Building True

Today I finally found the time, inspiration and tools to add more detail to my website, writing the detailed pages for all of my corporate workshops. Finally! There’s nothing a Project Manager loves more than to check something off the TO DO list.

I’ve been in IT systems since my first job out of college. I could have done bookkeeping and answer the phones anywhere. But I wound up at a networking company in Tulsa, OK back in the day when many small companies were still networked with physical cables. Before post-grads had cell phones. Back when I had white cowboy boots and a white convertible with a bad transmission but a fantastic sound system.

Anyway, I’ve been in IT systems for a long time. And although I have been an end user on a variety of systems, I have almost always had an expert around. In fact, I like to make IT friends. I learn via relationship – be it face-to-face, phone or IM I want you to explain it to me. I want to try the system and ask outrageous questions. I want you to be delighted when I figure something out on my own and skip ahead in your explanation to ask about a connection I just made. I want to tackle problems together, late nights, early mornings, just us and our brainstorms and the system. This is my favorite.

But building this website is different. Sure, I have my “IT Guy” (that’s Sully, my husband), but he hasn’t done this before so he isn’t an expert (sorry, babe) and he has a real job to tend to.

So I’ve been going it alone here in my home office with good light and a whiteboard wall…frustrated knowing it’s probably something simple I’m just not figuring out….finding workarounds that will at least be good enough for now.

First I couldn’t figure out how to add a photo that wasn’t so huge, you could see my individual eyelashes. Then I spent 3 weeks bewildered about how to create a second tier of menus. (Go ahead – roll your eyes – but I’ve been full time consulting, too – it’s not like this is something I do every day, all day). This second issue was the one that I finally surmounted today!

In other words, building this website is very much an end user experience.

Particularly the users who are out there in the field, trying to do their “day job” while IT shows up insisting they use the fancy new system for their HR transactions, or purchase orders or marketing budgets or whatever it may be.

So you end users out there – I hear you – I get it. I will recall this experience the next time I’m rolling out a new system. The next time some snobby project team member puts you down or implies you are being lazy or belligerent by not using the new system to its full capacity. I’ll be right there. Sticking up for us.

Because I get you.

And adding a second tier of menus is easy – if you know where to look.