Jason Austin's Blog Life and times of a PHP Developer in Raleigh, NC

NC State Goal for 2010: Improve adoption of the Brand

Last year, our campus adopted a brand book.  This is a guideline for how NC State media (web, print, etc) is to be published.  It was something that our campus SORELY needed, and a great step in the right direction.  In 2010, I'd like to help NC State improve the adoption of that brand with respect to the web, and be better organized along the way.

To accomplish this goal, I believe it starts with developers and designers.  Our campus has an awesome community of web developers and designers.  I have been the key organizer for the group for the past year, and my continuance with that will be a focus in 2010.

More Meetups, More Topics

The plan for 2010 is to have monthly meetups that are a bit more structured than years past.  The goal is to come up with a few presentations about web-like stuff, and have the community vote on what presentations they want to hear for the next month (similar to how IgniteRaleigh selects talks).  The idea would be, after a while, people would start submitting their own talks so that a few of us don't have to do them every month.  Every meetup, we'd have one or two topics, then use the rest of the time for socializing and general Q&A.  We are also going to be trying to give equal representation to the designers among us.  The better informed our developers and designers can be, the better they will be able to execute the goals of the brand book.  And an active community, is (hopefully) a productive, happy one.

Social Media Push

Last year, we launched http://twitter.ncsu.edu and it was a massive hit.  I have no facts to back it up, but we HAVE to be the most actively tweeting campus around.  We have 74 official NC State accounts for goodness sake!  I also helped teach a class last year on "Tweeting for NC State University", which made it to the home page of slideshare.net (way cool).  In 2010, I'd like to continue our momentum and tap the Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, whatever-social-media-outlet-you-want-to-name markets as well.  I'd like to see us expand on the NCSU twitter site to also pull feeds from other social media outlets.  I think it would provide a great resource to incoming students, allowing them ways to connect with new people on campus.  I'd also like to organize some additional training for people on how to effectively use social media on behalf of the University.  This will help us spread the brand to new and prospective students.

Certified Developer/Designer Program

This one is something that I have been thinking about for a while, and it may seem a little bit out of left field, but hear me out.  I'd like to setup a system where designers and developers are rewarded for knowing and executing the brand book the way it should be.  It would involve a bit of work on behalf of the employee, but the rewards could be tremendous for them and for the department or college they work for, especially in our resource-starved environment.

Here's the gist.  We setup a curriculum which involves classes on the brand book, effective design principles, Photoshop, accessibility, usability, etc.  This would be a lot of work to get started, but we already have a lot of good people who are already doing most of these classes already.  As an employee completes the curriculum, they are accepted as a certified developer or designer for NC State.  Part of them keeping this designation would be for them to turn around and help teach others.  Blog, teach workshops, answer questions on the forums and mailing lists.  It is a communal-like approach which may or may not work, but it would give employees the chance to add "teacher" to their toolbox of skills.

That sounds like a lot of work, right?  So what's in it for the employee or department?  Here is where I need to secure funding, but I do have a vision.  First off, free software.  Adobe Creative Suite, Zend Studio, Dreamweaver, whatever.  Right now, colleges and departments have to purchase individual licenses for each employee that wants to use it.  If you are a certified developer or designer, we will give you a license to use for free.  Secondly, access to pre-made templates, logos, fonts, layouts, and all sorts of brand-related goodies.  It will make the employees job easier, and they will have more time to focus on other things.  Third, a conference lottery.  Conferences are great ways to improve on your profession, but the sad thing is that we have very little funding to send people to conferences.  All certified developers and designers would be put in a lottery once a year to win a "scholarship" to the conference of their choice.  It will give people who don't typically have the opportunity the chance to branch out and attend events like An Event Apart, DrupalCon, ZendCon, or whatever they want.

Right now, this is all a dream with no real push behind it.  But I think it would a great rewards program for our 100+ developers on campus.  I know this will involve the efforts of lots of people and myself.  But what do you folks think?  Is it crazy to expect already busy people to do even more, even though it is for the betterment of NC State?  Are the requirements too big?  Are the rewards too small?  What kind of challenges do you see?

Heavy stuff, but I will leave you with a bit of Dilbert humor about certifications...

DISCLAIMER: These are my personal goals for NC State in 2010. None of this has been signed off on or anything like that, it is just what I hope to accomplish in the new year.