It’s official. I’m now the webmaster for the ISTC.
Before I start talking about my plans and ideas for the ISTC website, I thought I’d give you all a bit of background as to why I’m reasonably well qualified to be taking this on.
It all starts about 16 years ago…
I joined a small software company in the West of Scotland as a “Technical Administrator” and, as well as writing some user documentation, I was sent on a course to learn HTML and then charged with creating the company website, the first version of which is still available via the Internet Archive (search for ‘crossaig.co.uk’) and was launched in September 1996. Since then, I’ve created websites for charity organisations, personal projects, and several small businesses and individuals under the moniker of One Man Designs.
Throughout my profession the internet has been there, and it’s been a large part of my personal life as well. I ran a successful blog directory for a while (Scottish Blogs) and took great pleasure in organising several “meetups” of some of the members. I’ve meet some amazing people, who I now call my friends, via the internet and it continues to delight and amaze me at how well it functions to connect people, from all over the world, who have similar needs and interests.
So what does that mean for the ISTC?
Without going into great detail here (just yet), the main focus for me over the next couple of months will be to restructure the content based on feedback from last year’s Marketing Frenzy, move the current website over to a content management system, and tweak the design to allow a bit more flexibility to handle some of the new features.
I’m keen to bring some more activity to the website, and introduce some “social features” on the way. It will mean changing some things but just as the technical communications industry is learning how to deal with social media, so does the ISTC website.