On "IT is from Mars; Web Content from Venus"

<p><a target="_blank">Many IT departments have indeed done a great job in introducing their organizations to the importance of the Web. However, the Web should no longer be managed by IT. The public website should be managed by marketing, and the intranet should be managed by communications.</a></p> <p>It may well be that certain IT people who have championed the Web will move over to marketing/communications. It may in fact be necessary for a new type of department to emerge. <b>Whatever happens, a web team is required that is focused on the power of words to drive action.</b> Because, let's face it, when you take away the words from a webpage or from a web application, what is left? </p> <p>This has not happened in most political campaigns on the local level. A major theme for me this year is going to be the successful use of web technologies for local elections. We are at a crossroads where campaigns have this gut feeling that they need to be on the web, but have not figured out how to integrate it. There is a shortage of people who understand how to use it to move a campaign forward. </p> <p>Local Campaign budgets don't have room to hire a tech person and a web specific person, so tech people do double duty or non experts wind up in charge of the web, and no one really strategizes on how to deploy it. Unfortunately it seems like this year, many candidates will plunk down heft sums to ASPs and not really get their value out.</p>