Be proactive or die

A few months ago, I had to take a Peoplemap workshop. I was skeptical at first, but it was really one of the most beneficial things I've done because it completely explains everything. According to Peoplemap, there are four personality types: Leader, Task, People and Free Spirit.

-Leaders are, well, leaders. They are the big picture people and thrive on accomplishment. They also like to be in charge and can tend to get a bit bossy.
-Task people are all about structure. They like lists and being on time and are extremely detail oriented. They tend to get annoyed when people don't see the world like they do because its all about rules and procedure to them.
-People people are great at communicating and relating to others. They want everyone to like them and avoid confrontation like the plague.
-Free Spirits are independent and creative. They tend not to sweat the small stuff and are flexible in almost any situation. However, they have a hard time focusing on a task or a routine.

I bring this up because (as you might suspect), I am a very strong Free Spirit. Task was last on my list of types. I suspect the same is true of many people in this type of job, since jobs are often very good predictors of which type you are. Because of that, what I'm going to advocate for in this blog is going to take us out of our comfort zone and into task territory - taking a proactive approach to the web.

I would say that 90% of the problems I've witnessed throughout my professional career arise from two things:
1) Someone thinking they understand a situation more than they actually do (usually someone in a managerial position)
2) A lack of planning prior to the implementation of a strategy.

Now, you have no control over a manager thinking they are smarter than they are, but you do have control over how you organize your strategy. Most of the work that we do comes in cycles and is pretty easy to predict a decent amount of time in advance. I use to plan things out a year ahead of time and would have a master calendar that I would carry with me all the time to make notes if things needed to be changed. It included everything - email dates, web updates, print mail dates, important events on campus that the web had a hand in supporting. Everything was laid out in front of me so that I always knew what was going on and what role I had to play in it. Since moving to Dartmouth, I've been rather lost in that respect. Strategies are created and modified at the very last minute on a consistent basis and it's really been an eye-opener to me about the vast differences in working-styling and the benefits of a proactive approach.

A major benefit of pro-activity is the ability to define roles, responsibilities and expectations ahead of time. This is particularly important when you're working in a very collaborative environment, where a project doesn't come together until you have assets from 3-4 different people. If Johnny knows he has to produce a web template and Susie knows she has produce copy for the page a month ahead of the due date, then you're probably going to get a better template and better copy than you would have if it was sprung on them the day before it was due. Plus Johnny and Susie will like you more (very important to People people, which is my close-second personality type). Set expectations and treat people like adults and professionals and most of the time, they'll come through.

Another key benefit of being proactive is the ability to get really detail oriented and fix mistakes before they are made. If you've got the basic gist of what you're going to do worked out a month ahead of time, you can really to into the inner workings and make sure all your bases are covered. This prevents stupid errors, such as dropping your request info link off your page entirely or using photographs of your counseling staff so large that they push their actual contact info ridiculously below the fold. We've all made mistakes like this, but they are almost completely avoidable by thinking ahead and looking at the big picture.

Beyond error prevention, planning things in advance allow you to get super detail oriented with your communications. This is particularly useful in incorporating excessively segmented and customized email for your users. Coming up within the next month, we are going to be doing a massive mailing to our alumni to support a fundraising challenge where there will literally be a customized template for every class. Anyone who does email marketing knows campaigns like this tend to be far more effective than the generic variety.

Finally, being proactive frees up time. Yes, that's right. By doing more planning you save yourself all those last minute scrambles and time you spend fixing all the stupid mistakes you made. Then you can spend more time working on the fun projects. You also have less headaches and will probably end up with more hair as the years go by.

Ultimately, it should all be about the user. If they can't navigate your site or find the information they are looking for or don't understand how to take the call to action you've asked them to, then you've lost the game. Really looking at things ahead of time helps you to help the user. You also help yourself - less stress (=more hair), less headaches, more time to do fun project. Everybody wins!