Thursday, September 25, 2014

Southern Hospitality and Hannon Hill

Last week, I went to Atlanta for the annual Cascade Server Users Conference hosted by Hannon Hill.  In true southern form, we received the best in hospitality, and in true Cascade Server User form, everyone contributed in some way to the learning of all the other conference attendees.

In fact, the XSLT guru Jason Aller (to whom I bow down to with great respect, since I program in the XSLT language to make Cascade work), from University of California, Davis - School of Law, gave Tarleton State University kudos for our content management procedures in his presentation "In Pursuit of the Grand Unified Template." Consistency is important to provide a professional marketing and communications tool. If there are deviations from the branding, the style and tone, they look like mistakes and have the potential to push away our constituents.
Jason Aller and Karole Schroeder after his presentation "In Pursuit of the Grand Unified Template"
Jason Aller and Karole Schroeder after his presentation "In Pursuit of the Grand Unified Template"

During another presentation by Fran Zablocki, Strategist for mStoner, called "Information Architecture and User Experience: The Journey, The Destination, The Return Trip," I could only imagine Morgan, our Web Content Specialist, smiling wide-eyed as she consumed exciting new information at some points and nodding her head in agreement on others concerning many of the strategies used to make content work on a web page if she had been with me.

Sometimes it feels good to hear that others are thinking about things the same way we are because while we may be working on the technical aspects, very rarely do people outside our occupations truly understand the trials we go through to improve web design to increase usability for all our constituents. Conferences like these both teach us and build us up as a community. I appreciate what Hannon Hill does to constantly bring us all together working towards the benefit of all.

-Karole