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.
12 comments:
There's always Sharepoint!
@skodai, he would also be a valuable resource for a LMS migration. His interpersonal skills with faculty are second to none!
I think I may stop allowing anonymous comments.
Haha Tony!
Ummm Yeah. I was worried about that at one point. So I got my hands into our student portal and our LMS now.
My opening was... they are the web, and as the Web Developer I need to ensure that all of our web apps are integrated and running smoothly. :)
Good luck!
hush you. no one was talking to you.
I think people truly under estimate the importance of a website and the work it takes to maintain a website.
Web and IT in general have always been the first to be cut and first to be missed.
CMSs are "Phase 2" for us, but our big redesign is about to be tested because we are doing a redesign (less than a year of the original) this weekend. I think the ease of which this will be done is going to be impressive since the whole project took 2yrs, but try proving that to the higher ups and Best of the Web.
Good luck. I hope it all works out.
You chose the wrong CMS (must be a good one)!!! Our CMS needs more and more staff (ours is crap). ;)
True story: I was sitting in a meeting in Australia with a client last week, and during some down time I was asking people what their favorite blogs online were. One web guy said "Definitely this site called Tales from Redesignland. I feel like I'm looking in a mirror. You all should check it out."
So keep up the great work, mate! Even if it puts you out of a job. :)
Well done, Tony! We're about to embark on a Drupal redesign of our lil' CSU website and if anything it's given us more job security here in IT, if only because we care about the state of the web and the integrated marketing communications aspects of what we communicate. And this time we got buy-in from the president, provost and cio ... so look out middle management!
You should make sure the c-levels understand the need for constant training to actually use the cms, as new departments are added, and turnover hits already established sites.
If your manager is already talking about the potential for your position to change or be removed, it's time for you to get yourself reassigned. Hopefully s/he can actively help you with this, but don't leave it to someone else. Believe me, I speak from experience.
And don't worry too much about the functional area of web design; I'd say you have plenty of transferable skills, and you'll pick up new technologies quickly if needed.
Good luck!
That's exactly the position I'm in also. We just hired a Web Programmer who has literally taken control of everything. I'm just praying he'll create more work for me by adding lots of bells and whistles to our site. Also my boss has discussed the social media side of things. I think that alone could probably be a full time job. Also mobile communication and the possibilities there. Good luck! to both of us!!
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