Cheryl Broom (00:00.078)
Hi, I'm Cheryl Broom, CEO of Graduate Communications. About a year ago, I wrote my first LinkedIn blog and I wrote it about my New Year's resolutions, my professional New Year's resolutions. And a couple of them in there had to do with improving our website and improving accessibility and making sure that I was using the correct language.

I posted it on LinkedIn, and lo and behold, a community college all the way across the country saw it, and their executive director of integrated communications reached out and said, You know what? I have the same organizational New Year's resolutions as you do. Let's work together. So that interaction sparked off just a great partnership in which over the last year we've worked together on completely redoing their college.

front page of their website and all their navigational structure. And the project was much more than just a design project. It was really grounded in research. We did focus groups, we met with college leadership, and we made some really forward-looking recommendations that I think are going to carry the college forward for many, many years to come. So I invited Karen Norton from Bunker Hill Community College to join me on the podcast.

To talk about the project, to give some advice to colleges who are looking at embarking on a website redesign, and also to really talk about how to fold in the right parties and get a timeline going that you're comfortable with to make sure that implementation works on a schedule that benefits the entire institution. So I want to thank Karen for joining me, and I think that listeners are gonna take away a lot from our conversation.

Karen, I'm so happy to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Cheryl. It's a pleasure. And I think you are my first guest from the East Coast. Really? Okay. Yeah. No pressure. Well, you know, today is in the 50s, which is unusual for mid-December, but it will get really cold soon.

Cheryl Broom (02:25.25)
I know. So Karen and I have worked together now. It's going on, I think, nine or 10 months. And because I'm in San Diego and she's in Boston, weather is frequently something that we talk about. And usually my weather is better, but today it's pretty bad here. Yeah. So I have better weather today. So besides being in Boston, tell me a little bit about your background and where you work and what you do for a living.

Sure. Well, I work for Bunker Hill Community College, which is located in Boston. We're the largest community college of the 15 in Massachusetts. And I am the executive director of integrated marketing and communications. So I oversee all the marketing, the internal, external communications and PR, our website, social media, our intranet. I support some government relation work for the president.

So kind of do a little bit of everything in that world. In my background, you know, I've been in the marketing and web content strategy world for over 30 years with various jobs. But you know, I've always had common theme is for me is just really trying to help people learn. so in some way or another, I've always been an educator, whether it be a corporate trainer or adult education trainer or

train people on how to manage their websites or marketing. It's always been part of my role in all the jobs that I've had. Yeah, I remember you taught me something right when we first met. We had a call and you were talking to me about your background and having owned your own business and and doing consulting and web work. And you said, but I was so good at my job, but I was giving everything away for free. True. Yes. Yeah. I started my own web consulting business in the mid

2000s and I kind of gravitated towards the small businesses and a lot of health and wellness, which is is kind of a personal passion for me. and I just became friends with everybody and you know, I did a lot of bartering and reduced rates because I just really, you know, had a lot of fun. But, you know, you're not making much money if you're not doing it the right way with your pricing and balancing that all out.

Cheryl Broom (04:41.45)
Yeah, no, it's just funny. Even today I had a college say, Well, can you put those ads together for me as we get our contract signed? And I have to be strong because you want to help and you want to say yes, but you gotta get paid. I can't work for free. So I channeled my Karen. Well, we have worked together on a really great project that is wrapping up that I think we're both very proud of, and it's been a lot of work. And

I wanted to bring you on the podcast to talk about that project, but also just to pick your brain and get your insights when it comes to effectively communicating via the digital space and through your website. And our project really started when your president gave you some advice, some wisdom that she imparted to you. And I was hoping you could fill in the listeners on what that was and how it influenced you. Sure. Yeah. So President Ettinger is our leader and I'm

Feel very fortunate to work with her. She's been with us for eight years. I've been with the college for over 10. And she recently, you know, during the pandemic, the end of 2020, when the website and online presence really became the focus and the priority for everyone, not just the marketing and web world. You know, everyone really was taking a look at your website and what's online. And so she probably heard from many people, but also.

Her own observation, she came to me and said, you know, our homepage and our website is becoming everything to everybody, and it ends up being nothing to nobody. And when she said that, I was like, huh, yeah, you're right. We just keep putting band-aids and band-aids on the homepage and trying to put everything on there per request. And with my background in website and content strategy, I knew that. But when the president comes to you and tells you that.

You're like, I need to do something. And so that really was kind of the push that I needed to say, okay, I can't do this alone. This is bigger than what I can do and the influence that I have. And I really knew I needed to bring in a consultant or a company to help me with this next step. I really love that advice because I mean, not only is it true, and I working with colleges, I find that everybody is so nice and accommodating and helpful.

Cheryl Broom (07:04.354)
That it actually ends up being a liability because you say yes to everybody. And then pretty soon, you know, your website is more like a filing cabinet than it is really a useful communication tool. And I feel like she really gave you permission to say no. It doesn't have to serve everybody. Right, right. And that's really important. I mean, it really comes from the top down, right? And so for her to acknowledge that and to support that.

you know, allowed us to really move forward in a really important way and be able to become more progressive in our website that we're doing now and in the design. So it really, really was super helpful for her to be on board with that. Yeah. And it's it's a hard thing to do when, you know, you've got a division like we want to be on the front page or we need this information on every single page or

You need to do this and put this here. And sometimes you need to be empowered by your president, or if you know you don't report to your president by whoever you report to to be able to push back and say, you know, our website is designed as a recruitment tool first. So while your, you know, information is important, it really doesn't belong on the front page. And it was great working with you on this project because that was kind of a boundary that was set.

As we started the project, we knew we're shifting the website to a student and potential student focused site. And that college president giving you permission to do so made it easier for us to move in that direction. Absolutely. Now we started off our work with research, which I really appreciated because we have sometimes college will come to me and say, we want to do this, we want to do that. But they just want it to happen without taking a deep dive into.

what people actually think. And I I really appreciated that when we first spoke, you were like, we need to do some research first. We need to start by asking questions. And so you could share a little bit what the type of research that we did and if anything stood out to you kind of as you reflect back on it. Yeah. So with the history that I have and I've done website audits in the past in different roles and taxonomy. And so knowing what I know.

Cheryl Broom (09:23.126)
I knew what we needed to do, but obviously I couldn't do it in my role or the resources that we had. So when we talked and we started working out the scope of the project, I really wanted to make sure that we looked at the website and did a full website audit that not just looked at the pages we had and the Google Analytics and all of that, but also talk with all the various stakeholders and

I think what was really impressive to me when you kind of laid out your proposal was the depth and the comprehensive lens that you had on it, that you were going to do so much different types of data collection. So the focus groups, the interviews, the survey that really tackled all of our audiences and stakeholders was so helpful. And I think that the way that you

had the project planning laid out and the timeline was also really easy for us to follow. And so I really enjoyed the project. And I know we had on our end, we had a couple delays and hiccups just because of resources and projects, but you kept at us to keep moving and it made the whole project really seamless to get to where we are. so I'm just really happy about that.

Yeah, I pestered you guys. No, it's a nice friendly way though. Yeah, we did have to keep it moving. And and I think that's actually really good advice for people embarking on any big project like this is to have a timeline and to try to have the vendor you work with, or if you're doing something in-house, having your own staff stay accountable to that timeline because it's very easy to get off course and then pretty soon you're derailed and the project's derailed.

So that is an important part of it. And and you guys were really good about following the timeline too. But speaking of timelines, I remember when we first did our contract, you're like, the college president wants to know if we can do this any faster. And I was like, we can move faster, but it's really kind of up to the college. And then, you know, we ended up having some hurdles along the way and some things uncovered during discovery that made it clear it's not going to be faster. So we had to slow some things down. Yeah, definitely. And and I think even on

Cheryl Broom (11:43.736)
This next phase where we're at right now, where we're doing the coding of the new designs that you developed for us, we're slowing that down again for some reasons beyond our control or your control. And we have good reasons why and data to back that up. So I think it's important just to know that you need to be able to adjust and adapt. And it's okay. Just have to have an explanation.

Yeah, our conversation right now, I think, is really kind of steering into the how do you manage a project effectively discussion. So and I think that's something that you are really good at is taking a step back and balancing that need for speed with making sure that things are done correctly. And that's a difficult position to be in. when do you slow down? When do you speed up? When do you have to put the brakes on something? Yeah, I definitely. As long as you can share the reasons why.

you don't always have to just do things because you said you were gonna do them if it doesn't make sense. And that's where we are right now. I mean, I had a deadline of when I thought we wanted to have something done. And I asked myself and my staff, like, why are we pushing for this deadline if it's not the right deadline? Because it's not gonna, it won't affect any of our prospective students right now. so we just had to kind of look at everything and and make that shift so that when we do.

Finish it, it'll be done correctly. Yeah. And speaking of, you know, asking those questions and having reasons why, something else that I learned from this project that I think that others could really learn from is Karen had mentioned we did focus groups and we did a survey. So all of this work was around redesigning the home page of the website and then.

having a new navigational structure. So that was kind of our charge is we want to move our website from being more kind of institutional focused to prospective student focused. And we want to take a fresh look at layout, design, writing, and navigation. And when we did the presentation, the recommendations, we were able to tell kind of little mini stories because we had done the research. So Karen and I had a focus group with students and the students had made some

Cheryl Broom (14:00.684)
really good points about needing some help with accessibility. And so some recommendations that we made in the footer came straight from a student sharing her experience and being able to discuss and to tell stories rather than just saying like, 45% of students said this. We're like, no, this is a story we were able to do kind of this database storytelling, I think made it really easy for people to come on board with the changes we were recommending.

Yeah, that was really helpful, just so that we could, like you said, not just put the numbers out there, but also give these examples and be able to share that. and you know, sometimes you have to say no to things, you know, as far as like that doesn't belong on the home page, but now we have some good reasons why and we can kind of back it up. Now you have a big long report. We do. We have a nice report that you provided for us.

Yeah. So somebody says, what about this? Now you it's like you've got a little army behind you. Take a look at the research we did. Right. Yeah. It's helpful. And that's the value of taking your time and asking the right questions. Well, during the project, was there anything surprising or any advice you would give to other colleges who are thinking about doing the same type of work? Well, one of the surprising things that came out of the report from your work was we kept hearing the website.

is too busy, it's not focused and all that kind of stuff. but when you broke down the audiences, we found that the students were actually happier with the website. They were finding the information and they weren't really, you know, too upset about it. and it was really the employees, our faculty and staff, that had more of a problem with the website. So that was kind of an aha moment for me. It was validating because I was hearing it from other

peers of mine, directors, the president, and, you know, various faculty and staff in meetings that I attend, I don't get to spend as much time with students as I would like to because of my role. So I can only speculate. And so to know that the students actually are pretty happy with the website, they're finding what they need was good. For us to realize that we have to look at both

Cheryl Broom (16:26.07)
groups a little differently. and I think you were able to really do that with the new navigation that you recommended, which we haven't done yet. So if anyone comes to our website, it's not what we're talking about. It's going to be a few months out, but really breaking down the audiences. So it really is focused on the prospective students and also our current students. But we haven't forgotten about the employees and some of their needs. So there's still a way that they can get their information quickly from

one or two links, which is going to be really helpful because it's a win-win for all of our different stakeholders. Yeah, that was such a great moment in the survey. And I have to say, they're not the first college where we've seen that result where students are like, there's nothing wrong with the website. It's like your students were like, it's great. It's got a lot of information. It has what we need. And the faculty and staff are the ones kind of pushing for the change. So kind of an interesting takeaway from the survey. And what I attribute that to is

It's great to have good design, especially when you're a prospective student, to have something that is appealing and visually very beautiful. But when you're a current student, you go to the site because you need something, you're looking for something. And so they know how to navigate it. They know what information they need. And so they're generally happy. If they're able to find what they need quickly, then they're happy. And what we uncovered.

From our focus groups and from the survey is that your students in particular can find what they need because of how effective your team is at coding all the search functions on your site. So that's something I think you do really well and really unique. So tell us a little bit about what your team does to make it easier to find information on such a big site. Yeah, so the web team of our division really spends a lot of time, as you said, on our Google search and they customize it.

Just to make sure that the search of our content is front and center. And we also use the service, a third party called Site Improve, for our website. And that gives us daily reports of spelling errors and accessibility. And it does a lot of different things. So our web developer spends a lot of time looking at those reports and going in and fixing the website every single day. And as well as the search too. So sometimes there's things that we have to hide from the search.

Cheryl Broom (18:48.982)
And they're able to do that through coding. I don't know all the details of it, but they're fantastic. The director of our website, who also does social media and our internet, is so talented to be able to kind of keep everything running smoothly behind the scenes. People don't realize all the work that they do that makes it what it is. but we're really fortunate. Yeah, and I think that was another recommendation that we had.

For the site was well, gosh, your students love the search function so much. I mean, it came up in focus groups, like people like we can find whatever we need through search, which is not normal at a college because sometimes you'll search for something and then like academic Senate reports from like 2008 come up, and the search is like the number one hit, but you've got it really dialed in well. And because of that, we made recommendations to have the search be more prominent. So

I hope when the site is live to see the little bulldog is going to be in the search box and it pops up and it's a big welcome message. People use this so much. Let's make it fun. Let's make it front-center. And then we also recommended that we move from the footer, your site index, and rename it an A to Z index to give people another way to search the site because it's such an important part of how people are navigating. So that was another recommendation that came out of the research.

Yeah, that was a great recommendation because also what that does is it puts almost every piece of content within one click away. So, you know, sometimes there's reasons why you have to have something within one or two clicks. For example, we have a grant that we got and they want to be one click away to this grant. So having that ability allows us to do that and not always have it taking home page real estate.

so I think that A to Z index and the improved search is going to be really helpful, as well as we added the translation, Google Translate to our site. So we're able to really help our students and community really find the information they need fairly easily now. and I'm excited once we can kind of finish the design and the new layout of the navigation. It'll be really fun. So now that we've

Cheryl Broom (21:07.382)
You know, kind of wrapped up. We're wrapping up our last couple of pieces of deliverables for you. what is your new date? What are you aiming for? For people listening to the podcast, when should they go to Bunker Hill site to hopefully see everything up and live? Definitely it, you know, it will be live before the end of this fiscal year, which is June 30th, 2022. But we have a few other competing projects that have to align with the website that we're kind of working out some details.

That might affect it. So great. Well, I am going to be on your site clicking refresh at least once a month. I will definitely let you know as well. One other thing I want to mention as something that's surprising or something that I really am happy about the outcome of our project is the progressive design thought that you presented to us. You know, we knew from

Our marketing reports that we get for paid and organic, that a lot of our students go to our website using their mobile device first. And especially when they're applying for college, when they're first thinking about us, they're going on their mobile site. And if we're tracking our ads, we'll see by the time they get to apply, they might go to their laptop or desktop because they want a bigger screen. So we kind of knew that, but what you were able to help point out was.

To take a look at how we set up our existing content templates within our content management system. And how when you take, I mean, our website is responsive, it's mobile friendly, meaning, you know, if you are looking at it on a laptop and then you look at it on your phone, it automatically will resize. But what was happening is some of our content templates, the way they were built, important information that you would see on a laptop.

Was now shifted at the bottom of a mobile view. So the focus now is really on our as we start looking at our web pages and we start redesigning and shifting our content and looking at the content strategy, we want to make sure that our web pages are designed for mobile first. So that all of the important information will now be stacked at the top of a mobile view. And that was something that really

Cheryl Broom (23:33.442)
We did not think about, we didn't know really to plan for that. So we have now a much better planning and content strategy for the future for our website. So not only are we working on this particular design build that you've presented to us, we now have a strategic plan for our next website to be more mobile first in our navigation structure.

In a year or two out. So that's really important. And I'm really grateful that we are ahead in that planning process now. And that's something that I did not think we were going to get from this project or from the original scope. Good. And we were really excited to present that option. And the designer and the strategist I worked with was really hoping that the college would jump right into doing it. But

It's a huge change. So I I think it was really smart that you are going to kind of do a two-stage implementation. But I think that is one of the benefits of having an outside perspective is sometimes when you're not harnessed by the constraints that are put on you, you know, when you're in an institution, you can really be creative because for us, when we look at the site and review the research, there's there's nothing stopping us from being innovative.

Because we don't have to do, you know, that implementation. So we were able to to really kind of dive in and take a whole fresh look at it. And I I think it's exciting, you know, to see it come to life. So I I'm glad that that was helpful for you. And when you do implement it, I think you'll still be really ahead of the curve from what other institutions are doing. Yeah, I agree. Well, as we wrap up our conversation, is there any advice that you want to?

Give to other colleges who are looking to go down the similar path of updating their institutional front door. What advice would you give to them? I really think that bringing in a consultant like your company really helps move forward projects, especially this project for your website. And it allows a different lens to reach out to all the various stakeholders.

Cheryl Broom (25:52.276)
And it gives credibility back. And if you can find someone like our relationship, I'm really grateful for to be able to work with it to meet those goals, it really helps and makes it not a difficult project to sell or to get buy-in. I mean, everything kind of moved really nicely because of the way and the steps that we did it. and just I would say.

You know, you need to be flexible, you need to be up front and be honest. I really always try to be very honest, but with empathy. So really trying to see all the different stakeholders of where they are and where they're at and kind of understand, you know, that there may be different perspectives, but everyone has the same common goal. we all are here to do work and serve the students. So

Just understanding that sometimes you have to be prepared for those difficult discussions and conversations. And sometimes you have to say no, but maybe, you know, give alternatives. and the other thing I tend to do in my role is I always try to anticipate a possible obstacle. I do a lot of gut checking, but I do it with confirmation. So I don't just go on feelings. But if I feel something's gonna happen, I usually will.

look into it a little further to see if we should you know not dismiss that so all of that is is kind of my advice. Excellent advice. Well this has been a really fun project to work on and thank you for you know being a client and thank you also for being on this podcast and sharing some of your advice with our listeners. And I think if anybody wants to reach out to Karen, your information's on the website.

So just go to Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. A fascinating institution as well. They have an incredibly diverse student population with dozens of languages spoken at their college and students from all over the world. So really unique school. And when the new website is up and live, it's going to show off that uniqueness even more. We're excited. I'm so excited to have that new website up. Great speaking with you. Well, thanks so much, Karen.

Cheryl Broom (28:11.344)
You're welcome.

Thank you for listening to Higher Education Coffee and Conversation. If you like the podcast, please leave me a five-star rating. And to discover more great higher education-related content, make sure to visit us at graduatecommunications.com. And with that, I'm going to say thank you for listening. Thank you for the hard work you do for students each and every day.