Geopolitics for the Web: The Uneasy Alliance Between Marketing and IT

It takes a certain blend of expertise to create a great web team. You also need to forge a delicate balance between the goals of Marketing and Information Technology (IT).Marketing wants to set standards for content and be in charge of creating the brand. IT wants to set standards for technical features and restrict who has the potential for doing what damage.Marketing owns the brand and IT owns the servers. What about everything in between? Who should be in charge of putting the look and feel of the brand into a template? When is requesting development time necessary for launching a site rather than just a luxury? Does helpdesk handle all the training even when Marketing sets all the content and design standards for the site?This presentation will attempt to answer some of these questions by comparing two distinct environments. The University of Washington runs the central CMS out of Marketing, with IT providing very limited support. Seattle University has outsourced their entire helpdesk and relies on a vendor for most tasks.Who is right and how effective is one way versus another? There is no single answer, but tradeoffs and compromises, wins and losses, come with the territory no matter which route you choose. In this session we will explore the effectiveness of either approach.