I am the Joe Flood who wrote Murder in Ocean Hall, a mystery set at the Smithsonian.

I am not the Joe Flood who wrote The Fires, a new book on 1970s-style arson in the Bronx.

Why do I mention this? Because I’ve gotten a couple emails from editors of well-known magazines asking for information about my book.

But they think I’m the author of The Fires. I’m not. And a quick look at my site (like in the about me section) would reveal that. While I’m a writer, I primarily write fiction.

I’m surprised by a couple things:

1. So, nobody reads web pages carefully? Not even editors? They just skim until they find what they’re looking for? I imagine these editors did a search on my name, my site popped up, and they emailed me, assuming that this must be the right person.
2. Everyone blindly trusts Google to know their wishes? Search engines can’t read your mind. You can type in “Joe Flood” but it might not be the right “Joe Flood.”

Ironic, this lack of reading comprehension and digital literacy from people who work with words on a daily basis.

Highly subjective, of course, but what’s the best content management system that you’ve used? I think that the best CMS is the one that gets out of the way, that allows anyone to easily write content for the web site. Someone should not have to learn HTML, or how servers operate, or spend days in training just to add a press release.

I’ve had the fortune/misfortune to work in multiple CMSes. Here are my impressions:

WordPress – Maybe not technically a CMS but so simple to use. WYSIWYG window, you click publish, that’s about it. I use it for my personal site, joeflood.com and also used it for a blog while I was at NOAA. I literally trained people in how to add content to the blog in fifteen minutes. My favorite. This is ideal for people looking for a simple platform to blog.

Google Sites – Again, maybe not exactly a CMS. Limited functionality but perfect for groups that just want to publish content. It’s very dumbed-down but it’s simplicity and lack of features makes it ideal for a no-fuss intranet.

Zope – I used this at the Nature Conservancy. At the time, I wasn’t a huge fan but, after exposure to much more complicated CMSes, it was better than I thought. Almost as easy as WordPress but key functions were locked down. Also, developers were needed for any design changes or to periodically reset it when it broke.

Plone – I’ve experimented with this and I like it. A lot of universities seem to use it.

Drupal – I write occasionally for a blog that uses it. I’m not sure about this one – seems slow but that may be just the way the site is set up. Drupal is the hot open-source CMS that everyone wants.

Vignette - Steep learning curve, whole new set of metaphors to learn, puzzling interface. Difficult for even experienced web folks to figure out.

No CMS – After using many CMSes, the simplicity of just HTML is really appealing. I managed NOAA Ocean Explorer which was all done in Dreamweaver. Thought this was crazy at the time. Now, not so sure. If you don’t like rules and don’t mind code, then No CMS is the choice for you.

Like I wrote yesterday, there is no perfect CMS. Consider your needs and choose wisely.

Went to “Evaluating Content Management Systems” last night. This meetup, put on by Web Content Mavens, featured David Hobbs who talked about CMS review and selection. David mapped out a five-step process in evaluating content management systems:

Vision -> Plan -> Pilot -> Implement -> Maintain

His talk concentrated on the first two steps of this process and the importance in planning before settling on a CMS for your web site.

Vision

In the first step, David asks that you come up with a Vision Statement as a guide to picking the right CMS. What’s your vision for the future? A CMS that will allow editors to easily update the web site while also seamlessly delivering a mobile version to users? Write it down and use it as a guide throughout the process. The vision statement must be a definite improvement on the current state. The switching process is painful. The Vision Statement should concisely explain why it’s worth it.

Plan

Guided by your vision for the future, the next step is develop Use Cases. How do editors, developers and others actually use the web site? What do they want to do in the future? For example, a developer Use Case might talk about the need for cross-platform compatibility, scalability and clean code. An editor might wish for a CMS that allows them to publish to the site instantly. A communications director’s Use Case might include the requirement to approve all content before it goes live or to rollback the site to a previous version. Use Cases are a learning process, to determine the needs of the people who build your web site.

With your Vision Statement and Use Cases, you can then approach vendors (or investigate CMSes yourself) to determine which solution matches up best with your needs. You should evaluate CMSes against your requirements, not what a CMS does best or what a salesman wants to show you.

I think this is a really good approach. To select the best CMS, investigate your organization’s needs in an honest manner and then evaluate the contenders on their suitability.

Don’t be sold on whatever is sexy this year. A CMS is not magic. Not even Drupal.

Too much exposure to USAJOBS has really turned me cynical. Despite news reports on the need to recruit thousands of new employees, the main federal jobs site is a usability nightmare, unfathomable to even people who work on web sites, like me. While the site has few defenders, some have argued that it has to be that way, because it’s the government. Federal requirements dictate its complexity and difficulty.

There’s got to be another way! And there is. It’s the job site for the Congressional Budget Office. The site is a model of simplicity and common sense, where you can apply for a job in minutes, rather than hours. Let me spell out the differences between the CBO site and USAJOBS:

• It’s all one site.You’re not bounced to a separate organizational site to complete a whole other application, like you would if you applied for a job with Agriculture from USAJOBS.
• An easy password. You don’t need a complicated ten character password with upper and lower case letters plus numbers.
• Upload or copy and paste your documents. Choose which is easier for you – either upload a Word doc or copy and paste your resume. You don’t have to enter information job by job. Supporting docs can also be uploaded.
• No KSAs.
• Job descriptions less than a page long, in plain language.
• No confusing instructions to fax or snail mail in additional information. It’s 100% online.
• It’s well-designed. The site makes excellent use of white space and provides strong visual cues for users, such as making the “Submit Application” button blue and placing it at the bottom of the right-hand menu.

Why can’t the rest of government do this? The site is not complicated, in fact it looks like it was designed in the late 1990s. But it’s simple and easy for visitors. It’s oriented around their top tasks, as good government sites are supposed to.

Looking at this site, USAJOBS makes even less sense to me.

I was excited to learn that The Nature Conservancy won a Webby for their web site, nature.org. They beat out the competition (which included the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation!) in the category of Charitable Organizations Nonprofit.

I worked on nature.org from 2003-2005 as a Web Producer. I think it’s a great site though, of course, I’m hopelessly biased

Nature.org was recently redesigned but it follows a core set of design principles that I think helped it win the Webby. If you look at past screenshots of the site, these principles have been pretty consistent over the years. They include:

• Excellent use of white space. Text on the home page is given room to breathe, making it easier for people to scan down the page and absorb what’s on it.
• Strong photography. What sells nature? Great photos of nature. The photos selected for the site are more than just pretty pictures, they tell a story.
• A consistent color palette. Using the same set of well-matched colors across the site provides a consistent experience, one that underscores that this is a professional, well-designed site.
• Third-party validation. The home page features endorsements from the Better Business Bureau and Charity Navigator.
• Concise copywriting. Many nonprofit web site are either hopelessly wordy or incredibly vague. In a limited amount of space, nature.org manages to communicate what the organization is about and how you can get involved.

Note how simple this is. Readers aren’t overwhelmed by flash animations or crowded blocks of content. This simplicity is a design choice that has paid dividends for The Nature Conservancy.

Like it or not, newspapers are going away. Printing day-old news on dead trees and then shipping the results to subscribers by gas-burning trucks seems antiquated and inefficient, a process that has become obsolete in our lifetimes.

I love newspapers. One of things I like about living in DC is the heft of the Washington Post. Weight seems to connotate authority, a “real” newspaper for a real city, so different from the flimsy papers of smaller towns. However, that distinction is changing as the Post eliminates sections and physically shrinks while raising the newsstand price.

My loyalty has been tested. Why pay 75 cents for yesterday’s news when I can read the latest updates on my computer or iPhone for free? In this recession, millions of people are probably having similar conversations in their heads, and quietly dropping their subscriptions.

Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, makes this great point (among many others) in an excellent article on the state of newspapers. He observes that we’re living through a revolution just as momentous as the invention of the printing press, a piece of technology that destroyed the Catholic church and ushered in both religious wars and the Reformation.

Newspapers have been unable to come to grips with this reality.  Shirky writes:

When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of their most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away.

The sudden collapse of printed media is surprising to me. They once fashioned themselves as a fourth branch of government. Now they find themselves overshadowed by blogs and Craigslist.

Many of those of us who work on web sites have a certain animus toward print media, fueled by familiarity and contempt. We’ve collaborated with newspapers and magazines, struggled with their antiquarian publishing systems, been subject to their high-mindedness. They didn’t want to share their content, didn’t want to contribute to the web site, looked down on web users and their desire for interactivity. Publishing was a right accorded only to the special few, not the democratic masses.

With mixed feelings, I see that world being swept away. Back in 90s, we embraced revolutionary screeds like the Cluetrain Manifesto but I never imagined the entrenched institutions of print media would be threatened with extinction. Like with the early years of the printing press, none of us knows where this is going. However, Shirky makes a final, hopeful point. That while newspapers are disappearing, journalism doesn’t have to. We’re carried into this unknown future, like it or not.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think that one of life’s joys is to sit down with a good newspaper.  Though I’m someone who’s spent a career working on web sites, there’s some really special about a quiet morning with a paper.  And some coffee.

A newspaper is easier on the eyes than a glowing screen.  It also offers the chance of serendipity, of stumbling upon some article you never would’ve read, just because you have to turn pages to find the article you’re looking for.  A newspaper is also mostly distraction-free (no videos blaring, no animating ads) which, IMHO, makes reading an article in print a richer and more rewarding experience.  Things I really want to absorb, I need to see on paper.  

Today comes the news (ironically, from The New York Times), that the Washington Post is ending Book World, its Sunday books supplement.  Economic reasons are cited.  I find this hard to believe.  Washington is one of the most literate cities in the country, filled with readers, and writers, too.  Hop on the Metro, visit a coffee shop, stroll through a park and you’ll find scores of people lost in good books.  The city is home to excellent and popular bookstores, like Kramerbooks and Politics and Prose.  With the wide range of books that people in DC read, there’s got to be a need for book reviews.

How much could Book World really cost?  Reviewers aren’t paid much and the books are sent for free by publishers.  There’s the cost of newsprint, I guess, but the review is printed on the cheapest paper available – the CVS coupons are on much better stock.

Also, book reviews are not something that’s done well online.  Reviews on Amazon are a jumble of contrary opinions and there’s always the lagging suspicion that some of them have been paid for.  But when Book World puts a tome on its cover, you know it’s an important book.  Print (in contrast to the democratic online world) does authority really well, which is what you’re looking for in a book review.  You want expert opinion before you invest your time and money.  For example, Jonathan Yardley in Book World is someone whose reviews I trust.  I’ve been reading them for years and following his recommendations.  He’s an authority that I trust.

Are there book reviews on Washingtonpost.com?  Maybe.  I visit the site often, have devised my own ways of navigating the labyrinth, but am not sure I could find them.  ”Try to find the book reviews” – that would make a good web site usability test for the folks at the Post, so eager to take away the sections of the paper that people actually use and enjoy.  Perhaps they should spent more time figuring out what their audience wants instead of penny-pinching cost cutting.

This seems counterintuitive but seniors (age 55+) spend more time online than any other age group, according to a recent Jupiter Research report.

How times have changed since my days at AARP in the late 90s, when seniors were underrepresented online.  More than once, I heard the argument that seniors would never use the web, that “old dogs don’t learn new tricks.”  They would never give up newspapers and figure out how to use computers – how wrong and silly those ideas seem now.