For the past five or so years I was the webmaster for the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Alumnae Association of Spelman College. I started, uber excited to manage the website, because the chapter had a sizable and active membership and no website. I figured, my minimal skills were more than enough to get the chapter started with. I was a member of the organization and served with pride and sacrifice. Soon, I realized there were about fifty other chapters and a National Committee that I could avail my services to as well. The short of how this story ends is that I stretched myself way too thin and lost of focus of my passion. My passion lays in design. I loved creating a layered file in Photoshop from a vision. I wanted to design as many sites as possible, and kept reaching out to form new webmastering relationships. Before I knew it, I had three local chapters and the National Committee. I was in over my head, because I had not managed the business.
Each chapter was relying on my to update the content and photos on the site. I hadn’t had the forethought to plan on how to transfer knowledge or build the content management into the process. As a result, I resigned from my webmaster role in all the local chapters. In the end, I wasn’t providing the level of service I wanted, nor that the chapter’s needed. I learned a lot from these five years about my love for web design. I learned that I enjoy designing and not content management. I learned that leveraging robust content management systems is a must going forward. I am excited to expand my design business in due time, but most importantly I needed to learn what I was not good at.
