Zeldman, after going through some of the survey results from ALA, has noticed that very few companies have web divisions. Instead, most web sites are built out of either the IT or marketing departments — or by ad hoc groups made up of people from all over the company. He suggests this is a bad practice, and that instead, companies should have web divisions. I couldn’t agree more.
We talked about this a lot when I worked at K-State. The University Relations group (i.e. marketing) didn’t have the technical skills necessary to put together a good website. And even though they were good designers, they largely didn’t understand the ins and outs of designing for the web. I worked in the IT department, which technically had ownership of the website. The administration didn’t consider us to be designers (and to be fair, most of the group wasn’t). So, when a redesign was proposed, they built and ad hoc group (which, admittedly, was better than just having one group or the other do it). The results were okay, but I can’t help but think it could have been far, far better with a dedicated team of web professionals.
In contrast, The World Company (parent of The Lawrence Journal-World and a whole gaggle of other news media properties) built a web division (World Online) to handle its online properties, and the results were numerous awards, respect across the industry, and generally well-received sites.
I would assert that a dedicated web division has more hiring power than either an IT or marketing group, as well. I know I wouldn’t go to work again for an IT department — but I’d definitely go to an internal web team for a great media property or brand.
So, yes: let there we web divisions.
http://www.zeldman.com/2007/07/02/let-there-be-web-divisions/
001 // Geof Harries // 07.02.2007 // 3:39 PM
Our Yukon territorial government is starting to roll out a brand new version of its website; a monstrous effort that will take several years to complete. I was the consultant lead on the very first department site to get the makeover so I had a hand in ensuring W3C standards and accessibility guidelines were followed and adhered to.
That said, the government, despite being on track to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into this multi-year project, still doesn’t have a dedicated web team.
Instead, there’s employees from IT, Policy & Communications and whoever else is interested in being onboard. As you said, an ad-hoc group.
The results? I don’t know yet, but there’s a good chance things could go horribly wrong, being a committee-driven institution and all. The clean, semantic and valid code that I initially delivered will probably morph into a soupy mess as soon as it’s released to the “content administrators”.
So, I completely agree with you and Zeldman on the importance of dedicated web teams, staffed with web design/development professionals. It’s just too bad that even in today’s world, corporations, whether public or private, don’t see the value in making this happen.
002 // Matt Robin // 07.03.2007 // 2:13 PM
“So, yes: let there be web divisions.”
I agree! It’s far more organised and makes a whole load more sense than getting people from the wrong background making and managing web sites….(usually badly!)
One thing I’d add to this though: let there be web divisions….that are really dedicated and good!
Some companies have Web Divisions - but then stop right there - thinking that is a wonder cure for all of their web work, and they don’t check that the Web Division are actually any good. Just having a Web Division isn’t enough - it also has to be good at what it does (of course, hell - I’m stating the obvious right?! hehehe)
003 // Lucy Spence // 07.12.2007 // 10:42 AM
I, too, agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment. But I wonder who is going to take up the call to action?
There’s so much on the web about everything web, except for this (and perhaps one or two other things). I’m not entirely sure why as web professionals we seem to have kept quite on organisational issues over the years, as I suspect it’s frustrated most of us from time to time.
Is it because most people in the weird world of web don’t really get into “business issues” and it’s seen as a business topic?