What do we call this position?

Every college and university calls their web people different things. We have posted this job as a “web content coordinator,” but that’s not exactly indicative of what this person is going to do, which includes:

• Rock WordPress like no one’s business
• Work with offices across campus to create compelling content
• Design graphics and banners
• Shoot basic video and edit it for the web
• Interview students, faculty, staff
• Support the constituents across campus as they work in a CMS
• Shoot photos with our fancy camera
• and a ton more…

Those are a lot of hats to wear, and it’s more than just coordinating content across a CMS. I don’t know if “Web Content Coordinator” is an apt description. Since I doubt John Carroll will let me have a position with a title of “Web Ninja,” I’m stuck.

As research, I’d like to ask you about your title, and also what you think would be an accurate description of what you do.

I will share this research next week. I’m not asking for name or email, just titles, and an optional field about what type of institution you work for. I’m interested if the size of the school influences a certain type of title.

Thank you in advance.

I agree with a large number of the points people have made about our struggles as web folks, but I wanted to also take a few moments to talk about why higher education is an awesome place to work. Seriously. It’s awesome.

1. Billable Hours

Well, lack thereof.

I worked at an advertising agency for nearly two years and a web development shop for a spell before that, and believe me when I say I don’t miss tracking every single quarter hour and what time was spent on what job for what client. We often gave the client a quote based on a number of hours, and that means we had to the work quickly and often didn’t have the opportunity to research a new framework, jQuery neatness or tool that could solve a problem because the client wasn’t going to pay for that learning. Want to make a change or need more time? Well, that’s a change in scope that required a “Scope Change” document that the client had to sign off on.

In higher ed, I think we have more opportunities to take a moment to think about a project and find what the best tool for the job is.

2. Collaboration

One of things I love about working in higher education is that I get to work with all sorts of different offices around campus, all who work with different audiences. Same goes for faculty. I’ve had the chance to learn about so many things that normally I wouldn’t even be exposed to.

I came into higher ed knowing nothing about the behind-the-scenes process in admissions, alumni and donor relations, athletics, student involvement and much more. I’ve tried to be a sponge and soak it all in, and then applying that knowledge where needed. All those nuggets and acronyms and tricks of the trade will very much help me in the future.

3. Vision Street Wear

Unlike web development in the private sector, I get to be involved in the creative process more, whether its how code is developed, a way to manage data, the colors on our new WordPress theme or the overall branding package of my college on the web.

Often, in client development, you must work within a pre-determined set of standards. That’s okay, but having the chance to be creative is refreshing and keeps me sharp. Seeing your work be featured front and center is nice for the ol’ ego.

4. C.R.E.A.M.

Ok, it’s a fact we aren’t paid what we’d be paid if we worked in the private sector, but look beyond just the number that is your salary.

We often are able to take undergraduate and graduate classes, often for free. That same perk often applies to our partners and children as well. That’s huge – how many of you have a Master’s or MBA that you got for free? That’s worth tens of thousands of dollars right there.

There are also other very nice perks – generous vacations, decently priced benefits (this one is a bit tricky depending on institution), often a very nice 401k match, use of campus facilities like the gym, bookstore discounts, the opportunity to see speakers on a variety of topics and more. I’ve seen a US Senator, a sitting Vice President, famous authors, Ben Folds, Bill Clinton, The Roots and oh yeah, Wayne Brady. For free, in my small rural town.

5. Lots of different types of projects

I love higher ed because I get to do a whole lot of everything. Need that web app written? That’s me. Need a graphic designed? Me. Email marketing? Me. Video shot, edited and posted to YouTube? Me. Need an update posted to Facebook? I’m your guy. Getting to wear many hats keeps me sharp and keeps me continually learning new things.

In the private sector, you’re often the designer or the developer or the client account manager and ne’er the three (or so) shall meet, except maybe in scope change meetings (see above.) I can’t think of too many other jobs where I’d get to wear so many fine chapeaux.

6. Students

Working with students is great. Yes, sometimes they are flaky and unreliable, especially around finals time, but overall, they are more than cheap labor. They can keep you in touch with what’s going on “on the ground” when it comes to the services your college offers, especially in the social media realm.

Do students do some grunt work? Sure. That stuff is just as important as a redesign or CMS – updating web pages and adding new information is maybe the most important task we do. By having students do the easy, yet sometimes annoying stuff, it frees us up to think about the big picture or go shoot that video (see above.)

Here’s the other thing. I have several students who have worked for me over the last seven and a half years here go on to work in the web development field or attend graduate programs in computer science. Especially for those who went into the workforce, their time with me looks very good on a resumé. They spend 3 or 4 years doing real-world, production work on a site that gets 2+ million visits a year. Not many students coming out of college who only did course work can say that. My students have shot video, built web applications, done HTML updates, designed things in Flash and so, so much more. We are preparing these kids for the workforce.

One more thing about students. Working with students keeps me feeling young. Okay, I’m 33, I’m not that old, but whether its my work study students or the kids I work with as advisor to the radio station here on campus, you can’t help but get caught up in their exuberance and energy. Often, the most fun we have is just sitting around talking. We talk about sports and movies and Modern Warfare 2 and the web and music. We have fun. Fun = key.

7. There are no small parts, only small actors

I like to think that by working in higher education, we’re making the world a slightly better place. Whether we’re working with admissions or advising or student life or athletics or alumni, we’re having a direct impact on the lives of thousands of young people every day.

We’re helping to hopefully point them in the right direction when it comes to their careers and being good citizens. Am I alone responsible for all that? Goodness no. I am but one small instrument. Put it all together, and I think I can safely say we’re making a positive change in the world.

Your incoming class this fall could have the next Steve Jobs. Or the next Mark Zuckerman. Or the next Steven Hawking. Who knows. That’s part of the fun.

So that’s it. What am I missing? I’m sure there are many more pluses when it comes to working in higher education.

As I was reading Andrew Careaga’s blog this morning about five ways to “pay it forward” in the social mediasphere, I realized there’s one more thing I would add to the list. It works in not only the social media world, but the real world as well.

Say thank you to someone today. Tell them you appreciate them, their work, their effort, their contributions, their leadership, anything. It takes just a moment and has a very powerful effect.

If you want to go all out, that’s fine too. A communications professor this week dropped off homemade chicken curry for us this week as a thank you for extra effort we put in on a project she’s managing. A colleague in our admissions office once brought us cookies with web terms iced on them. Two of the presidents here have taken a moment from their insanely busy schedule to send personal notes to me thanking me for my work (one was even hand-written on paper.)

Those are all very nice touches that make us feel appreciated, and if you have the time to make an effort like that, it’s great. Sometimes though, a simple thank you is a powerful thing.

The career planning session really hit home and the facilitators, Colleen Wheeler of Wheaton College and Eric Bird of Mass. College of Art and Design presented some dynamite content.

One of the videos they showed was this one, from Ted. In it, Richard St. John described 8 secrets to success that he gathered from years of attending Ted and talking with hundreds of successful people.

This morning, my cards arrived, a little more then a month later. I put 2 cards in my envelope – one saying “bring some thunder,” which I hope I’ve done, and the other was some ideas of how to best communicate ideas with upper management.

I’ve tried to do a better job of that lately. I’m not sure if I’ve succeeded, but this card activity was a great way to be reminded about a goal or idea and serve as motivation to complete the task if you haven’t.

Given the rising costs of technology in an ever-changing field, I strongly suggest that you have an ongoing career plan. Just because you currently have a job, benefits and a fair amount of job security does not mean things can’t happen down the road. Higher education is entering a period of much greater accountability. The cost of college is too great not to. Constituents will challenge us to prove our value, to cut our costs, to look at outsourcing and other possibilities.

This has been a topic of discussion during this trip. To those of you readers who are in your thirties and beyond, I’d be interested to know what knowledge, experience or nuggets of wisdom you can share from your career growth, especially during the early-to-mid thirties middle management phase. You can email me directly or twitter me if you’d rather not post a comment.

I’m going to ask this same question to some of my friends, former bosses and other colleagues as well.

Anyways, these day long sessions have been full of great, practical knowledge. Sometimes when I leave a conference session or workshop, I learn some tips and tricks and maybe some a-ha type things, but not a lot of techniques I can start to implement right away.

Not so with this series – each half-day part is chock full of great information I can take back to my campus and start using tomorrow. I’ve already applied many things I learned back in September’s session, and today’s session was no exception – especially the project management section.

My colleague and friend James is here as well and took great notes from the session that I will for sure be referring back to. Dwight Fisher, CIO of Plymouth State, really framed the importance of project management and showed that it can be used on projects of all sizes – from small department projects to years-long projects like an ERP implementation.

He also provided some project management scope and charter documents that I know I will use – I can think of three projects off the top of my head that would greatly benefit from these techniques.

As a bonus, I got to talk for a few minutes with Cynthia Golden, vice president at Educause. I worked for Cynthia at Duquesne University and it was nice to reconnect. I think she also volunteered me for a few Educause and NERCOMP committees, which is fine with me. I’m all about trying to learn as much as I can.

Tomorrow’s an early travel day back to Pennsylvania and hopefully back to campus in time to catch the end of our new president’s inauguration. Don’t worry, we’ll be posting video.

For the last 10 years, I’ve managed the websites at two great schools and spent some time in the private sector side in between my jobs at those schools.

I think that private sector side experience gave me two things. First, it gave me a good business understanding. I learned about RFPs, contracts, managing developers and the business side of things. The other thing I found out is that I didn’t get the thrill of the deal or the big contract. I enjoyed getting paid, to be sure, but making sales calls was a chore and I enjoyed focusing on the code side of things.

While there’s less pressure to track billable hours and be chasing new deals in higher ed, there are sometimes even bigger pressures when it comes to technology, enrollment, and so on. There’s opportunity to explore new ways of communicating and delivering information, which is fulfilling.

If you’re in the private sector side, one nice thing is that you have a somewhat clear career path. Worker -> middle management -> upper management. That is, if you want to ascend up the career ladder. In higher ed, that path is a little less clear, especially for web folks. The way it stands today*, it seems like you can go one of two routes, the IT route or the marketing route.

For example, a larger and larger part of the communications oversight of a college or university involves the web and electronic communication. This position, for example, requires experience and understanding of the web as well as video. What is the endgame of this path? Vice President of Marketing and Communications?

On the IT side, you could leverage your technical, programming and project management experience. This position requires those skills as well as budgeting and experience managing teams. The endgame here may be CIO or VP of IT.

* = I think a trend we’re going to see a lot more of are hybrid positions. These would include positions like this open Director of Web Communications at the College of Wooster. In a position like that, it looks like you’ll need to be a jack of all trades when it comes to the technical side of things as well as the marketing and communications side. When you take that job, send me a sweatshirt. Thanks, Kyle, for the tip about this type of position.

I don’t intend this to be the end-all-be-all guide to higher ed web careers. I’m just trying to figure out if there are clearly drawn lines any more. It will be interesting to see what sorts of positions are posted on Karine’s HigherEdExperts.com job board. There’s nothing yet, but it may be a good look into the trends of what jobs and job descriptions are developing into.

What’s your career goal or dream job?

Me, I’d love to be a CIO at a small school like the one I’m at. I think it would give you the opportunity to not only use my knowledge and full-blown geek-fu, but I think it would also allow me to be involved with many, if not all, of the departments across a college. This would allow me to give them the tools, software, connectively and so on they need to succeed.