Sign in or 
Share this
Showing 7 posts
RachelUEA |
Staff time
Jan 17 2008, 11:38 AM EST
I wondered how much time is allocated to this. At UEA we don't have anyone dedicated to communication, with the result that it is an add-on to several jobs, and gets squeezed, particularly at times when it's needed most.I also wondered whether you have templates for getting a uniform feel of vocab/tone in your communications? Do you find this valuable?
Keyword tags:
IT communications
UWE
|
lisbk |
1. RE: Staff time
Jan 20 2008, 5:16 PM EST
I'll be mentioned the resourcing aspect in my talk on blogs.From my point of view (as someone who used to be an Information Office in IT Services at Liverpool & Leeds Universities) 2-way communications with our users is essential - and technologies such as blogs can have an important role to play. Brian Kelly Do you find this valuable? |
nicic |
2. RE: Staff time
Jan 21 2008, 12:17 PM EST
Within IT Services at Wolverhampton we have a full-time Information Co-ordinator, Sue who is the co author of our Blended Communications casestudy, she is certainly never short of work! This posts sits within our Information, Advice and Staff Development portfolio and we have found it invaluable and it has improved communications with our customers hugely. Most communications that go out from IT Services to staff and students across the institution go through Sue, it means they are clear and jargon free and they have our agreed house style. Internally Sue has developed good working relationships with colleagues in other teams and this has lead to improved internal communications and we all have a much better idea of the broad range of activities going on across different teams. I realise that a full-time Communication post seems like a very big commitment but it really is worth it.
0
out of
1 found this valuable.
Do you?
|
|
derekn1 |
3. RE: Staff time
Jan 24 2008, 4:20 AM EST
Once established, this need not take up much resource, but the important thing is that someone in IT owns this and is clearly responsible for delivering and co-ordinating the information. People will also respond back to the communication which also needs to be handled. On a monthly basis with stable systems you would expect to spend about 2 days on communication activity. If you have systems problems this could easily be 8-10 days spent communicating and responding.
Do you find this valuable?
|
|
FrankSteiner |
4. RE: Staff time
Jan 24 2008, 4:51 AM EST
This topic hits the nail on the head.We are trying to co-ordinate and streamline the whole communications process here at ULCC and I was wondering how you got the buy-in from the staff. At the moment we don't have real content owners, still most of the staff can update & publish parts of the website. Therefore we do have some inconsistency with style and jargon. Also some departments are reluctant/hesitant to share customer information in light of an integrated communications approach and prefer 'selfmade' newsletters on ad-hoc basis versus a planned strategic approach. Did you have a policy in place, outlining standards of communication? How many staff are there at IT Services in Wolverhampton? Thanks Frank Do you find this valuable? |
s.penzig@wlv.ac.uk |
5. RE: Staff time
Jan 28 2008, 10:42 AM EST
About 70 staff work in IT Services at Wolverhampton. So far as maintaining content on our customer website is concerned, only myself and a colleague can publish information, and this is managed by a combination of server permissions and policy. We also use Contribute to manage content on part of the site, and this enables staff to edit pages within pre-defined templates then send draft content to our team for publication. Some of our colleagues fight against that, and in those cases, I've usually got them on side by working with them, and explaining why the standards are important. When that fails, we have stern words! We still retain the concept of content owners, and I regularly remind these owners to review their content to ensure we keep the site up-to-date. 1 out of 1 found this valuable. Do you? |
JaneLittlehales |
6. RE: Staff time
Feb 18 2008, 9:42 AM EST
I'm the Marketing Manager for Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS), which includes all aspects of communications, marketing, publicity, etc. of our services and events to the rest of the University. It's a new post, created in Feb 2006. I work 3 days a week - and that's fine. However, I don't /do/ everything and I certainly do not write all our webpages! A lot of my time is spent on co-ordination and advising people on the best way to get their message to the right audience, making sure the OUCS logo and URL's appear appropriately on everything and keeping the information flowing through our established channels (RSS feeds, newsletters, reports to committees, etc). I've written a number of web pages to describe a communications strategy, how to approach advertising, resources available, etc. I doubt many people read them but I find it handy to refer people to and so its not all just in my head. We did used to have separate bits of paper produced by different sections and different times. It took a while to get established but now most are very happy to co-ordinate with (read: dump all the work on) me. I work closely with our Information Services Section who look after the website. Anyone within the department can add web pages but between ISS and myself we check things are the right style, right place, right info, etc. Writing style and jargon is tricky but I will ask for clarification or suggest changes if needed. Techy people often seem to overlook the simple things - what is the service and why would I be interested in it? - in their enthusiasm. Branding is a real issue. We have some great designers here who like to be creative. It can be hard to persuade them that they have to use the established logo or webstyle instead of their lovely new creation. Jane Do you find this valuable? |
