I Don't Consider Myself a Web Content Maven

Went to the Web Content Mavens Meetup last night at Whitlow's. I got there late, since it took an hour to get from Reston to Arlington -- 66 was a big hassle (shocker), though the main presentation hadn't been going on that long.

The speaker was Lisa Welchman, and the topic was Web Operations Management strategies. She had a very simple handout, with four points: Strategy, Operations, Governance, and Community. Even I, a simple end-user, could follow it pretty well. And as a typical end-user, I'm usually on the "why can't we just do this now?" side of things, but it was still pretty engaging -- especially the bit about needing content policies in place. (I did think her answer to the problem of managing user-generated content didn't really cover it -- simply not giving user content an "official" stamp of authority may cover you from a common-carrier perspective, but there are just certain things you need to act on, not the least of which if you want to have a viable and useful community.)

Did a little networking -- right now I'm still x-ing out my old business cards and writing my contact info on the back, which is pretty cheesy. I'll need to get some simple ones put together soon.

Afterwards, hung out in the bar with a few folks. It was some good conversation.

Tonight (now, as a matter of fact) is the NextDC Happy Hour; I'll see what the traffic's like and head in. However, I do have to be up early tomorrow morning and over at College Park (yay, morning rush on the Beltway) for the Future of News Industry Jobs conference, so I dunno. Too soon to tell.

Tags: web content mavens