Budget Cuts and the Effect

This week I violated the house style guide several times. After months of negotiations and meetings, proposals and recaps I could finaly implement three more brandingblocks on the SBE homepage. The programm pages are now updated to the agreed terms of last weeks webco meeting and many minor tasks have been accomplished.

Most notable is that SBE staff members can submit events online under >MY SBE>ACTIVITY CALENDAR> which took a bit longer than expected but does look fine. And since more and more people put content into the new system you can now subscribe to News and Seminars via RSS.

An interesting discussion with ROA about their website ended with a document that lists the disadvantages of the Content Management System. It summarizes the concerns I meet with increasing sympathy and scepticism alike. In the discussion I recognized that no awarness is payed to simple but important questions. Who is your target audience? What is it that you want to communicate? For whom or which purpose do you have a website? These questions are simple but necessary. On the other side, I recieved a presentation with arguments for the transition to the new CMS system for everyone.

A major point of interest are personal profile pages and I recieved the first draft for such a proposal and was also at the first meeting regarding the general outlook and some minor technical problems. They look good and integrate METIS information as well as information from and about users themselves. At the end of that meeting the discussion revolved around privacy or how much of what information should be public? Isn't it boring to search for people by their names? Would it be more fun and interesting to search by interest or age, by past projects or current ones, or maybe by birthday or favourite colour? There are many options, but not every option is also a solution.

Another meeting this week revolved around NEWSKIOSK, an Application Service Provider (ASP), whos boss went on a sabbatical (like me) for a year. But he stayed in his house somewhere in the Netherlands. I can imagine better places but who am I to judge! The trial use of GoogleDocs for the IRO office failed after two months. Reason: They recieved training and can place links themselves on the website. Eureka!
After the begging for money tour was succesful I also look now for an assistent here.

Second Error in GX

Removing page sections simultaniously from many pages causes an repeated error. F.e. if you want to get rid of many banners, testimonials, news lists, and so on accross a big array of pages at once (because it safes a lot of time) you get an error.

First Department Website ready to launch

In the next weeks one after another department will launch their sites. At our first meeting with AE1 of the department of Economics we discussed their new website here.
Some links need to be in place but all the necessary content according to Score 303 is migrated and ok to show off. Changes are:
- Additional Links from >RESEARCH to Publications and Seminars
- under >PUBLICATIONS the years in the content field go
- METEORIT seminars? what about them?
- Banner for the department window

Besides that there are many other things to do. Two of the bigger projects are a website selfservice center and a SBE community.

some videos...

 

My producers, are they not my consumers?<M. McLuhan>

 

 I will never get school into the way of my education. <M.Twain>

URL for Department websites

Since its always the simple things that do not touch the mind here is one for all of you: What is the URL (internet adress) of the new department websites? Any suggestions?


http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/sbe/...


...finance
...aim
...econ
...erd
...os
...qe
...mscm


or

http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/...


Deadline: Thursday 27 january

this weeks summary

information is not knowledge

knowledge is not wisdom

wisdom is not truth

truth is not beauty

beauty is not love

love is not music

music is everything

Frank Zappa's response to T.S Eliots reference to Poe's sailor reminds me of what I go through every day of the week as web coordinator of SBE. Altough refreshing, much of my week had to do with real persons. But I got some things finished. The Introduction Day website is up and running and so are changes made to the SBE intranet. Some minor changes here and there but no time for the departments with the exception of two new webeditors trained and ready to conquer yet undiscovered online worlds. ASP is not everyones taste and is hard to maintain. While ACO wants to get rid of Frontpage and BPRC is not offering a alternative at the moment. Marthas request for change was done unconventionaly and implemented immediately. And voila.... there is todays job done with yesterdays tools.
Another request for change protocoll was discovered at the meeting with all web coordinators. And guess who has to read and apply it? The old issue of a feedback mechanism for the entire UM website. Basically its a link in the footer of each page that says something like "found a bug? Tell us". After clicking on it the attentive visitor tells what problem he found or what is unclear to him. This information is send via email to the person responsible for this part of the UM website including the page iD and timecode. That's basically it. Would it help me as webcoordinator? Well, yes I think so. But here we go. Other questions on the agenda which will be discussed in smaller working groups concern the topics "dynamic navigation" and "the programme pages". Also a university wide intranet option was discussed but at the end I will say more to that.
You don't sell your product, you sell yourself. And when it comes to UM's products, then it's the programmes we are talking about. MSc, BSc, PhD, MBA, and executive programmes (post graduate education) are the major categories around which an organizational setup is infiltrated by the latest technology. This was also discussed with one programme director who wants to see her programme page different than it is now. A link to LinkedIN, a weblog maintained by the department and some thoughts about how to use them to connect to students and other interested parties. Nothing concret but a start.
I also revieved a compliment for an image I used for METEOR and BUSINESS RELATION. Annemarie likes it very much. I hope she will tell Meredith about it. Her requests for change examplified the differences in perception. While all her remarks concerned the text or the structure - to some extend justified by common sense (meaning by myself) - while nothing whatsoever was wrong with the image. The image is intended to play the "background music" while the text is what food is for the digestion system. While the stomache tells nothing about the taste of whatever one puts down his throat, so was Annemaries awareness unaware of the sublime effect of the image. Because it was the image that she found "cool" not the text.
The intranet debate is far from beeing over. In fact, it just started. At SBE there are websites available to special user groups. And they do the job. The downside is that there are many people who have only read access and few who have write access. So there is an asymetry of supply and demand which is artificial meaning its constraint by the environment, not by the emergent property contained in it. The next step would be a community solution examplified by NING or similar Social Networking Platforms which allow everybody to be consumer and producer at the same time. Having written this a host of questions fall like rain from the heavens as it does every day here in hell. In fact it must be a watery place. Look at Gilgamesh: Hell was a watery place. In the hebrew bible (the old testament) it was Sheol where later the Greek shades wander in a dark and misty underworld. Like Narcissus who fel in love with his image in the water. For him, the watery mirror was death. And it is interesting to note that one of the most popular Iphone apps which turns your device into a mirror.

Great ha...

by the way, I also meet the woman who is responsible for the Creative Writing course, she is very nice and everybody should do it...and I will do too.

Serious GX error #1

I just came across an rather serious error in GX. Joanna from METEOR publishes an Agenda Item that contains a seminar. The seminar happens today but does not show up on the designated website. I fetch it using the MEDIA OVERVIEW on an otherwise empty page. The terms by which it filters the Media Repository Items are correct, Publication Date and Expiration Date is also correct and everything looks fine. But it does not show up on the correct page. Supprisingly when clicking on "More events" it suddenly does show up there.

An experiment reveals the error. When I change the Start date of the seminar in question it shows up correctly on the page I want it to show up. It would be logical if changes to the Expiration Date would alter the visibility of the Agenda Item but this has no effect. The Item only shows up when I change the actual start date of the seminar regardless of the content of the expiration date.

This is a serious error. It means that in order to display an Agenda Item using the MEDIA OVERVIEW one has to accept that events which happen today do not show up there. They do show up in the general AGENDA page (the one you arrive when clicking on "More events")

Any Answers?

Credit Card dilemma

A dilemma is a problem that offers at least two possibilties neither one of which is practical applicable. In the case of SBE's credit card the logic is as follows:

IF the credit card information is not to be used online THEN lots of things cannot be purchased.
IF the credit card information is faxed THEN some things might be purchasable.

WHAT IF

THE thing in question CAN NOT be puchased using NEITHER fax or credit card information
AND
THE thing in question CAN be purchased using everything else except a bank transfer
THEN
we cannot purchase it.


Welcome to the real world!

The emotion of design "45

The emotion of design

Silent Start into the New Year

The old year ended the way the new year began. The SBE Christmas party was a good occasion to see the  informal side of SBE. Wherever youth is synonymous with beauty the past is captured in the moment. And so it was not the fact but the consistency by which the portraits of SBE’s award winners are out of date by at least 10 years. Besides the pompous prize money which reflect the attitude characterized by an institutes struggle for financial vitality nothing could be more damaging than Wikileaks announcement to release SBE classified data.

But enough from this and back to work. The new Research Centre Section was put online today and some minor changes across the site where implemented. FAQ pages for Master and Bachelor programmes as well as a new case competition are online. The student-for-a-day recruitment initiative and new LCD screensavers where also on the work table and besides some other small magic tricks done in the blink of an eye.
Tomorrow I will have time to see after the Department websites and their developments and the programme page.