Off the ground

I have to confess, I’ve never really blogged before. And definitely don't consider myself a blogger, but this is different.

The words spewing forth is indeed work, but not really. Okay, it pertains to work, but not the typical work we do as an organization. We (American Rivers that is) protect and restore healthy natural rivers for the benefit of people, fish, and wildlife. Needed, to say the least.

However, the real attempt here is to not focus on the program side of work. Nope, as the Director of Internet Strategy, I thought it would be kind of cool to skip that stuff and blog about our website redesign process...contain your excitement, please.

So, I’ve read how Robert Scoble, the technical evangelist from Microsoft, put a human face on a faceless giant, and how Chris Anderson wrote www.longtail.com to hash out ideas well in advance of his book release (worth a read, but probably not on your honeymoon—not ideal table talk with your new wife, so she says) - Very cool stuff, albeit dorky.

Basically, I hope to do similar stuff. Exposing the underbelly of a project has great potential to the vetting process and eventually harnessing the energy that forms - so the thought goes. That’s what I want to do, um attempt, but I make no promises. I recognize, and this is important to the process as it addresses the why, 1) I’m not alone in redesigning—or having ever redesigned—a website, 2) there are much smarter folks out there than me, and 3) it’s really about stealing shamelessly (I mean working cooperatively with others). In short, this will be a creative collaboration.

So, we begin a 1-year journey that chronicles the highs, lows, and in betweens of a website redesign, our website redesign—AmericanRivers.org.