Don't Look Now.. the Web's Mission Critical

I started building Web strategies and sites back around 1993. Back then, a large site might have been 10 pages or so, and cost about $5k. Usually, the client was a rogue marketing guy, or an IT guy (aka the webmaster!) who thought this would be a neat toy to play with.

I spent years with a vision of how the Web would/should/could tranform businesses productivity, profitability and image but because of where I worked, or my role, never really found my footing. I helped to build a web site building tool for one company, and we sold it to a few businesses who were close, but not quite there in thinking about the web as a business process tool, and not just a web site.

Fast forward to my new gig at a very large non-profit and I'm faced with a dream situation. Not only am I in a senior role, the entire organization is primed and ready to be completely "made-over" (this is a real extreme makeover!) by utilizing the web in ways that I've only been able to dream about.

Some examples - we have 10+ folks doing travel arrangements with a non-web based application. None of it is self-service, it's hard for us to keep track of who is where, and what their travel preferences might be... none of it integrates into our main CRM database. It's a mess. A new self-service web interface, connected directly into our CRM could save 5-6 jobs, improve the service we provide and dramatically cut our costs. Whoo!

Another example, we have a very outdated content management system, that was homegrown and has gotten completely unstabilized over the years. Our Web site doesn't use our central CRM, nor does it effectively connect to 3rd party apps, and it goes without saying that very little of our content is reusable. Imagine being able to cross pollinate brand assets, train our affiliates on one centralized content interface, connect it to an e-mail service etc... and on and on. The implications are game-changing.

Amazing. I love it. What an opportunity, what a challenge!