An excerpt from an end of the week meeting with Public Relations, last Friday afternoon; Web Development (my) office:

“Outsourcing,” I told him. “Outsourcing is the key.” I pointed to some wall diagrams showing the navigation of a website easily hundreds of pages deep, with enough back-end code to run Amazon.com… and maybe our Novell environment. “It may look like an ambitious eight-month development schedule, but I’m aiming to trim it down to six. I know you needed it Tuesday, but it’s worth doing right.”

Since returning from my latest vacation at the place my wife and I call the ‘weekend’, I had been a non-stop flurry of activity getting the website ready for a design re-launch. Most other normal activities, to my mind, were pointless. “Isn’t it just a college site in the end Mike?” He asked, timidly. “And you already have a new artist…” But it was too late- the seed was planted, and I apparently had him scared now.

I sniffed a marker deeply before answering. “This is not merely a college website. It’s the voice of an institution. OUR institution! Yours and mine. And our cousins. The new website will be a masterpiece of electronical engineering and datalistic manipulation!” I rose to my feet to pound on the desk. “To speed development of this monstrosity, I’ve followed the latest trends and outsourced the engineering tasks to …” — I paused to look up — “‘Systems.’ Wherever that is… Frankly I don’t speak the language, presumably Unix, but they had the best rates. The weekly conference calls we have are understandably confusing, but by shouting loudly I think I’ve bridged the communication gap; and judging by the lack of problems they’ve encountered during setup, I think we are ahead of schedule!”

“These news pages and landing pages have been dormant for months,” he reminded me. “Can’t you just whip something up while you redesign the page?”

“NEVER!” I bellowed, pausing to actually suck on the opened marker as you would a cigar (It was cherry). “I didn’t want to spoil the surprise, but you’ve pushed me to it. Allow me to unveil the awesome might that is the new website!”

I unfurled a massive blueprint. Luckily my coworker’s color printer had just enough ink for 12 pages.

“I call it the ‘Landing DS,’ or ‘Dual-Screen,’” I explained. “See, there’s only so much PR you can fit on a single page. Opening up a second screen is a whole new direction in gaining prospective student interest. It’s huge. See here, on the main screen, we’ll have incredible art, dynamic writing, interact features, and everything else the kids love- maybe a MySpace link or something with an Apple on it.”

“What will the second screen be used for?” He asked.

I paused and leaned closer, choosing my words carefully before answering in quiet, measured tones. “It will be filled entirely with promotional advertisements.”

After a pause I added: “Blinking ones. Animated ones. Blinking animated ones with flash even.”

I know what you’re thinking- no fucking way, Mike, was this your meeting with PR last week. You might be right, but let’s get one thing straight: when I don’t get enough sleep during the week, I remember things the way they happened in my mind friend.

Now gear up my fellow office warriors- we’ve got a war to fight. Monday yet again!! ARRRR!!! This ship be a few planks short of sea worthy, but I’ll be damned if we swim with the sharks this week!

Filed under: Web Development