I just read about the 5 P’s of Preparation – talking about planning for a meeting (on page 53). But I realized as I was reading the 5 P’s that they also work pretty well for planning and discussing a technology project.
So – here are my modified 5 P’s of Techie Project Planning:
Purpose – what are the key objectives, why are we building/redesigning this?
Product – what’s the goal? What’s the end result? How will we know we were successful?
Participants – who needs to be involved? Who are we building this for?
Probable issues – are there any concerns? Any roadblocks or challenges in our way? How can we prevent those?
Process – What steps do we need to take to meet our goals?
What steps do you use when planning a technology or web project? Do they look similar to this? Let us know in the comments!
Mark this down as a cool tool for your website-building toolkit…
Ever wondered what CMS or web server a certain website was using? Wonder no more! Simply enter the URL of that interesting site into builtwith.com and voila! – this site will tell you all that geeky stuff!
For example, look at their CMS page. For the top million websites that BuiltWith tracks, they find that 62.87% of websites use WordPress, 14.77% use DotNetNuke, 10.25% use Joomla, and 3.40% use Drupal. Then when you move to their Top 10,000 sites graph, those percentages change quite a bit.
Or look at the Top Payment Distribution Services – look at the top 10,000 sites graph. % us Paypal (duh), 35.94% use CCBill, 10.94% use Google Checkout, then Flattr, Mollie, and Amazon Payment Services are there, too. CCBill, Flattr, and Mollie? Never heard of them.
So – use it to check out your website against others, use it as a discovery tool to learn about new services. Pretty handy!
My newest video for WebJunction is out! This time around, I provide a succinct explanation of how competencies can be useful to you and your library. It fits nicely with WebJunction’s Competencies website (you should check it out sometime).
“Every library needs a presence on the Web. Whether you work at a large academic library or a public library in a small town, you need to be able to provide service and content to your patrons beyond the walls of your building. In this workshop, David Lee King will take you through the process of building an effective, user-friendly library website that will exand and enhance your library’s presence in its community.
This event will take place on Tuesday, August 3rd at 2:30pm Eastern (1:30pm Central, 11:30am Pacific).
Whether you’re looking to launch your first website, redesign your site, or expand the site you have, this workshop will provide practical guidance for every step of the process.”
Going to ALA 2010 in Washington, D. C.? If so, please consider participating in the BIGWIG Showcase! What is the BIGWIG Showcase? It’s a fun, highly interactive way to learn about a lot of topics at once! Here’s a list of the topics for this year’s Showcase:
Libraries MUST Have A New Electronic Content Access and Distribution Infrastructure (Michael Porter)
User Research on a Shoestring (Erin White and Susan Teague-Rector)
Information Overload & Personal Information Management (Bohyun Kim)
iPad and Tablet computers (David Lee King)
Teaching with Twitter (Ellen Filgo)
Qrcodes & Mobile Knowledge Networks (Bonnie Rosalen and Kelly Sattler)
And yes – I’m doing one … my presentation is on the Apple iPad and the new breed of tablet PCs that are coming out in the next couple of years. I show off the iPad and provide some examples of how to use one in a library setting.
What do YOU need to do? Two simple things:
Watch the video, and leave a comment if you want to
Attend the Showcase! I’ll talk briefly about the iPad, possibly even show one off … then we’ll chat – answer questions, debate the merits of the iPad, etc… and then you’ll be able to rotate off and talk to the other amazing presenters (listed above).
Simple stuff, huh? Make SURE to attend the BIGWIG Showcase – Monday, June 28, 2010 from 10:30am to Noon at the Renaissance Washington Grand BR South/Central. See you there!
I’m reading The Secrets of Facilitation: The S.M.A.R.T. Guide to Getting Results with Groups by Michael Wilkinson (all us managers at the library are reading it right now).
Mark this down as a cool tool for your website-building toolkit…
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