Summer Net-working

Well, I have been working for the alumni office for nearly three years now. And in that time, I’ve learned the ins and the outs of the Web sites under my care. Now, I need to look towards sharing what I’ve learned with the person who will, as of this time next year, have replaced me.

Today I started working on a how-to guide for the newbie: how to post an event, how to post a news story, how to create a scrapbook page. I highly doubt this will end up being more than a few pages stapled together and handed over for a reference, but it has more importance in that it’s the first time that I’ve been faced with training a replacement.

It’s a unique experience, that’s for sure. I worry about leaving stuff out (speaking of, I need to be sure to include a color guide–we have specific shades of purple and gold that we’re supposed to use), or being redunant and coming off like I’m talking down to the replacement. I just know how off-balance you can feel when you aren’t sure how to go about something.

When I started in the office, there were several people working on the site and it wasn’t really uniform throughout. My supervisor was doing the bulk of the site maintenance, but she admitted that she didn’t know much about FrontPage, the program we use to edit the site. I had been on campus for less than a month at that point, and combined with my unfamilarity with people in the office, the Web protocols, and the aim of the office I was a little hesitant to go haring off on my own. That made the first few weeks a little uncomfortable, and if I can prevent that for my replacement, I’ll be happy.