The Web Administrator's primary job responsibility will be to maintain MPP's presence on the Web. This includes, but is not limited to, the following tasks:
General Web maintenance, including but not limited to mpp.org and all other MPP-related sites using XHTML and CSS standards-compliant technology.
MPP's website is now standards-compliant to the extent that Kintera and browsing inconsistencies between platforms will allow. The appearance is significantly easier on the eye and more easily navigable. This migration involved writing several specialized computer programs to integrate with Kintera's systems and upload information. There have been, however, rendering inconsistencies between browsers that have taken an undesirable amount of time to get resolved.
Overall Grade: B+
Continue and finish Phase 1 of MPP.org front and back-end transition to outside vendor.
All pages for the main site are now being served from Kintera's servers. The bulk of the planned changes were implemented, the sole major exception being the library archives. The way that Kintera indexes content makes it nearly impossible to have a library section that is not managed in large part manually. For a section with more than 10,000 pages, this is not really feasible. The determination of this infeasibility was slowed to some extent by Kintera's unresponsive tech support, but it could have been made more quickly and with a better set of alternate options.
Overall Grade: C
Plan/implement Phase 2 of MPP.org redesign. This includes investigating, planning, and implementing a complete and robust "member center" to be featured on the Web site.
This has not been explored extensively because the solution will be tied heavily to the particular content management system (CMS) used on the back-end. Given the impending migration away from Kintera, all of this would have to be redone.
Overall Grade: N/A
Plan/implement Phase 3 of MPP.org redesign. This includes investigating, planning, implementing, and integrating the various affiliate Web sites (like minnesotacares.org) maintained and run by MPP with the same back-end used by MPP.org. This will allow MPP to maintain all of its Web sites with minimal need for technological knowledge and, most importantly, to have one central database that contains all the information displayed on MPP.org and its affiliate sites.
Most of MPP's affiliate sites are now managed through Kintera's CMS, but their system is not capable of managing that quantity of information in a centralized system. On the positive side for Kintera, the bulk of content management is now done by the individual departments and not through IT. The information is not as tightly integrated as it would be ideally, but other than making navigation more difficult, the new pages seem to be making their way into Google and climbing in the page rankings.
Overall Grade: B
Plan, implement, and maintain MPP Web sites. This includes setting up the sites on a server, working with MPP staff to design the front-end interface (including graphics and interactive elements), and integrating the sites with MPP's back-end content management system when appropriate.
I implemented a couple of new sites, Ostrow Associates and SD Medical Marijuana, and I was pleased with the visual appearance of both. I had little to do with the page content or structure of either though that was also good.
Overall Grade: B
Monitor and regularly report on Web activity for all MPP Web sites to the Director of IT, Chief of Staff, and Executive Director.
I was only responsible for sending the statistics for October and November, and I didn't do so in a timely fashion for October. I did however provide some useful interpretation of the results for November.
Overall Grade: C-
Provide inter-office solutions on a proactive and as-needed basis. This includes items such as an office-wide online calendar, etc.
No inter-office solutions come to mind. This could be seen as a lack of proactivity, but I see it more as a lack of need combined with a lack of time.
Overall Grade: B
As time allows, carry out ad hoc projects as assigned, in order to relieve department-wide workload.
The web has been sufficiently engaging that it occupied the majority of my time. The only real ad-hoc projects dealt with the phone system and Linux server maintenance. In those areas I performed competently even if the problem wasn't always solved.
Overall Grade: B
List any other major objectives you achieved in the past year, if not covered above.
None.
What challenges that affected your performance during the past year?
Moving back to the States and readjusting to a normal job has been interesting. I don't feel though that is has had a significant impact on my work performance.
What are your strengths, and how do they contribute to the success of the organization?
I'm good with computers and given time I generally find a solution for the majority of problems.
What are areas in which you'd like to improve, and how do these areas impact your job and the organization?
I occasionally get caught up in trying to solve a problem and don't give up even when the time investment has become unreasonable. Furthermore I dislike admitting that I am not succeeding and have been uncommunicative on projects that were behind schedule at exactly the point that more communication was needed.
What tasks/projects in your purview were less than successful in the past year, and why were they not successes? What would have helped make them successful?
Easily my biggest disappointment was the web services project to draw information from Kintera's system and reinsert it into donor records. The documentation from Kintera was incomplete and at times simply wrong. I spent almost two weeks attempting different methods of accessing and inserting the data and eventually the project was abandoned. The failings stemmed in large part from the services that Kintera offered being broken and from a nearly complete lack of responses from their tech support. My part of it however was not abandoning the tack of attempting to draw information from the web services earlier and finding a different method to accomplish my objectives.
The other big project that didn't end in success was the work on the migration of the phone system. Honestly though, I don't feel bad about that one. I was asked to work with a set of technologies that I knew nothing about. I learned methods of testing that eventually put the blame on Verizon and ultimately it was their inability to accept calls that caused the failure of the project.
Do you feel you have enough knowledge to perform your job well? Are there areas in which you'd like additional training?
My issues with doing my job are not technological. They center around managing my time and being properly communicative. I am changing those habits and the training in that is the half-dozen people who e-mail me within a half-day whenever I am late on something important.
Do you think the goals and deadlines set for your job are reasonable? If not, what would you change?
I think that my deadlines are reasonable and there is little that I would change.
Do you receive sufficient information about the goals and priorities for your job, the department, and the organization? If not, what areas would you like more communication about?
I feel consistently informed about the priorities of my job, and if I have questions I feel comfortable approaching David to ask for input.
How do you feel about the level of guidance/input you receive? Would you like more guidance? More autonomy? In what areas?
The only times that I have felt especially closely managed were when I was past deadline and not sufficiently communicative. I take that to be my own responsibility. All in all, I have been pleased with my autonomy.
What would help you do your job better?
So far as external controls, nothing. Internally, being more communicative when I am not meeting my objectives.
What, if anything, would improve your quality of life at work?
I'm thinking about investing in a coffee mug.
Are there new areas/opportunities/projects you'd like to take on? If so, what?
I enjoyed the recent Playboy party page. Doing pages that are more varied visually is entertaining to me and helps make my job less monotonous. They do take more time though and are only really possible when there are not more pressing issues.
What would you like to be doing five years from now? What can MPP do that would help you achieve that?
I plan on returning to school for my doctorate at some point to eventually teach. Unless someone here has contacts in the computer science faculty at Berkeley, there isn't much to be done.