Stretching My Abilities

I love my job because it pushes me in directions that I might not go on my own.

Tonight I am leading a workshop for Saskatoon community associations on how to get their own website. Association volunteers have been wanting this workshop for a few years, and the City came to us to see if we could do it.

Now, I have never myself built a website from scratch, so we dithered a little at first. But then we decided that we probably have the expertise to talk all around the issue - so that if they don't have a website at the end of the workshop, they will at least know what their options are (build it yourself, pay someone else to build it, do it as a blog). I'm going to talk about the pros and cons of each option, the approximate costs, the factors to consider before starting, features of good websites (librarians definitely have opinions on this), what you might include on your comm. assn. site, how to get a domain name and how to choose good wording for one, accessibility issues for people with disabilities, time involved in web building, where to get web space and/or designers, etc. My hope at the end is that they will have the tools they need to make preliminary decisions and plans.

I'm excited about the workshop, but nervous at the same time. It could go great and it could flop. We shall see. If it works, it is a generic enough course outline that we could offer it at the Library for the general public - 'website design' is one of the computer class topics that people ask for regularly.

Yet whodathunk I'd be speaking on a topic like this. Huh.