Contributors
Paid and volunteer staff at any National Trust Historic Site (NTHS) are welcome to contribute to this blog and anyone can comment on a posting. If you wish to be a Contributor, please notify Max van Balgooy so he can provide you with an account. If you’d like to learn more about blogs and why you should participate, check out this great “Blogs in Plain English” video from Common Craft.
Criteria for Postings
1. This blog is written by NTHS staff for NTHS staff to offer tips, current news, and expert advice on a regular basis. Although this blog is public, it is not written for the general public but for people who work at historic sites, thus welcomes best practices, staff training opportunities, new funding sources, research summaries, strategies for special programs, promotional ideas, staff changes, helpful resources, solutions to common problems, technical advice, and reviews of new books. Postings are not for the Sites’ visitors, members, or supporters, thus no tour schedules, no calendars of events, no merchandise sales, and no fundraising appeals (that information is best suited for NTHP’s or the individual Site’s Web site).
2. Since the NTHS blog is a public space, postings will always be respectful to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and National Trust Historic Sites, including their trustees, advisors, employees, volunteers, donors, visitors, partners and affiliates, and others (including those who comment). Postings are expected to be honest and reliable to the best of the author’s knowledge and experience, and may be passionate and offer opinions that may not represent the views of NTHP or the NTHS with which they are associated. No profanity, politics, or personal information and we don’t want to share information that is confidential or proprietary to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Trust Historic Sites, or their partners, contractors, and vendors. If you see something that’s questionable or in error, please notify Max van Balgooy or Warren Shaver at NTHP.
Advice for Contributors
1. Remember the Audience
This blog is for your colleagues at other National Trust Historic Sites so be sure the information is timely, useful to their jobs, and to the point. We’re all incredibly busy, so keep your posts short. If it goes over a thousand words (when you write a post, the word count is tracked on the bottom left), break it up into a series. Don’t repeat information that’s available elsewhere on the Web, just provide a link (be sure to tell people where they’re going and what they’ll find at the other end of the link; life is too short to click on an unknown). This blog is not a personal journal, so a record of your daily activities, opinions on the state of the world, a recipe for Jamaican fruitcake, and photos of cute dog tricks should be posted elsewhere.
2. Treat Posting Titles as Micro-Content
Readers must be able to grasp the gist of an article by reading its headline. Avoid vague, cute, humorous headlines that make no sense by themselves, such as, “Read This for New Funds”, “Super Ideas for Educators”, or “Curators Tackle New Projects.”
Descriptive headlines are especially important for representing the blog in search engines, newsfeeds (RSS), and other external environments. In those contexts, readers often see only the headline and use it to determine whether to click into the full posting. Even if readers see a short abstract along with the headline (as with most search engines), people often read only the headline. In fact, people often read only the first three or four words of a headline when scanning a list of possible places to go.
3. Photos are Encouraged
Photos and images help connect the virtual and physical worlds, and reach people in ways that text alone cannot. For this blog, photos don’t need to be professional just legible and appropriate for the topic. If the photo needs some editing, include it with your posting and the moderator will try to fix it. You are also welcome to include a photo of yourself with your postings. It provides a more personable impression of you because readers relate more easily to somebody they’ve seen. People who’ve met you before will recognize your photo, and people who’ve read your posting will recognize you when you meet in person (say, at a conference).
4. Your Boss May be Reading Your Post (and Your Future Boss, Too)
Be sure your supervisor or Site Director is aware that you’re posting to this blog. You may have the Constitutional right to post your ideas, advice, and opinions on this blog, but your boss may have other priorities or feel that you shouldn’t be blogging on company time using company equipment.
And think about how your posting will look to a hiring manager in ten years. Whenever you post anything to the Internet—whether on a blog, in a discussion group, or even in an email—once it’s out, it’s archived, cached, and indexed in many services that you might never be aware of. Years from now, someone might consider hiring you for a plum job and take the precaution of checking your background on the Internet. Will they find insightful thinking, mindless musings, or offendingly nasty flames published under your name? Think twice before posting. If you don’t want your future boss to read it, don’t post.
This advice is based on Mark Wilson’s Rules for Blogging and Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes.
