ABOUT BEC
I’ve been managing website projects in-house and agency-side for over 15 years
I’ve worked with marketing, communications and IT teams across Canada, Australia, the UK and the US. My experience spans higher education, not-for-profit organizations, arts, culture, tourism and the public sector.
How it started
I began working in web at a time when that meant you did everything. You were the webmaster. You designed sites and sliced PSDs, you hand-coded and uploaded HTML files via FTP, you painstakingly built animations in Flash when it was Macromedia, and content was just text you stuffed with keywords at the last minute because it mattered less than what the site looked like. Oh, and you fixed the printer, obviously.
This work also meant that I got to learn a little bit of everything. As the web evolved and the understanding of what is needed to manage a website matured into dedicated roles with focused skill sets, I found that my skills came together best in the planning and definition of these sites. This is the part of the process that is so often rushed or overlooked but very much needed so that far more talented designers, developers and writers can easily understand exactly what needs to be built.
You can get into the nitty gritty of the work I did for organizations like the Natural History Museum London, George Brown College, South Australian National Parks Service and more via LinkedIn.
How it’s going
These days, I work with institutions and agencies as a consultant and fractional partner to deliver website discovery, planning and operations initiatives.
That might mean helping an organization prepare for a redevelopment, define requirements before procurement, build a digital product roadmap, assess governance and operations processes, or give an agency team the strategic discovery support they need before design and development begin.
The work is tailored to the client and project, but my underlying goal is always the same: to give you everything you need to make informed decisions about your website, not to make them for you.
What’s my approach
Holistic
My background strongly shapes the way I work now, which is why my approach to website discovery and operations planning is deliberately holistic. In large organizations, things that appear to be stand-alone website issues on the surface often turn out to be symptoms of much larger systemic challenges. This is why my methods also incorporate digital strategy, user experience, business analysis, stakeholder engagement, project management and my experience in agency operations to pull at the threads of the issues and define the root of the problem.
Technology-agnostic
One of the most useful things to talk about in discovery is constraints. In the past, the limits of what a website could do often came down to technology, but that is no longer the case. We’ve reached a point where technology is no longer the hard part. Now the hard part is defining what the website needs to do without the boundaries of those constraints as a guide. This is why I take a technology-agnostic approach to website planning that allows us to start with goals, users and unmet needs, rather than programming languages, platforms and server space.
Realistic
My job is to bring an objective perspective, ask questions you may not have thought of, and demystify the web development and operations process. I don’t have a vested interest in the platform you use, whether you engage an agency or use your in-house team, or the size of your budget. However, I am very invested in making sure that your website is right-sized and sustainable, is accessible to all, and can grow with your organization to meet the needs of your business and your users..
Bec lives and works on the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation as well as the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat and Haudenosaunee peoples. Paying respect to Elders past, present and emerging, Bec acknowledges the traditional Country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains where she was born and raised.
Let’s Connect
Tell me about your website journey so far and let’s talk about how I can help.