You are currently browsing the matt klawitter digital communications marketing consultant archives for September, 2010.

Let’s Play Catch Up

September 29th, 2010 | Posted in Marketing

First, I want to share a personal message.

Here we are. The end of September 2010. I cannot begin to fully describe the events and emotions of this year so I won’t try. Those of you who know me personally know that I have experienced and witnessed life-changing events since February; namely, the sudden passing of my father-in-law, the birth of my second niece, and my marriage to Erin in June. I feel that I have gained the wisdom of a decade in just six months and am grateful to family, friends, and colleagues for their support. Most importantly, I am grateful to my wife, Erin, for her love, courage, and authenticity. I continue to be in awe of the Flynn and Klawitter families and their community of friends. It is a privilege to now be part of both families. I am proud to see our families come together.

Now on to business.

On August 10, 2010, our Digital Communications Marketing (DCM) team in the Public Affairs division at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) launched a brand new website for the University. http://wustl.edu

The entire project was conducted in-house. Our process spanned over six months of collaboration with communications professionals at WUSTL, contained a detailed analysis of user patterns and trends, and was informed by focus group testing. We created a 50-member subject-matter-expert group; interviewed numerous leaders; and drew upon the institutional wisdom of organizational visionaries. DCM planned, designed, wrote the copy for, and executed the project strategy for the new site. We delivered on time.

The effort was, and continues to be, the most collaborative and purposeful web project of which I have been a part in my career.

The work is not over.

As I’ve been know to say, a website is never complete. We continue to monitor and observe performance of the site, listen to feedback, and plan for future enhancements. Never before have I seen such scrutiny and commitment to keeping the site relevant. This means daily review of traffic patterns, and weekly DCM team discussions of ideas and suggestions. We believe that the stewardship of digital communications is important and we take our charge seriously.

Over the coming weeks and months you will see constant improvements and change. As a still relatively new office at Washington University in St. Louis, we have worked very hard to get to this point but we are not finished. Expect us to promote opportunities for focus groups and surveys and trust that we monitor social media and feedback.

WUSTL.edu is a much improved resource, and we know it is crucial for us to never settle or stop our progress. I look forward to the months ahead and imagine how we will look back upon these moments in our history. If experience has taught me anything, I know that success is a behavior, not a moment in time. It takes great care and passion to reach greatness– and, as I have personally witnessed in my past– success can be fragile.

I thank WUSTL and its community for the opportunity to contribute to the creation and growth of DCM and the resulting websites that we create, especially wustl.edu. I am excited for DCM’s future and its commitment to greatness for the university’s digital communications.

Posted in Marketing | Permalink

Other Recent Posts:

Matt Klawitter is a higher education and non-profit marketing consultant based out of Chicago. He is the former Executive Director of Digital Communications Marketing at Washington University in St. Louis and also the former Director of the Notre Dame Web Group.
More about Matt Klawitter.

Powered by Wordpress - Entries (RSS)