Reflections on 2020 & End of Year Report

Part 1: Reflection and Her-Story

Salutations. It’s hard to know where to start, an unusual predicament for this slinger of words. Summarizing our work this year feels so much less important than trying to uphold the work of our fellow colleagues caring for those with COVID-19.

These are the times that most remind me of Dickens, and the words you have all heard of, even if you didn’t know who wrote them:

Image 1: Quote by Charles Dickens, the best of times, worst of times, from A Tale of Two Cities

Dickens, more so than any author I have yet read, captures the highs and lows of a year such as this. His genius for bringing characters—experiences you could relate with—out front and center has never ceased to amaze me.

Don’t get me wrong—he wasn’t a saint and has been decried as a writer of “fairy tales, pantomines” as opposed to prose, but when he died, people the world over mourned because of his loss, because of his stories.*

How Will We Tell This Year’s Story?

I do wonder how we will tell the tale of our work this year. How will we record our stories so that our history becomes his- or her- or their-story? What will the future remember about the year 2020 and about us?

Image 2: Quote by James Baldwin, the tale is never new and must always be heard, from Sonny’s Blues

What Have We Learned This Year?

As I looked back at our work this year, what I really wanted to ask my team was: what have we learned this year? So, before I get to some cold, hard data, we’re gonna’ run with a few reflections from the team.

Ashley (Content Specialist):

“What I learned:

  1. I miss interacting with coworkers at the office on a daily basis and the treats that would magically appear over on marketing’s side. 
  2. The thought of speaking up in meetings to express my ideas or feelings still terrifies me. However, meeting with clients one-on-one more frequently has really helped build my confidence in expressing my expertise. I learn best when I’m thrown into the lion’s den alone even if it makes me a nervous ninny.
  3. I love color-coding Excel spreadsheets! It helps me stay sane and organized when I’m managing 40+ freelance assignments. (I blame my color-coding madness on binging too many episodes of The Home Edit in quarantine).
  4. Location, location, location is of the utmost importance when working from home. A desk in front of a window with picturesque mountain views is beautiful, but extremely distracting. Sitting in front of a boring, blank wall seems to work best for my focus. 
  5. The Holiday soundtrack by Hans Zimmer and Richard Eliot’s cheesy 80s saxophone music is THE BEST for editing freelancer drafts. 
  6. I initially invested in a new bike to calm my pandemic-induced anxiety. However, my bike (Jessica) did much more. Because of her, I made new lifelong friends and pushed my body to bike into oblivion (400+ miles).”

Melissa (Content Specialist):

“Well, while nothing seemed to go quite according to plan this year, I’m happy to say I’ve learned some important lessons in adaptability, self-compassion, and, most especially, the healing power of kitty cuddles. I gained a new appreciation for things I hadn’t realized you could miss, like office chairs, second monitors, and the clacking sounds of my coworkers’ keyboards (you never really know what you have until it’s gone, I suppose).”

“I persevered through piles of QA spreadsheets, wrangled with SMEs and freelance writers, and polished up pages until they shined. Thanks to all of my fantastic coworkers and friends for your support and patience as I’ve worked to conquer this year’s many unexpected challenges.”

Matt (Web/SEO Support Specialist):

“In 2020, I’ve learned to take a moment each day and be grateful for the people around me, the things I have, and the opportunities I’ve been given.  Many liberties that we all take for granted have been suspended for much of the year, and I plan to relish things like family gatherings and recreational travel in a way I’ve never done before. “

Jen (ME! Content Manager):

“I learned that I can work from home and like it!”

“This year also led me to deeply question my unconscious cultural belief in what I thought was an unsegregated and fair society. Relationships with people of all sizes, shapes, and races have always made my life richer . This year, however, my attention was transfixed by listening to people of color and I heard amplified the pain the White race has inflicted. I internalized how deeply engrained the social contract is within me from my White culture, and how much I have to recognize my privilege every day.”

“Also, I learned that my cats will always take me for granted, even if I’m home all day catering to their every need.”

Part 2: Cold, Hard Data

I have pretty high expectations of my team. In spite of the pandemic and the corona-quake and the hurricane of 2020, I expected good work, and I was not disappointed. Here are just a few numbers that attempt to measure the outstanding work my team has done (#humblebrag).^

Major Projects

  • Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital site content refinement
  • Training in new content management system: Drupal
  • Coronavirus site structure, content, and maintenance
  • 3 Drupal migrations:
    • College of Health 476 +/- pages (MAJOR SHOUT OUT TO OUR FAVE WEBMASTER: ALEX LARSON!)
    • College of Nursing 202 +/- pages
    • Center for Clinical and Translational Science 236 +/- pages
  • Clinical services lines work:
    • Destination care program​ sites
    • 24 content audits and analyses
    • 11 clinical content strategies
    • 14 detailed web content performance reports
    • 63/103 health library content pages (freelancer management, editing, SME interview, page builds, final editing—averaging 15–25 hours per piece); 63 complete and published as of the date of this blog publication
    • Major upgrade to billing pages adding:
      • Insurance information
      • How to read your statement
      • COB statement
      • Financial assistance
  • ​Academic & additional work:
    • 3 college/school site audits
    • 9 monthly content performance reports supporting assets, covering the following platforms: Health Feed, Scope, Good Notes, HCI Circle of Hope, Moran News, patient stories, press releases
  • Client management
    • 5 colleges/schools
    • 10 major services lines
    • 50 +/- additional clients
  • Maintenance. So. Much. Daily. Maintenance.

Events of Note

Superheroes of Search: SEO Workshop 40 +/- attendees

Greatest Happenings

  • Domain authority increase +1, 89 to 90**
  • MarCom virtual Halloween party. (Yes. It was a thing.)

It’s with thanks that we see the year close. We feel happy to be employed and have challenging, engaging work.

And finally, ask yourself: What did you learn this year and how will you tell your story of this year? Let me know.

Image 3: Quote from Zora Neale Hurston, years that ask questions and years that answer from Their Eyes Were Watching God

Originally published on Pulse, the University of Utah Health MarCom Intranet blog

*A.N. Wilson, The Mystery of Charles Dickens, pg 6, published 2020

^Please note that unless otherwise specified, all data is tied to the dates of Jan 1, 2020–Oct 31, 2020.

**Don’t understand why that’s a big deal? Talk to me or attend the upcoming SEO summit, Jan 2021. It’s a BIG deal.​

Day in the Life of a Content Manager

My department has recently been conducting interviews for new marketing specialists and even a content specialist. One of the smartest questions I think a candidate can ask is: What’s a typical day like for you in this job?

A few years back, I actually recommended to different academic departments in our institution that they build out content around this question in relation to life (day-in-the-life) as a medical student, resident, fellow, nurse in training, and surprise! It does really well.

Screenshot of content created for Day in the Life content series | Day in the Life of a Content Manager
Example of content we create for “Day in the Life” type pieces. These are used for recruitment on our academic websites and tend to perform well, which in this case translates to roughly 80% higher time on page compared to most of the other site pages.

So, in lieu of my sometimes so-deep-we’re-gasping-for-air posts, I’ll just stick to something simple: Day in the life!

Background: I’m coming up on year five of being resident web content manager at University of Utah Health. The journey has taken me through many sidewinders and close to some fascinating dead drops, but through it to date, I’ve kept these skills sharp and picked up some new ones:

  • writing,
  • editing,
  • data analysis,
  • SEO,
  • managerial work,
  • reporting,
  • client management,
  • project management,
  • networking,
  • reading, and
  • strategic thinking.

At this point in time, my team manages roughly 30K webpages across five (give or take) subdomains. At any time we are each (there are three of us and an SEO/digital analyst) managing 15 clients personally in a particular week, but that client list rotates.

The work we do is assist in structuring content governance (as we can’t manage all the pages personally), information architecture, new website set ups, and then conduct more in-depth content work for department priorities (that hopefully align with business goals), such as writing, auditing, and optimizing various webpages/content types.

First Things First: Pacify the Inbox (9–9:30 am)

Every morning when I get in and turn on my computer to check my email inbox, I make sure my water bottle is filled up. I also usually say hi to anyone else on the floor or around me. I may not have time or be in the mindset to start a conversation, but individually acknowledging co-workers by name as I see them throughout the day is really important to me.

As I review any emails that came in after I left the previous day, I use this as a way to orient myself to the day’s work load. I also double check the day’s calendar. The best days are mornings with just a few newsletters and few to no client responses. That means I can begin work on something substantive.

Then there are the days that I have meetings right away. I try to keep meetings first thing to a minimum—and our culture begets a lottttttt of meetings—but I really need those first few organizational minutes turning on computer and reviewing my calendar for the day.

Calendar day from first thing on through | Day in the Life of a Content Manager
Notice the blocked out “work time” areas. When I have serious deadlines to make, I can’t be open to meetings all day, so I block off time to work. Sometimes it makes other people crazy, but it keeps MY workload sane…

I’ll answer any truly important emails or emails with quick-Q answers. Now I’ll take time to review my task list from yesterday. These are items to follow up on from that I didn’t answer yet or small maintenance Qs that I want to follow up on.

If I have a high priority project, however, I’ll start work on that in the morning, as usually I’m a bit sharper mentally at this time.

High priority projects could include writing or editing something, QA’ing a website, continuing a content audit, keyword research, work in the content management system updating CTA (call to action) links that aren’t working or have changed for some reason. Anything I have scheduled to complete in the sprint* or for a meeting.

Mid-Morning

Depending on the day, I’ll either be in meetings or I might be taking care of any of the following five levels of work types:

  1. Basic maintenance: Updates to contact info, updates to provider/doc lists on websites, vanity url requests, contact info requests (who can help me do XYZ?), and the like. We are lucky to have a person who manages the basic maintenance queue who can assist with these types of requests; though, my team does some of them as well. Rule of thumb: Requests that take 10 minutes or fewer.
  2. Content maintenance: This usually involves a request to add a content page on a site or add a significant content chunk somewhere. There can also be things we have to untangle as to who to contact to get an issue addressed. These are middle level maintenance tasks that take a little longer than 30 minutes to do but fewer than three hours.
  3. New webpage requests: These requests can come from departments that need a lab site set up or a folder structure done. Typically the client can add the content themselves, but it takes some time to set up the bones of the site and check that they have training. There can also be requests for page setups for new services, clinics, locations, or the like. These are hard to measure time-wise. I actually prefer a complexity level measure. The more stakeholders you have to work with at any given time, the more complex I consider the task. Sometimes they cannot be completed during a sprint, in which case I schedule them in an upcoming sprint.
  4. Feature requests or project requests. These are genuine I-need-a-site-rework, I-need-a-new-feature, I-need-a-content-module-created. These need to be broken down into our sprint time periods as they often involve meeting personally with the client or significant research or writing time and effort. For example, we have a new health center opening, which entailed a roughly 25-webpage build with about 35 stakeholders involved. Sometimes the client will want what I call a feature, which has to have a developer or UX (user experience) specialist work on. These types of tasks also have to be scheduled once we have gathered the basic client objectives and time constraints.
  5. Priority projects or department projects. There are priority services identified by our institution that our marketing department supports. These projects are usually driven by the fiscal year. Typically they involve a project plan (including an associated content strategy) and scheduling throughout each quarter. These involve lots of writing, editing, client time, SEO optimization, and support work.

Meetings may involve various clients or stakeholders. Often if I have to travel to campus to meet with a client (our office is located in an administrative area further from campus, which is, however, better for lunch dine-ins or drive-throughs!), I’ll usually have to schedule two to three weeks out as travel time adds 40 minutes on to the meeting time and requires planning.

There are also interdisciplinary team meetings for priority and department projects as well as phone meetings/check ins for ongoing client projects. Then there are administrative meetings, like sprint planning meetings or project check-ins where we may be working with the devs, UX, or UI.

Lunch Time! Or Mid-Day Networking (11:30 am–1 pm)

Lunch is usually on the fly. I have long given up on packing a lunch as I never remember it. So, sometimes I’ll order in (I claim credit here for identifying a particular sandwich delivery service-to-my-desk option that the entire building uses). If I go out, it will usually be for a networking lunch with colleagues.

If I have a less intensive week with projects or deadlines, I use lunch as an excuse to keep up with friends in the department or do genuine networking. This also helps me remember to take some time for a break as even if I’m dug in to a project; my productivity is better if I take a breather.

It’s the same after lunch, except I stop answering emails. Anything that arrives in the email inbox after two or three gets pushed into the to-do task list that I answer on the following day. This helps me finish a project that needs doing or remain focused on a task. Around three I usually hit a slump period, so I may walk around (in an ideal world) or stop to chat with co-workers.

I also may *not-ashamed-to-admit* have hit up the caffeine machine for some Dewy goodness. (I do have a balance though – more water than other beverages goes in throughout the day.)

Towards the end of the day I usually get a second wind, but I may not be as clear headed, so I might work on optimizing a piece, keyword research, editing, reporting, but generally projects that are less cognitively demanding.

The Dismount (5:30-6 pm)

When I’m ready to wrap up, I’ll check what’s on the calendar for the next day. I rarely, rarely check or answer emails at home, so unless someone texts me, I’m off for rest and relaxation (AKA: cat feeding, grooming, and entertaining…).

Bitmoji goodness: What a day! | Day in the Life of a Content Manager
Day’s end—that’s a wrap!

And that’s a wrap! I really value the physical separation of work and home life. It helps me keep burn out at bay. Obviously there is no way to completely keep the two separate, but some boundaries always help in the pursuit of happiness.

And, as they say in Zombieland**, I try to take time to enjoy the little things.

*We use sprints in this case to denote bi-monthly cadences rather than in the true Scrum sense. The reason for this is to give us reporting periods. As a content practitioner, I find Kanban to be a bit more our style, but there are particular periods, like when working with developers, that sprints fit a work load.

I also find the terminology and concept of sprints a great way to communicate deadlines and work load to clients. If I indicate to them that we have a workload queue and give them some sense of measure to it, they are far likelier to have balanced expectations on project delivery.

**Random, I know, but I recently saw the reboot, Zombieland: Double Tap, and nearly cried I laughed so hard. Little things…

Setting Up Your Employee to Succeed: An Astonishing Idea

I literally never heard or read of this concept until this last year, 2018. I’m not kidding! Who knew that not only was there a philosophy and school of thought RE management, but that some organizations literally structure a plan for their employees to succeed!

I am still dumbfounded by this concept in the context of a goal that leadership or management would strive to achieve. And I think it’s just that the idea is so new to me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had great bosses (at least one) that gave me what I needed to succeed, but I also recognize that not every boss will intuitively understand every employee enough to do this. Each employee is unique; therefore, their way to success will be different as well.

Expectations

In the past my experiences as an employee have always been focused around figuring out what the boss likes and trying (or not) to please them. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t. Never, in my life, did it occur to me that a boss could give me parameters around which I could build my own success OR that they might allow me the freedom to define my own success.

My personal cultural background operates around a concept called servant leadership.* Namely, the leader is there to make sure the employees get what they need rather than making themselves an all-knowing figurehead who directs from on high. But there is (and I have yet to meet a leader who truly practices this) an element of pride in this concept: that I, as the nominated leader, somehow know better than the team what each team member needs and will elevate them through my own personal wisdom.

This bullsh&$ is actually kind of the opposite of truly helping your employees succeed. Setting yourself up as all-knowing intermediary is a flawed approach because none of us are all-wise, and all of us are generally affected by having power over others.^

In my first management position (by title), I had 10 dressers (assistants to actors with costume changes). One day one of the young dressers asked me a question and I absolutely beamed. She had figured out that my definition of success was not that the dresser was busy every minute, but that they were available and made sure all work that needed to be completed was done.

And that was the very question she asked me: Was anything else that needed to be done? Suddenly, she gained mega points in my mental tally, simply by figuring out what my expectations were.

I realized as I thought about this later, that one aspect of helping your employees to succeed is making known your expectations. You can’t expect anyone to read your mind.

In fact I did my employees a disservice by not communicating these expectations. Whether or not they cared about “succeeding” (via my definition) in this position, I certainly didn’t help them out.

But, are our personal expectations of our employees (and ourselves) truly the measure of success? Success certainly becomes far more tangible if it is tied to an overarching goal or objective.

Tangible Goals & Strategic Objectives

How many of you know what your institution, department, and/or team goals are? Our department worked very hard to define goals and outcomes in the last couple years, but a recent leadership departure has scattered those foci out in the proverbial wind. Granted, the industry (if you can call it that) of the academic medical center certainly doesn’t help anyone out since it’s so immensely divided in strategic objectives it’s nigh impossible to meet all the expectations.**

But, defining goals and/or objectives at any level (and writing them down) will help everyone succeed. Suddenly, you have something that can be defined and measured. You can break down these end games into an achievable journey. And not only is your end game achievable, but you with your employees can customize the way you achieve these goals.

I once thought that there was only one way to do things. That is absolute rubbish. There are not only multiple ways to do things, but there are pros and cons to all of them.

There is a difference, however, between skills and methodology. Skills are like facts, the building blocks of specialty, craft, or trade.

When you sew a seam in a costume, there are techniques to achieve quality. Once you have learned the basic techniques and skills of your specialty area, then you can explore methodologies. Another example: There are different methodologies of project management; however, they are all based around certain skills:

  • Time management
  • Resource management
  • People management

The way you approach those can define your success.

True employee success comes however, I believe, when your employee feels empowered to take their individual skill set and map out a way to achieve the overall goal themselves.

Simple Steps to Prime Your Employees to Succeed

As Steve Jobs said: “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Your employees should be skilled people in their specialties. You, as their manager, may have some of these skills, but you will be most successful yourself if your skill set is in good management. (But more about that some other time.)

Here are some simple steps to prime your employees to succeed:

  • Know and communicate the endgame
  • Tie in team and employee goals to the endgame
  • Clearly communicate your expectations
  • Allow your employee the freedom to work as suits them best
  • Hold your employee accountable; review and check in as needed

Of course, now that I write that, I realize none of those steps are really simple. Each one involves skill sets that are difficult to master in and off themselves—communication; candid conversations about difficult topics; a modicum of self-mastery so that you don’t project your own emotions on your employees; the ability to accept failures and move on; and, perhaps most important, the ability to listen.

And celebrate your successes!

If you are constantly focusing on where you need to go without appreciating the work that’s been done, how will your employees ever feel successful?

So, it turns out that while I could teach skill sets and I have some good management skills, there is still much to learn. And I can help my employees to succeed if only by acknowledging their expertise and specialty level and not assuming my methodologies are the only way. I can also help them to define (alongside myself) a set of clear achievable goals towards our endgame.^^

And I’m wicked good at throwing celebrations…

 

*Very Christian actually
^And if you think you don’t favor a particular employee, you’re lying. Every manager has a favorite or one they listen to more than others.
**Patient care, research, and education. Those are three wildly difficult areas to define success measures for, so in an institution that has them all squished together—welcome the woes of too many masters.
^^It’s true that the institutional endgame might not be defined or be somewhat nebulous, but you work with what you have…