[thelist] Webmastering Advice?

[aardvark]

well, you certainly have a handy list of skills you can bring to the 
table... from what i see here, i don't see you doing any real day-to-
day grunt work... instead, i see you using your experience to 
delegate the administration and development to the resources best 
suited to the job -- relying on vendors even (and determining which 
to use)...

i could recommend the book i worked on about design for the technical 
types, but that would seem pointless given the resources you seem to 
have at your disposal...

overall, i'd say that you need to educate yourself on the *user*... 
you're a programmer and a power user, and with your experience with 
databases, you have an idea of how you think things should be 
structured... but users won't think the way you do... take a look at 
the O'Reilly IA book (it has a chapter on evolt.org in it)... talk to 
your marketing department to get a feel for how they want to present 
themselves... stay active on lists like this to be aware of current 
trends... work on a plan for the future and start to think about who 
can do it for you... and if nothing is broken right now, don't fix 
it...

<pitch type="overt">and if you ever want to talk about a CMS (that 
matches your environment and business needs), gimme a call 
sometime</pitch>

does that help any? are you looking for more discrete advice?

> From: John.Brooking at sappi.com
[...]
>    My manager just told me they were thinking about having me take on
>    the
> role of webmaster over all of our North American locations, which we
> don't currently have. This is good news for me, but - I'm not sure
> exactly what that will entail, and what are the various skills I
> should be boning up on. So I thought I'd ask you all for some advice.
[...]
> security, and network administration are already handled by other
> teams here in Corporate, but it isn't centered around a central
> webmaster-type person. It is likely that as webmaster I would still
> continue to work closely with these other teams, since they have the
> expertise in each area. So I definitely wouldn't be making all the
> decisions myself.

[...]