Blogs - May 2008

Below are the blog entries for May 2008:

Meet the Team - Elizabeth Otwell

By Morgan Griffith,

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 2:50pm

MORGAN GRIFFITH:  Hey there, you're listening to Hannon Hill's 'Meet the Team,' and I'm Morgan Griffith.  Today I'm here with one of our newest additions, Elizabeth Otwell.  Hi Elizabeth, how are you?

ELIZABETH OTWELL:  I'm great, thanks, how are you?

MORGAN GRIFFITH:  I'm doing very well, thank you.  So how are you liking it here at Hannon Hill so far?

ELIZABETH OTWELL:  I'm really enjoying it!  Everyone here has been so welcoming, and the atmosphere is pretty cool too. All the funky displays of colors and design in the furniture, art, and lighting is really unique. Definitely not the same old cubicles you would usually see at the workplace. I think the surroundings create an exciting place to come to work everyday.

MORGAN GRIFFITH:  Yes, you're right, the environment is pretty different than most companies. So tell us, what brought you here to Hannon Hill?

ELIZABETH OTWELL:  Well, I previously worked for a design company. The store I worked at was closing, and I was offered another position at a different location, but unfortunately, the commute would be too far.  But I think things happen for a reason, so I took it as a sign to move on and try something different.  I started browsing for listings in this area and I saw Hannon Hill's ad on Craigslist and applied.  I had sent out a number of resumes and received several other job opportunities, but after meeting the people here and seeing how interesting the environment was, I knew this was the place for me!

MORGAN GRIFFITH:  That's terrific, we're glad you decided to choose us.  Hannon Hill is quite different than your previous place of work -- were you interested in getting into this particular line of work?

ELIZABETH OTWELL:  In terms of what the company does, I didn't quite know, to be honest.  But I'm always looking for something to broaden my horizons and thought, why not try something different?  Everyday, it seems more and more crucial to understand computer technology, and this will be a great start.

MORGAN GRIFFITH:  So where did you go to school and what did you study?

ELIZABETH OTWELL:  I attended the University of Georgia, and I received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology.  I'm considering eventually going back to get my masters.

MORGAN GRIFFITH:  Very cool. So now that you're at Hannon Hill, what do you hope to accomplish?

ELIZABETH OTWELL:  Well, in my role as Marketing Assistant/Office Coordinator, I'm hoping to keep the office running as smoothly as possible, as well as hoping to learn more about the marketing side of the company, and eventually become a more integral part of what the marketing team does.

MORGAN GRIFFITH:  That sounds great! Well, that pretty much wraps things up for us. Thanks for being with us, Elizabeth. 

ELIZABETH OTWELL:  Of course! Thanks for having me!

MORGAN GRIFFITH:  And thanks to everybody out there for checking out the latest edition of Hannon Hill's 'Meet The Team.'  See you next time!

Category

• News

University CMS Adoption on the Rise; Innovative Communication Process becomes Emerging CMS Trend

By Morgan Griffith

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 2:50pm

As is evident via the emergence of several site redesign blogs from prominent universities across the country, institutions of higher education are realizing the importance and benefits of having a web content management strategy. Defining goals, identifying key stakeholders and decision makers, and outlining a formal implementation process are all key strategic steps that must be taken before choosing the proper web content management system. Here at Hannon Hill, we are always seeking new ways to be innovative and exceed our customers' expectations. Recently, we've noticed that several of our clients have taken it upon themselves to be innovative as well, and are changing the way they think about a web content management system. Improving communication and transparency during the CMS selection process is just one way institutions of higher education are changing the game.

"In itself, the immense proliferation of the number of universities seeking to use a web content management system is very telling," notes Blaine Herman, Director of Strategic Accounts at Hannon Hill. "However, we're able to witness a very exciting time in the web content management industry. Many of our clients have not only begun to strategize when it comes to managing content, but have also outlined a thorough and strategic plan for how to go about doing so. Additionally, we've seen that many of these institutions are taking things one step further, and establishing a communication process via a university redesign blog that enables them to communicate updates and key information with stakeholders in the process."

Hannon Hill client The College of William & Mary was one of the first institutions to fully revamp the CMS selection and communication process with their redesign blog, Re.Web. W&M utilized this blog as a platform to communicate with key decision makers and stakeholders in their CMS process. In addition to W&M, Hannon Hill client North Carolina State University also pursued a similar effort back in 2006 and 2007 with their ncsu.edu redesign blog. We have now seen many higher-ed institutions taking on similar endeavors. Binghamton University, a state university of New York, recently took up a similar effort with their Web Redesign Project blog, which they use to keep interested parties updated on process status, timelines, and options. We at Hannon Hill hope to see this trend continue amongst all institutions of higher education shopping for a CMS. Encouraging community input and collaboration, getting key stakeholder feedback, and ensuring end-user buy-in of your CMS of choice will all greatly benefit your web content management process.

The recent upsurge in CMS use amongst institutions of higher education has been substantial. In May alone, Hannon Hill has been pleased to announce the signing of five new clients of higher education. Emory University, California Polytechnic University - San Luis Obispo, Rollins College, Northwestern Michigan College, and Sarah Lawrence College have all concluded their CMS decision-making process, and have chosen Hannon Hill's award-winning web content management system, Cascade Server. We look forward to working with these renowned institutions, and keeping you updated on their progress with their CMS of choice, Cascade Server.

Category

• New Customers

Meet the Team - Steven Pease

By Uran Piedra

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 2:50pm

URAN PIEDRA: Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Hannon Hill’s ‘Meet the Team.’  Today we have Steven Pease, who has recently joined us for his fourth summer as an intern at Hannon Hill.  Hi Steven, how are you?

STEVEN PEASE: Feeling great.

URAN PIEDRA: Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? Where do you go to school? How long do you have until you graduate?

STEVEN PEASE: I've lived in Alpharetta, Georgia for the longer half of my life. I go to the University of Georgia and only have two semesters until I graduate with my Bachelors of Science degree, in Computer Science. I've also been thinking about returning to college to complete a BFA in Graphic Design.

URAN PIEDRA: What is it that you're responsible for here at Hannon Hill?

STEVEN PEASE: Most of my time is spent integrating websites for Cascade Server, in addition to handling any miscellaneous scripting and code development needs as they come up.

URAN PIEDRA: Wow, sounds pretty complicated... What initially brought you to Hannon Hill? Seeing as it's your fourth summer here, I imagine there's something bringing you back!

STEVEN PEASE: It was actually my next door neighbor who saw an advertisement for Hannon Hill's internship on craigslist and told me about it. I was excited to learn that the company wrote software to manage content as I had already done very similar projects on my own, including an extensive content management system that I created and directed for my high school during my senior year. The working environment has been great, and I love the entire motif of designing elegant and efficient solutions for business needs.

URAN PIEDRA: That’s great! What have you gained during the past year that you feel would benefit you in your internship this summer?

STEVEN PEASE: Rock climbing, because you never know. It mandates that you maintain focus, awareness, and stay on your toes.

URAN PIEDRA: Of course. What kind of changes have you noticed at Hannon Hill since last summer?

STEVEN PEASE: The new artwork above the front desk in Atlanta Plaza. I think it's great. In addition, it's great to see some new faces around the office as well.

URAN PIEDRA: Is there anything you’re really looking forward to working on this summer?

STEVEN PEASE: Designing a general software solution for our clients that will allow for the porting of content stored in a competitor's deprecated CMS, into our own Cascade Server.

URAN PIEDRA: Well, we’re excited to have you back! So, what do you enjoy doing when you aren’t working?

STEVEN PEASE: Catching the latest episodes of Doctor Who, LOST, or Battlestar Galactica. My sister and I are also trekking through her DVD collection of the first four seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Aside from that, I love creating artwork in whatever kind of mediums I can lay my hands on. I have some acrylic/oil paintings in the works and a sketchbook or two I'm constantly scribbling in between classes, even on the bus. I've learned to anticipate the route's bumps and jerks, but my art is primarily abstract so sometimes that helps. I do plenty of digital artwork as well, including drawings using my Wacom drawing tablet and photo manipulations. I also love to play pool, Spades, Hearts, or Starcraft when time allows.

URAN PIEDRA: Well, that wraps up this edition of ‘Meet the Team’. Thanks for stopping by to talk with us today, Steven.

STEVEN PEASE: Anytime.

Category

• Commentary

Meet the Team - Uran Piedra

By Sam Beresford, Uran Piedra

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 2:50pm

SAM BERESFORD:  Welcome to another edition of Hannon Hill’s ‘Meet the Team.’  Today we have Uran Piedra, who has recently joined the Hannon Hill team as a marketing intern.  Hi Uran, how are you?

URAN PIEDRA:  I’m doing well, thanks.

SAM BERESFORD:  So tell me, have you always been interested in Marketing?

URAN PIEDRA: Yes and no.  I spent my first few years of school at Georgia Tech majoring in Civil Engineering until I realized it really wasn’t for me.  I enjoyed it in theory, but the industry itself wasn’t where I saw myself in the future.  I always had an interest in Marketing and though I didn’t know much about it at the time, it definitely piqued my curiosity.  Now I realize it’s a great fit for me.  So far, I’ve enjoyed every aspect that I’ve encountered.

SAM BERESFORD: What kind of work were you doing before coming to Hannon Hill?

URAN PIEDRA: The last internship I had was at a supply chain software company where I assisted in the planning of their annual user conference in Miami, Florida.  Before that, I worked as an administrative assistant for several years to pay for school.

SAM BERESFORD:    How do you like it here so far?

URAN PIEDRA:  I’m beginning to get adjusted, and I’m really excited to be here.  The people are all so friendly, and the corporate culture is great.

SAM BERESFORD:   What do you look forward to doing most at Hannon Hill?

URAN PIEDRA: I’ve had some experience in event planning, particularly in planning a user conference, so I’m looking forward to helping out in that aspect.  I’m also really excited about the opportunity to write more.  I feel like that is something I can always improve on.

SAM BERESFORD:  That’s great.  You have an interesting name.  Where does it originate from?

URAN PIEDRA:  Oddly enough, it’s the name of a volcano in Costa Rica.

SAM BERESFORD:  Really? Is that where you’re from?

URAN PIEDRA: Well, I was born in Atlanta, but my father is Costa Rican so we lived there for about 4 years when I was very young.

SAM BERESFORD:  Oh, ok.  Do you think you’d ever move back there?

URAN PIEDRA:  No, probably not.  I had a blast there as a kid, but you can’t beat the opportunities we have in this country.

SAM BERESFORD:  Well, that wraps up this edition of ‘Meet the Team.’  Thanks for talking with us today, Uran.

URAN PIEDRA: No problem.  Thanks for having me!

Category

• News

The College of William & Mary Setting the Bar with Communication during Site Redesign and CMS Selection Process

By Blaine Herman

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 2:50pm

Hannon Hill is pleased to announce the signing of one of our newest clients, The College of William & Mary.  The decision to purchase Cascade Server was just a portion of William & Mary's effort to "reassert" their "web presence".  The project was code named re.web;  more information about the re.web initiative, and the depth of their CMS research and analysis can be found here: http://www.wm.edu/reweb/. William & Mary's effort with the re.web blog has not gone unrecognized.  Last week, they received word that they are one of three nominees for the eduStyle awards.  Our hats go off to everyone involved in the CMS planning, selection, and implementation process at William & Mary, as they continue to take proactive and unprecedented steps in improving their university's web content management process.

Category

• New Customers

Powerful Tools One Click away with Cascade Server Firefox Extension

By Syl Turner

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 2:50pm

Cascade Server is very simple to navigate through already, but some of us power developers need a few more shortcuts. Sure, we have access keys (Alt-E to edit, Alt-S to submit, etc.), but some of us are clickers. That’s why the Cascade Server Firefox Extension was created!

Features

Now, you can easily right-click on an asset and it provides numerous asset options! View, Edit, Copy, Delete and Publish is now only one click away, instead of two!

This works anywhere there’s a link to the asset, too. So if a page is linked within the content, you can right-click on the link to reveal the same options!

That’s not all! If you would like to easily create a new default asset, just right-click anywhere, go to the “New Asset” menu, and select one of the default assets to create a brand new one!

What’s that? There’s more?! Yes! Now, if you know what asset you’d like to go to, just right-click, go to “Go To Asset…” and a new dialog box appears where you can type the absolute path to any asset, or administrative entity, to go directly to it! You can also press F4 to open the dialog box!

I know. I know. You can’t believe it. There are so many useful features, there can’t be anymore, right? Wrong! We have added additional functionality to the Bulk Change tool! On the list of assets screen during a bulk change, right click to reveal the Bulk Change menu! It allows you to select only certain types of assets, even based on regular expressions!

We still have two more features that are helpful! If there are a lot of workflows sitting on the workflow screen, and you’d like to delete them all, just right-click and go to “Delete All Workflows.” If successful, a dialog box will tell you how many workflows have been deleted.

 

We have one more feature! Similar to deleting all the workflows, you can now delete all the publish jobs in the queue! Go to the publisher status page (Tools -> Publisher -> Active), right-click and go to “Delete All Publish Jobs.” Again, a dialog box will appear if the deletion is successful.

Additional Information

This extension will not allow your users to bypass any security or access rights restrictions. For example, the “Edit” option may still appear on the right-click menu, but if you don’t have access to edit, you won’t be allowed to access the edit screen.

We have found that there are some display issues on Firefox for Mac, where some icons don’t appear. These are only style issues, though. The functionality still works.

This extension works on Firefox 2.0 and higher. We will continue to work on the extension by adding new features and fixing any issues that may appear. However, this is NOT supported by Hannon Hill. Any questions to Hannon Hill about how to use it, any issues that annoy you, etc., will be ignored. This is only a side project and cannot be supported. Feel free to send us feedback or use JIRA to suggest new features, and we may add them on future releases.

We make no guarantees with this extension! Keep that in mind.

Download the Cascade Server Firefox Extension

*Extension Credits: Martin Robinson and Syl Turner, with a very special thanks Andy Gardner, Joel Stevens, Brett Goodwin, Artur Tomusiak, and Steven Pease for all their suggestions and debugging ability.

Category

• Resources

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