Donna Lehmann, Director of Online Communications at Fordham University, is one of the 13 higher ed professionals presenting at the 2014 Higher Ed Content Conference.
Donna is currently working on a comprehensive website redesign.
In this 3-question interview, Donna tells us about a content challenge, a secret weapon to create better content and shares some advice.
1) What is the biggest challenge you face in your day-to-day work on higher ed content?
Maintaining high-quality decentralized content (up-to-date, error-free, written for the web) while producing and fostering the development of new content. Everyone has experienced that dreaded phone call from a vice president who has found some deeply-buried, error-ridden, out-of-date page on the website. No, you are not the web author, but the content on the website is your responsibility.
How do I deal with it? With budgets tight, we will never have enough centralized staff to monitor thousands of web pages on our site. The best we can do is to create an informed, invested authoring community.
2) What is your secret weapon to get better higher ed content created?
Make it scannable. I find people really grasp this concept. It’s one thing to say write for the web or be concise or use bullet points and subheadings but it’s the act of scanning a web page that they can relate to because it’s such universal behavior. It’s also something that content creators can be rather objective about; you know it when you see it.
3) What piece of advice would you give to somebody who wants to improve digital content?
The 80-20 rule. You hear this rule applied to social media — 80% of your social media content should be informational/educational with just 20% about your product or service — but it could be applied to most any web content. It helps content creators get outside themselves and think about content that isn’t merely about promoting their department or event.
