't get the whole 'communication' thing right. We either over-communicate, beating issues to death with meeting after soul-crushing meeting, or under communicate, barely letting people know what's going on, even when it affects them directly.

We need to work on that. I think I'll send out a meeting notice.

P.S. Thanks to Prophead for tweeting the idea for this strip.

You Have Workflow!

2010-08-23T07:34:00.000-07:00

Workflow. People still ask for it occasionally. We pretend to ignore them in almost every case. "Workflow? What's that?" "Ohhh, the CMS doesn't do that. Sounds cool, though. Sorry!"

The fact of the matter is that workflow sounds wonderful to anal retentive micromanagement types, but the reality of workflow is an endless string of relentless emails requiring action on every trivial change. And no one, not even the most dedicated micro-manager has time - or the stomach for that.

For the few poor souls that we activated workflow for in our CMS, none of them lasted a week before they surrendered under the mountain of approval emails. We don't even offer it as a service, except when it is needed to keep certain people at arms distance from doing harm to our home page. For them, they think that workflow is what everyone goes through. Little do they know that we have consigned them to a special hell - the one reserved for child molesters and people who talk at theater*.

Workflows suck for all involved. Don't use them except for those rare cases where they actually make sense. Just don't. No.

*This is a Firefly reference, mostly directed at @Robin2go, who was going to present on Google Wave at HighEdWeb - before Google killed Wave, that is. Now she's going to present on the ephemeral nature of technologies.

I'm Not on a Horse

2010-08-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

Yep, this is happening today, as you read this. And yes, I'm somewhere (hopefully at home) making sure the upgrade went smoothly.

This isn't the funniest cartoon ever, but it's appropriate given the library recarpeting project that is disrupting everyone's lives. But hey, new carpet, right?

"I Told You So"

2010-08-09T07:26:00.000-07:00

I love saying I told you so. It's my favorite phrase. But for some reason people don't seem to appreciate it when I say it to them. I haven't figured out why. Anything that gives me that much pleasure must give other people pleasure too, right?

Anyway, this hasn't actually happened yet (first day of school isn't for two weeks), though Jack Jefferson did warn me about doing upgrades during the busiest week of the year. But I have no idea if he's the 'I told you so' type. He doesn't strike me that way, so I'm not real worried.

Oh, the upgrade? Piece of cake. You'll see.

Cha... Cha... Cha... Changes

2010-08-02T07:29:00.000-07:00

OK, so this one apparently requires a lot of disclaimers, at least according to Prophead.

See, my boss is the change management guy on campus. My little one man content management unit is under him more as a fluke than anything else (no one else would take me - go figure).

So criticizing our change management processes could be seen as "non-conducive to career advancement". But that's not really what I'm doing here, no matter how it appears. Though there was some confusion as to where our CMS upgrade fit in the change management process (don't ask), none of that confusion was my boss's fault. Mostly, the confusion was due to my ignorance of the process, and the fact that I've done everything possible up to now to ignore such things. Well, unless I buy an AK47, now I'm going to have to start paying attention.

And, of course, no one can prove that any of this actually happened... unless Prophead logs our IM chats.

We Lost. Again.

2010-07-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

We lost. Again. To .eduguru. Dammit. Something needs to be done about those people!

Seriously though, congratulations (once again) to the .eduguru crew. You deserved it!

Coming Back is Punishment for Leaving

2010-07-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

OK, this cartoon is mostly an excuse to show some pictures from my trip to the Oregon wine country (we brought back some amazing wine and cheese). But it's also a true story. Though I didn't have quite 500 emails when I got back, it did take me over a week to catch up.

And that's the terrible thing about vacation: every day that you are gone, more and more work piles up, seemingly as punishment for taking time off.

That's just plain wrong. We need something like 'vacation amnesty', where you are automatically absolved of having to deal with any phone call, email or meeting that happened while you were on vacation.

Someone's site crashes while you're on vacation? Guess they get to start over from scratch! Big reorg happens while you're away? Sorry, doesn't affect me - I was on vacation!

Wouldn't it be a wonderful feeling to come back from vacation, fire up Outlook, press CTRL-A and then DELETE? Wouldn't it be a relief to go into your voicemail system and be able to hear, "All messages permanently deleted"?

Who's with me on this?

Why Doesn't This Sort of Thing Ever Happen with the 'Office of Minor Administrative Tasks' Website?

2010-07-14T07:10:00.000-07:00

I just can't make this stuff up. This actually happened this week. To the President's website. But I didn't panic because:

This is a great student and she never makes mistakes like this, so I had no reason to be upset with her.
It's summer. Who's looking at the President's website anyway?
The people in the President's office were totally cool about it (but they did notice it right away).
But most of all, I was calm because I had just made a back up of the site about 30 minutes before this happened.

I don't know about Jesus, but I do know that back ups save. They save your ass.

BTW, I'm proud to say that after over a year after we started, the new president's site went live on Monday. w00t!

Also, on a completely unrelated note, this is the last week to vote for Tales from Redesignland for the best Higher Ed blog in the eduStyle People's Choice voting! Vote here!!!

I can't believe we got nominated again. And I'm sure we'll lose to .eduGuru again (*shakes fist*).

No Contest

2010-06-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

OK, we're not stupid enough to hire outside vendors or consultants to work on our website. We can screw it up just fine ourselves, thank you very much.

However, Kevin Miller from a sister CSU campus (which will remain unnamed, though a simple Google search will... well, never mind), apparently was, because he submitted these actual vendor quotes as part of the TFRL cartoon idea contest.

Kevin's quotes were so good, in fact, that he's the winner of the TFRL cartoon idea contest!! Kevin will receive a special one of a kind TFRL t-shirt! W00t!

Congrats to Kevin!! (Please allow to 6-8 weeks for your t-shirt to arrive. By then, you should have forgotten all about it, so when it never comes, it won't be a problem.)

In related news, I understand that there will soon be an opening in Web development somewhere in the CSU system, so please be sure to apply!

Life in Cubicle 4S950

2010-06-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

As with pretty much everything else, this actually happened, though it wasn't my boss and it wasn't via email.

A couple of weeks ago I found an envelope in my mail slot in the main office. When I opened it, I found four sheets off a Dilbert desk calendar, all about an in-office cartoonist (see below). Attached was a note that said "Thought of the TFRL master when I saw these." I had no idea that the person who signed their name even knew about TFRL. I guess my reputation precedes me.

However, I do know that my boss reads TFRL. He's never said so, but sometimes he'll say something in our weekly meetings that reflects on the events in TFRL. And of course, our CIO knows about TFRL. Not sure it's in his Google Reader though. I rather hope not.

Anyway, though I appreciate the pageviews, it does put a lot of pressure on me to not hit too close to home on anything. I have to walk a very fine line with TFRL now while keeping it real and funny, and that's a lot harder than you might think.

Fortunately, my boss has never done anything TFRL worthy (though I'm told I do a pretty good imitation of him). He's appeared a few times in TFRL (he even laid me off a few weeks ago), but his 'character' isn't really him as much as it is a generic boss. As for our CIO, I try to not know too much about what goes on in his office.

Here are the Dilbert cartoons...

White Out Conditions

2010-05-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

I still don't know if they make White Out any more.

And obviously, this had nothing to do with me, since that's not even my character in the strip. So there.

Who You Gonna Call?

2010-05-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Back to our regularly scheduled cartoons...

Jack Jefferson has gotten off too easy lately, even though I know he's not a big fan of appearing in TFRL.

On the plus side, this hasn't happened... but then, their move is still a few weeks away. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Our IT support group is moving their entire operation to new offices at the same time that they are undergoing a complete reorg. I'm sure it will all go as smooth as an oil slicked sea.

Seriously though, I know they've got a lot of things going on, and I hope the move and reorg go well. I'm not trying to add to anyone's stress level; I'm just trying to lighten things up with humor before we all get laid off to fill a $19 billion budget hole.

And don't forget the Tales from Redsignland (or "Redesignland" for you spelling Nazis out there) story contest! You have until June 13th to get your ideas in!

OMG TFRL Contest!!!

2010-05-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

OK, hopefully, it isn't that bad. But OMGBBQWTF, TFRL is having a cartoon contest!! YOUR IDEA COULD BE A CARTOON ON THE INTERNET!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's the 'rules':

Send me your ideas for a TFRL cartoon. They can be from real life or made up, I don't care.

By sending me your ideas, you are granting me the rights to use your ideas in perpetuity, and to alter your ideas as I see fit to use it in a cartoon, even if you do not win the contest. (See how unfair these rules are? Even if you lose, I get to use your ideas forever and ever.)

I will select one (1) lucky winner from all of the entries. The winner will be announced in a future post (which will be separate from the winning cartoon). The winner may choose not to be credited for the winning cartoon in case they are in fear of losing their j-o-b.

In addition, the winner will receive a T-Shirt (in the size of your choice) that says:

Exciting stuff, I know!

Contact me via twitter (@tonydunn) or in the comments if you have a great cartoon idea.

OK, I know the way I put this that it sounds like you're getting taken advantage of, but's that exactly how many contests (photo, writing, art, etc.) work. At least here, you can take solace knowing that that the T-shirt will set me back about $30 and that I am making absolutely nothing from this blog. My one attempt to 'monetize' this blog ended up landing Steve Krug the keynote gig at HighEdWeb, and got me nothing. Not that I'm bitter or anything. I'm NOT. Not at all.

Stupid Steve Krug.

A Job Too Well Done

2010-05-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

OK, this hasn't happened (yet), but my boss is beginning to make it very clear that my job as I know it is not going to be around forever. It seems that I am literally putting myself out of a job by doing it well.

Now, if you ask the people who work with me a on a daily basis, they will swear that I am pretty useless as a state employee (which is actually saying quite a lot considering the average uselessness of state employees). But regardless, I have managed to make steady progress in making charts that show how many sites are in our CMS.

Fortunately, in reality we're only about half way through all of the sites that need to go into the CMS, but the writing on the wall gets clearer everyday: You need to figure out some other way to make yourself valuable or your days here are numbered. Just as clear, and even sadder, is that that "some other way" probably does not include anything to do with the Web.

I'm honestly not sure what to think of that possibility. The Web has been my life for the past ten years. All I know is the Web. My peeps are higher education Web people who read this Web cartoon about Web development. Moving away from all of that isn't something I was planning on contemplating.

It's Not Exactly Rocket Surgery Is It?

2010-05-05T07:49:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I was bummed to hear that they gave the HighEdWeb 2010 keynote to Steve Krug. I really really really wanted it... partly because it was about the only way I'd be able to afford to go this year. Last year, I had to pay for everything myself except the conference registration. This year, I'll be lucky if the campus covers even that. But I'm determined to make it to my 5th HighEdWeb in a row one way or another, especially if my presentation proposal is accepted. I have my red stapler to defend after all.

In all seriousness though, they couldn't have given the keynote it to a nicer guy. I met Steve at the Voices that Matter Web conference in San Francisco last year (which the HighEdWeb folks were kind enough to send me to), and he's not only incredibly knowledgeable, but also very down to earth and approachable. I doubt that we'll see a repeat of last year's great keynote revolt with Steve at the podium.

Anyway, even without the keynote, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone there in... some Midwestern city someplace (yes, yes, Cincinnati). You folks know that there are actually cities with conference facilities west of the Mississippi, right? Nice places, with names like 'Denver', 'Seattle', 'Portland', 'San Francisco' and 'San Diego'. I'd be wary of places with names like 'Phoenix' or 'Tucson' though, unless your papers are in perfect order.

P.S. The title for this cartoon is a mash up of the title of Steve Krug's new book and a hilarious comedy skit by Mitchell and Webb (you definitely should watch!).

P.P.S. And no, I'm not going to kill off Prophead, even though he's been developing quite the attitude lately. Must be something that comes from working with SharePoint.

Phase 2

2010-05-03T07:36:00.000-07:00

Well, this didn't happen quite this way, but it did happen. There were a lot of things that we wanted to do that we just didn't have time to make happen. Thus, 'phase 2' was born - and it immediately became a dumping ground for every idea that we either didn't want to deal with or didn't want to do at all in 'phase 1'.

So now that 'phase 1' is done, people are starting to ask about 'phase 2'. But remember all the stuff we were supposed to be doing as part of our real jobs that we put off so we could work on the home page? Well, we had to do that stuff some time, and that's what we're doing now instead of 'phase 2'.

Some people have gotten the idea of 'perpetual redesign' in their minds, but don't seem to understand that we all had full time jobs before the redesign came along. Of course, we're partly to blame by eagerly dumping every crappy idea that cam along into the 'phase 2' bucket. Right now, we are all doing our best to ignore as much 'phase 2' stuff as we can, but sooner or later we'll have to fess up and admit that we never intended to do 99% of what ended up in 'phase 2' ever.

Are They Done Yet?

2010-04-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

OK, I get a lot of crap from people about not being too bright, and someday I'll come up with a snappy comeback to that, but at least in real life I'm not dumb enough to bother our designer about the new templates, even though everybody is waiting for them.

Seriously, I field like four calls or emails a day about when they are going to be ready. I just assure people that we are working very hard on them and they'll be available just as soon as we can get them out there!

And yeah, we actually kinda knew this would happen, but we really didn't have a choice. With the pressure to get the home page out by D-Day, we had to start ~~tossing parts of the redesign project overboard~~ reassigning things to phase 2 of the redesign project. The departmental site templates was one of those things. Originally, we planned to have them ready to go with the home page, but there was no way to make that happen, and as a result we live with the consequences. Hopefully, the wait will just make people more appreciative. Yeah, right.

How I Can I Provide You With Excellent Support?

2010-04-19T07:19:00.000-07:00

When providing excellent support, you can't have too many screenshots.

OK, so here's the deal. When 'David' left, useless as he was, I was left as the only person in my unit (yes, WACM). A one person unit is a ripe target for being assimilated into another unit. I know that as well as anyone. My brilliant (if I do say so myself) strategy is to turn myself into a poison pill that no one wants to swallow into their organization.

But everyone pretty much agrees that I'll eventually end up in one of three places:

The 'basement' - I spent 8 windowless years of my life there. I'm not going back. Period. End of story. Seriously. I'd rather be homeless. Homeless people see lots of sunlight. You think I'm kidding. I'm not.
'Enterprise Applications' - This is where Prophead ended up. His life is SharePoint. He's on 24 hour suicide watch. Nuff said.
'Support Services' - They're going through a reorg. They don't need me to gum up their works. Besides, I hate providing support. And I hate my users. I want to do bad things to them. Make them take screenshots and figure out how to put them in an email. I'm evil. You don't want me in your support unit. Trust me. I'll just infect everyone with my bad attitude. Just leave me where I am. Please?

Allez Website!

2010-04-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you thought this was funny, but for me it was hilarious. Iron Chef America is my favorite show of all time (you can thank my wife for getting me hooked on the Food Network). And I think an Iron Web Developer show would be great! But if you don't watch Iron Chef, it's probably not all that funny. Oh well. At least I'm trying.

Oh, and what do you think of the new HD format? Better? Worse? Please at least comment on that.

I Only Do This For You

2010-04-06T07:12:00.000-07:00

OK, I admit, there is probably a bit more truth in this than I'd want to admit, but I'm never above shameless self promotion.

After last year's Great Keynote Revolt, I've been dying to do the keynote at HighEdWeb 2010. The reasons are many and complex. I've never had tomatoes thrown at me literally or virtually. I'd have a blast pushing all the buttons of the attendees (@notjared was an expert at this). Reading the Twitter stream after the fact would provide hours of entertainment.

On the serious side, though, whether or not the HighEdWeb committee asks me or not (pretty sure that 'not' is where the smart money is going), what I took away from last year's keynote - as well as the feedback I've gotten regarding TFRL - is that HighEdWeb needs to not only be about and for higher education web people, it needs to be by higher education web people.

And for the most part - with the notable exception of the keynote - it was. We live and work in a very different world than other web developers and even a different world than other workers in higher education. The web is a rapidly evolving, rapid maturing environment, and that is no where more evident than in education (well, and porn, too, but that's a whole different topic).

Seriously though, the community of HighEdWeb is a intensely close knit one. And the reason for that is due to the unique combination of rapidly evolving technology and massively inert bureaucracy that is high ed web development. And I say that in all seriousness. The tiny bit of success that TFRL has enjoyed is owed entirely to the unique character of higher ed web development.

And that's why I feel that the keynote needs to be by one of us. Only we really understand our environment, and only we can really speak to it. Jared Spool was great, but the one criticism that I heard over and over about his keynote was that what he said didn't really apply to our environment.

So, whether or not the committee gives me a second thought as a speaker (did I mention that I'm not afraid of an audience of geeks, nerds, and misfits armed with smart phones and laptops?), I do hope that they select keynote speakers that truly represent us in the high ed web community.

P.S. Mark Greenfield, you're welcome. I expect a cut of your fee. Email me - we'll talk.

So Long Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Good-bye

2010-02-10T07:59:00.000-08:00

As with everything else in TFRL, this really happened. OK, not exactly like this (we had two weeks warning), but the effect is the same.

Our little minion, who our designer and I have raised and mentored from a peach fuzz faced freshman to a seasoned and cynical staff member, is finally all grown up and leaving us to go snowboarding in Colorado (as well as working for a cool electronics company). Great job on the timing too, with our new home page just about to rollout. Hopefully, nothing he's created will break the day after he leaves (futile hope, I know).

Good luck, David! As crazy as you are, we will all miss you! Always remember the good times!

Now get the hell out of here before I start crying.

Please say goodbye to David and wish him the best of luck in his new endeavor!

Merry... er, Happy.. uh, See you Next Year

2009-12-14T07:14:00.000-08:00

See you next year!

The Road to Hell...

2009-10-28T07:06:00.000-07:00

...is paved with the best intentions of employees who think it's easier to do things for our users than to let them sink or swim on their own.

This employee is my minion. Please chime in in the comments on what a stupid and short-sighted idea this is. Seriously. I can't convince him. Maybe you can.

Developers vs. Designers - Take 247

2009-10-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

I wanted to title this cartoon "Developers vs. Designers: The Kindergarten Years", but that seemed redundant.

Disclaimer: This is a fictional representation, and bears no resemblance to reality. In reality, our CIO drives a Toyota, not a Dodge Caravan.

Well, we are in the middle of this discussion, but it isn't as childish as this - yet. I hope our designer doesn't take this personally, because it isn't meant to make any more fun of her than it does of me. She's probably going to win the argument anyway.

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 5: Revenge of 2004

2009-10-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

OK, this is a total inside joke that only people who attended the Great Keynote Revolt of 2009 will understand.

I was at the HighEdWeb 2009 conference in Milwaukee this week, and one of our keynote speakers (@notjared) gave a speech that dated from about 2004 and was poorly adapted to a highly technology savvy audience. Lacking a Twitter account (true), he was unaware of the vicious back channel that cut him no slack and granted no mercy. You can review a transcript of it here (starts at 11:59 AM), or read posts by people who weren't there here and here. And here's a balanced post from someone who was there.

At the very least, he gave me a way to save our heroes from the zombies... but he replaced them with something far, far worse.

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 4: Rule of the Zombie Home Page

2009-10-01T07:37:00.000-07:00

I'm sure there are people who would certainly like to see Prophead and Taghead meet a particularly gory fate. So maybe I should finish them off. I mean, what better way to go than have your brains eaten by a zombie? It's faster and probably a lot less painful than having your brains eaten by committee meetings.

I haven't really decided. However, I do know that this is the last TFRL before HighEdWeb! T-Shirts have been ordered. Laptop is charged. Bags are packed. Presentation is, uh, ready... -ish. Sort of. Yeah. Maybe I'll just rent Dawn of the Dead and show that instead.

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 3: Backtalk of the Unbelievers

2009-09-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

Houston, we have a problem.

Actually, our problem is that we don't have a response plan for a zombie attack like the University of Florida does (highly recommended reading!). They are so much more prepared for this than we are... we suck at everything.

TFRL HighEdWeb T-Shirts!

2009-09-22T07:24:00.000-07:00

Continuing last year's tradition of bringing TFRL T-Shirts to HighEdWeb, I will once again be... uh bringing, uh, TFRL T-Shirts to HighEdWeb.

These are custom shirts, designed specifically for the conference and available only at the conference. If you want one, the only way to get one is to get it at HighEdWeb.

Sadily, the rising cost of CafePress has forced me to charge $25 per T-shirt... and trust me, I'm not making any money on the deal. I wish I could give them away, but that's just not realistic is these times of budget cuts and furloughs.

There are two designs:

And:

To this point, I've ordered 2 medium, 4 large, and 4 extra large of each T-shirt. If you want one, let me know ASAP. Tweet me, email me, leave a comment. If I have to order more, I need to know soon.

You can have a shirt for the price of a lunch or dinner at the conference (at the restaurant of my choice), but one dinner is already taken.

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 2: Attack of the Zombie Home Page

2009-09-21T07:05:00.000-07:00

Nobody likes to be told "I told you so!"

And if you don't understand the cricket bats, I suggest that you go forth immediately and rent Shaun of the Dead.

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 1: Rise of the Zombie Home Page

2009-09-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

This all started when I read this post (or more precisely, listened to the presentation). According to Paul Boag's presentation (which, BTW, you really should listen to), the number one harshest truth about higher education Web sites is "Politics are killing your site". I commented to Prophead that in our case, you can't kill something that's already dead. We both laughed at the idea of an unkillable zombie home page.

We're not laughing now.

P.S. Apologies to Brown University. I had to steal some university's design for this cartoon, and 4 out of 5 discerning design thieves prefer the Brown University design over other university designs. Who am I to argue?

Are Viruses Trying to Tell Me Something?

2009-09-08T07:04:00.000-07:00

As with everything else in TFRL that never happened, this actually happened. And how embarrassing - I got a virus while doing a Google image search for my presentation for HighEdWeb that totally infected my computer with spyware crap and made it crash every time I tried to do anything. And no, I wasn't searching for or looking at porn (I'm smart enough to do that at home), but some site I went to infected my computer. Great job preventing that McAfee!

So now my computer - and my presentation - are in the loving, caring, healing hands of our User Services department, who sadly already have many reasons to hate me.

So, if I'm using an overhead projector and a grease pencil (Google it if you don't know what those are) next month, you'll know why.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2009-08-21T14:31:00.001-07:00

So, I'm starting to work on my presentation for HighEdWeb in October. My topic is the lessons we've learned in our redesign process. I'd like the presentation to be humorous but of real value. What keeps coming to me is that there has been a lot of good things, some bad things, and some really ugly things (can you say 'furloughs'?) throughout our process.

Last year, I brought the LOLs at HighEdWeb when I brought the LOLcats in my presentation. And of course, I want to continue the tradition, but maybe add to it. I started off with the idea of making demotivational type posters for my slides.

But I kept coming back to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (which by the way if you didn't know is the best movie ever made in any genre of all time with the possible exception of Terminator 2 which if I used that for my presentation would probably get me terminated. Just sayin'.).

Anyway... so I started thinking about maybe doing LOLcats and demotivational posters based on the movie. Sounds weird, right? I mean really weird.

So, I'm asking for your input here. I'm going to toss out a few examples that I threw together and I want you to let me know if it works or not. I also need to know if you'd get sick of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly LOLcats and posters after 45 minutes.

Here they are. Be honest! Funny? Not funny? Too wierd?

Leave comments on your opinion!

A Minion's Vacation

2009-08-09T19:59:00.001-07:00

I can't say that none of this happened, because most of it did. I perhaps over-dramatized the things that my minion didn't do before he left. Perhaps.

However, if anything I under-dramatized what we did to his desk while he was gone. Seriously. Check it out:

Check out all the photos here.

Eight rolls of aluminum foil. Eight. Thank God it's cheap! We even foiled the inside of the drawers. I sure hope that I don't get in trouble for this. We'll recycle the aluminum, we promise!!

Support Roundtable

2009-08-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

We provide 360 degrees of support (translation: you're guaranteed to end up exactly where you started).

We Lost

2009-07-21T08:57:00.001-07:00

Congratulations, .eduGuru! You deserved to win!

Technical Difficulties

2009-07-19T22:38:00.001-07:00

Like everything else in TFRL, this just happened.

I made the cartoons bigger and better, but when I uploaded them to Blogger, it shrunk them back down. I'm going to have to host the images elsewhere if I want them to be bigger. PITA.

So, while I figure out what to do about that, "please stand by". Feel free to sit if it's more comfortable. We will return to our regularly scheduled program shortly. Your call is important to us. Please remain on the line and the next available operator will take your call.

Oh, and if I hear 'do more with less' one more time, There. Will. Be. Cartoons.

Road to Nowhere

2009-07-14T20:41:00.000-07:00

I was going to write a post about how fickle you folks are when it comes to commenting on this blog. But I figured that would sound needy, so I'll save that post with it's bar chart and stats for another day.

I hope you're not bored with budget woes, because I got a million cartoons about that. This one hasn't happened yet, but it will. When it does I'm sure I'll get in trouble in retrospect.

But what a long second it is...

I Don't Like Where This is Going

2009-07-12T16:32:00.001-07:00

So... this probably isn't all that funny if you don't work in California, and it isn't funny in any way whatsoever if you do work in California, but it's our reality (and trust me, it'll be coming to a reality near you soon enough).

The first three panels are actually verbatim quotes from emails that our union has sent out concerning furloughs and layoffs over the past few weeks. The change in tone regarding layoffs did not escaped my attention.

The last panel is where this is all inexorably going.

I have 47 union seniority points. Just sayin'.

The Price of Victory

2009-07-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

OK, so last winter we had a 'discussion' about how much time was going to be spent doing information architecture and how much was going to be spent doing design.

This post pretty much sums up the conversation. (read before continuing)

However, using my superior powers of persuasion (known to laymen as 'procrastination'), I was able to get an additional three months to complete the IA. w00t!!

Victory was sweet, if short-lived.

Fast forward to last week...

Oh, and no disclaimers this time. This one really happened.

With These Kinds of Savings, We Won't Need Furloughs

2009-07-05T16:17:00.000-07:00

I wrote this cartoon Wednesday night. Thursday morning, our designer tells me about a meeting she had on Wednesday with our web governance committee that was pretty much exactly this cartoon.

I can't win for losing.

I had no foreknowledge of this meeting or its contents, and I attest that this cartoon has nothing to do with any meeting or meetings that may or may not have actually taken place on this or any other university, community college, high school, primary, secondary or private school in this or any other country on this or any other planet in this or any other alternate universe.

I think that I'll include that as a general disclaimer in all my cartoons.

This Will End in Tears

2009-07-01T20:07:00.001-07:00

After a lot of unhappiness about TFRL and shutting it down, I've decided to try and give it another shot. I know that certain people were offended before, and I can't promise that people who want to be offended won't be offended again, but TFRL has never been about specific people; it's always been a commentary on the process of higher education.

And anyone who thinks that the way higher ed works isn't humorous... well, I don't know what to say to you. It's either funny or depressing, and I will always side with the happy, laughing people rather than the depressed people. I hope you will too.

I am concerned and unhappy that there are some who feel that they can't share 'safely' because of a fear that what they say may end up in TFRL. That was never my intent, and I understand and accept your concern. Real life is (and must be) an inspiration for TFRL, but I don't want anyone to feel that they are fodder for TFRL. I promise that nothing you say will be directly used or mocked in this cartoon... Well, I make an exception for 'generic' high-level administrators, the Governor, and the state legislature (state legislators should be burned at the stake - just sayin').

In the end, my hope for TFRL is that it is real, that it is funny, but that no one feels that it is about them, targets them, or ridicules them personally (see the exceptions above... did I mention burning state legislators?).

And for those of you who don't think that budget crises don't apply to you... just wait until California collapses and we all leave California for your state. This budget stuff won't seem so trivial then.

Is this thing on?

2009-06-30T20:19:00.001-07:00

Wow...

2009-05-29T10:55:00.000-07:00

I am stunned and amazed by the outpouring of support and sadness for the passing of TFRL. Seriously, I had no idea that so many people followed it or cared about it. I'm humbled and grateful. And your comments and tweets of support have gone a long way to ease the pain of deciding to shut TFRL down. I appreciate every person who has read my posts or voiced their support. You guys are why I wrote this blog.

But that doesn't change my decision to shut TFRL down. And that's a point I want to clarify. No one 'forced' me to shut down TFRL. It was my decision and mine alone. Our CIO never even implied that I should shut it down; his concern was only that posting things that were identifiable might create problems with our redesign process. He was clear that he didn't want that, but I also got the impression that he enjoyed some of the posts. After all, I'm sure he sits in a lot worse meetings than I do.

So please, if you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me for not obfuscating my posts better, not anyone else at my campus.

Also, I think that as much as we all loved TFRL, it needs to be put to rest. I don't want the web community to take it over. Someone else will come up with something else that is uniquely theirs, and that's the way it should be. TFRL was what it was; now it's time to move on.

Thanks again for the incredible outpouring of support. I'm really moved by it, and as I said, it's made shutting down TFRL much easier.

Maybe I'll start something else down the road, and get in trouble once again. Trust me, this wasn't the first time - and it probably won't be the last.

I love you guys!

RIP TFRL

2009-05-28T12:10:00.001-07:00

So, the CIO called me into his office to talk about TFRL today. He was cool about it, and didn't personally have any problems with it, but he's also a very smart guy, and communicated that he didn't want TFRL to be a problem in our redesign process. "Put this behind you and move on," he said, meaning apologize, don't write anything that directly relates to the people and meetings you deal with, but by all means have a cartoon.

Well, I understand and appreciate that, but I can't write a cartoon about things I haven't experienced. The whole reason TFRL resonates with people is because it is real. The only reason it is funny is because it's real. I can't write something that is a total fiction - I don't have that skill.

So, this is the end of TFRL. The only two people in the whole world that I know of who have a problem with it win. I sincerely hope they are happy because I am stopping this specificially for them.

Nickeled and Dimed to Death

2009-05-20T20:18:00.000-07:00

Well, the California budget propositions all failed yesterday, and suddenly there is talk of layoffs, campus closings, swine flu, and transvestite aliens from outer space.

People (who just yesterday didn't blink at suggesting multimedia productions that might cost tens of thousands of dollars) are now supporting cutting big chunks of content out of our redesign project.

It doesn't take a genius to see where this will all end up. The irony is that we've spent 10 months coming up with all these great ideas, but we won't be able to afford to implement a single one of them. I think maybe I know where all the state money has disappeared to.

We Appreciate Your Support

2009-05-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

There have been rumors lately of threats to TFRL, and the Twittersphere has been atwitter with support - as appreciated as it may be misdirected.

Seriously, I really appreciate the support, even though TFRL has its detractors on campus.

And yes, I love Humboldt State - though if it burned down, you'd get seriously high off the smoke. Just sayin'.

And don't forget - it's not too late to vote for us for Higher Ed Blog of the Year at eduStyle.net. Vote here!

If Star Trek was Like Us

2009-05-04T07:44:00.000-07:00

Of course this isn't realistic. If the Enterprise was run like a university, they'd still be building the damn thing.

4chan's got nuthin' on us!

2009-05-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

Vote for us! Vote for us! We're shameless! We lack morals! We're no better than /b/tards! Vote for us!

Honestly, the selection of blogs to vote for is so awesome this year that we might forgive you for voting for someone else. The main thing is to vote!

Go here to vote.

Perchance to Dream

2009-04-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come...

Cute little Chuggy

You Think I'm Kidding

2009-04-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

Actual notes from today's Web Design Team Meeting. Seriously. I couldn't make this up if I tried.

1:30 - Demotivational posters
1:33 - Trying to figure out acronyms for campus committees
1:34 - Talking trash about the administration
1:36 - Complaining about meetings
1:40 - Talking about the home page as a metaphor
1:44 - "Bells and whistles"
1:51 - Six degrees of separation metaphor
1:55 - "Globalness"
1:57 - Pop-up books
1:58 - Google Earth
2:00 - Silence!!
2:02 - Metaphors again
2:05 - Branding - Sierra Nevada Brewery
2:06 - The Visual Thesaurus
2:09 - Tag clouds
2:10 - Google maps
2:11 - Pedicabs, fixies, beach cruisers
2:12 - Pop-up books again
2:13 - Easter eggs
2:14 - Gratuitous animation
2:15 - Pop-up books yet again
2:17 - Team lead says: "I can't think!"
2:21 - Meeting adjourned

That, literally, was our meeting. I kid you not. Now do you understand?

Nominate Us!

2009-04-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

Ooo...ooo! You could nominate us for an award!! Riches and fame could be ours!!!

Karine Joly actually recommends people nominate us... we're not sure what's wrong with her.

Or you can do directly to the eduStyle Web site and nominate us there.

Only thing is that today is the last day to nominate blogs. As usual, we're right on top of things here at TFRL!

So won't you please vote for us??

Oh, and forward this to all your friends! Bill S. of Nashville forwarded this post to 10 of his friends and a week later he won the lottery, got a new job and inherited $100,000 from an uncle he didn't know he had! Sarah D. failed to forward this to any of her friends, and two weeks later all of her hair fell out, her boyfriend dumped her, and her home got foreclosed.

Just sayin'.

Groundhog Day

2009-04-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

Sadly, it's getting harder and harder to do this cartoon. Our redesign process has become so bizarrely dysfunctional that it's virtually impossible to write something that members of our team won't recognize as real and get offended by. And reality is so much stranger than fiction that there is nothing I can invent that could match what we deal with on a daily basis.

Anyway, this cartoon isn't all that funny. However, I can say that - like Bash Brannigan (look it up) - I've actually lived it.

Twitterholicism - The Silent Killer

2009-03-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

OK, so it's turns out that my own life is the best source of new stories.

This actually happened this morning, though I changed a few names to protect the guilty (why I would want to protect them, I'm not sure). When I ran our crappy accessibility checker, the crappy site I was scanning started to throw a butt load of error messages - to the tune of 24Gb in the Web server log file - almost filling the partition! Sweet! I felt like a hacker, bringin' down the man's Web site. Sadly, I was clueless as to what I'd done until Prophead informed me. /sigh

I got nuthin'

2009-03-10T20:13:00.000-07:00

OK, so I'm no Scott Adams. I'm out of ideas right now.

So here's you chance to get your worst Web development stories told in TFRL!!

I don't promise to use your story. I don't promise that if I use your story that I won't mangle it beyond all recognition. I don't promise that I'll change your name so that you don't get fired when your boss reads the cartoon (I don't think my boss has discovered TFRL yet).

As is fitting for TFRL, I'm looking for stories of incredible ignorance or incompetence (preferably both!!!) in the world of higher education web development. We seem to be having a slight shortage of both here right now... must be the tight economy.

Add a comment that you have a story and I'll contact you. Not gonna put my work email in a TFRL post, no way.

Torches and Pitchforks

2009-03-02T07:40:00.001-08:00

"Jack Jefferson" (@JackJefferson) has gotten off way too easy lately. Time to fix that.

As far as I know, he's still barricaded in there.

Carts and Horses

2009-02-19T08:14:00.000-08:00

I wish I could make this stuff up, but I don't have to. We had this very argument in a design team meeting yesterday.

I wanted to kill myself. Instead, I went back to my office and beat my minion. Minions FTW!

Telephone

2009-02-11T12:27:00.000-08:00

This post was inspired by a co-worker. Sadly, this is all to often how things work around here.

This post was also inspired by this image, which brings us unending mirth in our office. You have to read about half the way down the thread before it gets entertaining. WARNING: if you are sensitive to the 'f'-word, you won't like it.

All I can say is that NARWHALS ARE AWESOME GOD DAMN.

Too late...

2009-02-05T18:11:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe, but I just discovered EDU Checkup today. Great stuff, and Nick is very entertaining. I can honestly recommend this site to any web designer or coder.

And Nick, please please please don't review our site... I'm not sure that it would even get a 24. Oh, and I apologize for using your site in a cartoon without getting your permission first. I'm just hoping you have a keen sense of humor and no taste for retribution.

Oh sure, tell me you never did this...

2009-01-30T15:32:00.001-08:00

I can't make this stuff up, and I can't tell a lie. This actually happened. I did this.

Learn from my experience. Don't be like me. Don't accidentally publish test pages meant for the dev server to the live web server.

This has been a public service announcement.

Is That a Problem?

2009-01-15T07:40:00.000-08:00

OK, this has nothing to do with our designer, so she shouldn't freak out when she sees this. However, I was a bit startled to see how little time I have for the information architecture.

Survey Says...

2008-12-19T07:50:00.001-08:00

Sigh.

Happy Birthday to Us

2008-12-18T14:46:00.000-08:00

It has been exactly one year since I published the first proto-TFRL post in my other blog (which has suffered horrible neglect since Tales started).

Two days later, I published the first "real" Tales from Redesignland.

I want to thank everyone who reads and enjoys this blog. You've totally made it worthwhile. I only wish that I could spend all of my work hours writing cartoons.

Also, tomorrow is the last day before Christmas break, so...

Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and Happy New Year!!

The Source of All Our Problems

2008-12-08T21:48:00.000-08:00

Need I really say more?

PTSD

2008-12-07T18:30:00.000-08:00

OK, I know for a fact that everyone on the Web Design Team reads this blog, so there's a high probability that someone (uh, everyone) might be offended. But can't we all be adults here and realize that our little team has had it's share of dysfunctionality? No??

In truth, I think we all knew things "weren't perfect" - thus the break we've had lately in our weekly meetings.

Honestly, I think most of our problems stem from lack of high level leadership (and, of course, by that I'm referring to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state legislature <cough, cough>). There will be a post on that little problem coming soon.

Mirror, Mirror

2008-10-16T10:18:00.001-07:00

I knew it was too good to be true!

Thank God for Committees

2008-10-10T07:36:00.001-07:00

When we last left our hero, he was in the hands of the cruel and unfeeling Committee.

Tell It to "The Committee"

2008-10-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

This is my last post before HighEdWeb. Sorry prophead, but your fate will hang in the balance all week. I actually don't have any ideas on how to save him from his well-deserved fate, so I'm open to suggestions.

OK, so seriously I'm divided on this issue. On the one hand I hate the oppression of committees in forcing everyone to do things the same way and to get approval. On the other hand, I've seen way too many crappy Web sites go out on campus that have no campus branding, are poorly designed, confusingly organized, and horribly written. Having a central body to enforce minimal standards actually serves to improve the overall campus Web presence.

What to do, what to do? Honestly, I hate to side with the forces of darkness, but I think the benefits of enforcing standards on a university Web site outweigh the value the individual freedom that departments are used to having. In the particular case at hand (which, of course, as always, NEVER EVER happened) though, I thought the response was a bit heavy-handed.

BTW, there's an obscure movie reference in this comic. Who knows what it is?

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

2008-10-02T08:15:00.001-07:00

OK, I had a totally different cartoon to upload this morning, but I was pretty sure that posting that one would cost me my job, so I went with one that's not controversial in any way.

I just hope they wait to fire me until after the HighEdWeb conference next week!

Rename Bingo

2008-09-30T13:27:00.001-07:00

This kinda actually happened, but I got to name my content management/web accessibility team (me and one other person) WACM (as in "whack 'em"), because sometimes we get/have to whack people with accessibility. I really wanted AWSM though, but I couldn't sell it.

And to make a long story short, I personally did not get assimilated, though others did. Like I said, it's a long story.

TFRL T-Shirts!

2008-09-25T14:34:00.001-07:00

OMFG!!! Tales from Redesignland T-Shirts!!!

OK, these aren't for general sale right now (unless I get a huge demand for them), but if you are going to the HighEdWeb conference in Springfield, MO in a couple of weeks and want one, I'd be happy to bring it.

I wish I could give them away for free (and I may give out a few to select people), but CafePress is freakin' expensive. So, I'm asking $20 each. Trust me, I'm making nothing on the deal.

There are two designs to choose from:

Email me at adunn@adunnphotography.com if you want me to bring one. Make sure to tell me the size and design you want on the shirt!

Our Best Behavior

2008-09-24T20:33:00.000-07:00

There's a reason they don't send us to too many conferences.

Politics, Religion and...

2008-09-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

One of the bad things about doing this blog is that a lot of the people that I've been talking smack about for the past year now read it.

So I want to state right out that while this meeting did actually happen, it didn't happen anything like this. It was all very civil and everyone brought up good points. I'm not trying to cast aspersions on anyone or anyone's viewpoint, but I did think that the differing perspectives were... interesting.

In the end though, we did decide not to talk about audiences.

1, 2, 3, Not it!

2008-08-29T07:31:00.001-07:00

It's not possible to make this stuff up. I almost laughed and cried at the same time.

All Your Employees Are Belong to Us

2008-08-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when you tell Tales from Redesignland that you 'try to fly under your radar'. Let this be a lesson to all of you!

All Aboard the Failboat

2008-08-20T12:40:00.000-07:00

This week, there's been a lot of perceived process fail on campus. Lack of communication, lack of direction, reorgs lacking any clear purpose, people at cross purposes, unrealistic timelines, etc.

This cartoon started out to be a commentary on the general cluelessness of administration, but ended up being as much a commentary on our relentless griping about the cluelessness of administrators. Don't get me wrong, I'm as guilty (if not more so) than anyone else, but I don't think it's advancing our cause any.

We need to do our work well enough to try to get administrators to understand the value of what we're doing and the fact that there are processes that work - and work for a reason. Not always possible, but communication is a two way street.

That's why it's 'all aboard the failboat'. If we fail, we all fail together. That's when the finger-pointing begins.

Borg Reorg

2008-08-15T07:03:00.001-07:00

We just found out yesterday that our small little Web development group is going to become part of another organization on campus.

OK, in reality the "Binary Operations Resource Group" is neither as big or as scary as the Borg (so chill out you guys over there in "Borg Hall"). But nobody likes reorgs, and this one
kind of took us by surprise.

I, for one, am looking forward to adding my biological and technological distinctiveness to the collective!

Grunt Work

2008-08-14T06:57:00.000-07:00

Finally! A cartoon inspired by something that didn't happen on our campus! Woohoo!

I Love My Job

2008-08-11T10:49:00.000-07:00

I love my job I love my job I love my job I love my job I love my job I love my job I love my job I love my job I love my job I love my job...

Dedicated to Scott.

Anti-Social Media

2008-07-30T16:11:00.000-07:00

Wherein the 'back channel' bites back.

Note for the unintwitiated: Twitter tweets are typically read from the bottom up, in chronological order.

OK, so this post is about the potential downsides of the 'back channel' at a conference. If the recent eduWeb conference was a back channel success, I'm predicting a few back channel failures, but not necessarily at the HighEdWeb conference.

Social media can obviously get vicious, but personally, I'm hoping that most people have a little more class than to post snarky comments right in front of me.

I will be presenting at HighEdWeb 2008, and yes, there will be lolcats. Putting Twitter up on the screen while I present... not as likely. Will I go back and review all the tweets that happen during my presentation? You bet I will.

Epic Technology

2008-07-29T14:21:00.001-07:00

OK, a couple of things:

This did not happen. I'm not trying to comment on our CIO's tech savviness. Everyone just likes to beat up on administrators, so I took advantage of that and pandered to the lowest common denominator. At least there aren't any guns in this issue.
We love thee Twitter oh so much, but dear Twitter, why dost thou torment us so? In other words, you will be a target of my ridicule from now until you stop giving me the damn Fail Whale!
Hi Mark! You got a cameo mention! Congrats!! - You too could end up in Redesignland if you say something that riles people up.
Thanks to Propeller Head for the idea for this comic!

Waiting for Oracle

2008-07-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

We got the license for our new WCMS last March, and honestly, I've been playing with a development server running on MySQL for a couple of months. But the production server will run on Oracle.

We've been waiting for the DBAs to get the Oracle instance up and running, but it hasn't happened yet (due mostly to the wonders of bureaucracy, not due to any malfeasance on the DBAs' part).

But anyway, that leaves me waiting and waiting and waiting.

...and All Other Duties as Assigned

2008-06-11T07:38:00.000-07:00

Six weeks ago, I started my new position as "Web Content Management System Coordinator". Well, actually as "Web Content Management System/Accessible Technology Initiative Coordinator".

I tended to ignore the "ATI" part of my title, since I was really hired to implement the campus' WCMS. Or so I thought.

ATI is a mandated program to insure that all university Web sites meet Section 508 compliance. I'm cool with that, but it's taken over my life. WCMS? I've forgotten what it even means anymore.

The Home Page Redesign Committee Meeting

2008-04-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

We have our first one coming up this Friday! It should be fun!

Wine and Espresso Meet Their Future Boss

2008-04-20T16:52:00.001-07:00

Last week I was offered a new job at my university. It's job I want, but financially it's dicey because I'd have to give up teaching and some other sources of income. My wife and I have spent a lot of time going back and forth about the pros and cons of taking (or turning down) the job. I have to have a decision by Monday morning.

Last night we decided to take a break from all the intense discussions and go out to a nice dinner and have a nice bottle of wine to go with it (2005 Sea Smoke Southing Pinot Noir - 4.75 stars - yummy!). We had a great meal and topped it off with a couple of cups of espresso.

From there, we headed over to a local bookstore to browse a bit before heading home. There I happened to run into the person who would be my new boss if I accepted the position. The following "conversation" ensued...

My apologies, "Larry". I didn't mean to talk your ear off.

Tales from Redesignland

An Unsatisfying Conclusion

All You Need is Love

What Has Been Seen Cannot Be Unseen

Official TFRL HighEdWeb 2010 Session Endorsements

Wellcome to Are Sight; We Hope U Liek It!

There's No Place Like Home... There's No Place Like Home...

I've Seen the End... We Don't Get Nice Things

Saying Everyone is Special is Just Another Way of Saying that No One Is

Unicorn Pony Rainbows are REAL!

HighEdWeb 2010 TFRL T-Shirts!

When the Only Tool you Have is a Hammer, All of your Problems Look Like Nails

There May be No "I" in "Team", But There *is* a "U" in "Failure"

Success is Just a Stop on the Road to Failure

The Beginning of the End

TFRL T-Shirts!!!

Who Said You Get Vacation?

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

You Have Workflow!

I'm Not on a Horse

"I Told You So"

Cha... Cha... Cha... Changes

We Lost. Again.

Coming Back is Punishment for Leaving

Why Doesn't This Sort of Thing Ever Happen with the 'Office of Minor Administrative Tasks' Website?

No Contest

Life in Cubicle 4S950

White Out Conditions

Who You Gonna Call?

OMG TFRL Contest!!!

A Job Too Well Done

It's Not Exactly Rocket Surgery Is It?

Phase 2

Are They Done Yet?

How I Can I Provide You With Excellent Support?

Allez Website!

I Only Do This For You

So Long Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Good-bye

Merry... er, Happy.. uh, See you Next Year

The Road to Hell...

Developers vs. Designers - Take 247

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 5: Revenge of 2004

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 4: Rule of the Zombie Home Page

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 3: Backtalk of the Unbelievers

TFRL HighEdWeb T-Shirts!

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 2: Attack of the Zombie Home Page

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 1: Rise of the Zombie Home Page

Are Viruses Trying to Tell Me Something?

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

A Minion's Vacation

Support Roundtable

We Lost

Technical Difficulties

Road to Nowhere

I Don't Like Where This is Going

The Price of Victory

With These Kinds of Savings, We Won't Need Furloughs

This Will End in Tears

Is this thing on?

Wow...

RIP TFRL

Nickeled and Dimed to Death

We Appreciate Your Support

If Star Trek was Like Us

4chan's got nuthin' on us!

Perchance to Dream

You Think I'm Kidding

Nominate Us!

Groundhog Day

Twitterholicism - The Silent Killer

I got nuthin'

Torches and Pitchforks

Carts and Horses

Telephone

Too late...

Oh sure, tell me you never did this...

Is That a Problem?

Survey Says...

Happy Birthday to Us

The Source of All Our Problems

There May be No "I" in "Team", But There is a "U" in "Failure"