The Web Project Guide: Plan for Hosting | Select an Integration Partner

I took a weird path toward working in UX and content strategy.

I initially thought I’d be in radio and television production. I thought I’d turn knobs and listen to music for a living, but then I realized that’s not really what you do and, in the meantime, I’d fallen in love with the study of evolutionary biology. I switched to major in secondary biology education, in which I have a degree.

Turns out I didn’t really like teaching. I worked in call center management, then as an advertising copywriter. I wore a lot of hats over that time, but none of them were technical.

So when I came to Blend to start a fledgling content strategy practice over a decade ago, I had a lot of real-world experience in setting expectations, classification and organization, and writing … but I was still completely underprepared to tackle the more technical implementation side of web content. And, I suspect, many of the people who are reading the Web Project Guide are in the same boat.

While I hold a lot of pride for the first versions of the chapters I had a hand in early in the book, I’m actually more excited for these chapters that Deane is writing, if only because they fill gaps in my knowledge. They provide a high-level overview of concepts that I will never be responsible for, but still need to understand at a base enough level to make quality strategic decisions.

This month, we’re talking about how to find, vet, and hire an implementation partner. We know a lot about this — we are, after all, one of those implementation partners — but we are also understanding enough to know we’re not always the best fit for a client.

Then, let’s get a little technical for a second: servers and hosting. I like to think I understand a little about the technical underpinnings of a site, but when you start talking about load balancing and cloud servers, I think I’ll go take a nap, thanks.

CHAPTER 17: Plan for Hosting
A website needs to be deployed in a public environment to function correctly. You need to determine the technical, organizational, and financial parameters of this hosting.

CHAPTER 18: Select an Integration Partner
In many projects, you will engage with a services firm to install, configure, and customize a CMS to deliver the website you need.

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