“Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, the project’s all a-go! (whistling) Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, heigh-ho, heigh-ho!”

Yes, just like the seven dwarfs mining for diamonds, Saint Martin’s (along with web-super-heros, OHO Interactive) have been dig-dig-dig-dig-dig-dig-digging to unearth the pre-production gems that are soon to become our new website!

With a whoooole lot of help from all of you who sacrificed your time to a) wrap your minds around wireframes, b) raise your hands at feedback sessions, c) sit in on design presentations or d) take surveys, we’ve moved the project forward from the primordial ooze of inception, to the rubber-stamping* of the first four…count ’em, FOUR!…phases of the project (if you haven’t seen ’em before, take a look and leave us your comments at the bottom of the post):

1. Messaging architecture (who we are and what we want to say)…approved!
2. Sitemap (how folks with navigate the site: by what they want to do)…approved!
3. Wireframes (how the pages will be laid out)…approved!
4. Visual design (what the pages will look like)…approved!

What do we have left to mine?

Weeeeeell…there are four phases left to the project — hence the halfway-through thingy.

5. Development
6. Content migration
7. Testing and debugging
8. Deployment [this is when we lah-ha-ha-haunch the site!]

Pretty cool, huh?

So, this week in Boston, OHO begins development. Wahooo!

They are taking everything we did from January until now (a.k.a. messaging, sitemap, wireframes and design) and turning them into the ultra-modern-highly-advanced-state-of-the-art-newfangled-cutting-edge-squealing-headlong-into-the-future-designed-to-make-things-easy-to-find-and-mobile-ready website that we’ve all been dreaming of. This jewel is being built with, Drupal, an open source content management system (CMS) that allows us to do fancy things like re-purpose content and search on and filter stuff (a bit of an over-simplification, but true nonetheless).

Whilst OHO plugs away at development, the dwarfs of MarCom head down the mineshaft to prepare for phase VI — content migration.

Our task(sssssssssss) include: mapping everything from the old site to the new site; writing new content where none has existed before; revising old content to present a streamlined message that is aligned with our messaging architecture of…

• Pacific Northwest feel
• Transformative spirit
• Academic rigor

…then migrating everything from old to new. All serving the goal of a lean, mean, hospitable web machine that gets folks what they want and need as quickly and efficiently as possible.

So if you’re wondering what we’re doing down there at the east end of Old Main through the months of May, June, July and August…well, we’ll let the dwarfs do the talk…er, singing.

We’ll map, map, map, map, map, map, map
From the old the whole day through
Then we’ll write, write, write, write, write, write, write
That’s what we like to do!

It ain’t no trick, to code real quick
If a team like OHO you do pick
Writing lines! Writing lines!
Writing lines! Writing lines!
So a website sapphire shines!

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho
It’s off to work we go
We’ll map and write
Then migrate lite
We’ll jump for joy
When we deploy
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho!

That’s all for today, folks. We’ll pop our heads out like little moles as soon as we have more to share. Until then…Web on!

This update has been brought to you by your website redesign team — or as we like to call ourselves the As-Many-Dwarfs-As-We-Can-Get-Our-Hands-On-To-Complete-The-Project.

	Vanessa = Bossy
	Genevieve = Cheery
	Carl = Drup(al)y
	Meg = Smarty
	Deanna = Crafty
	Marki = Arty
	Sarah = Aces
	Matt = Funy
	Jaime = D.C.
	Christine = Eagle-eye
	Ellamae = Sharpy
	Connor = Crackerjack
	Ted = Squirt1
	Noa = Squirt2
	Harlow = Squirt3

This project is a collaboration between OHO, MarCom and all of you. We couldn’t have made it this far without your participation. If we haven’t said thank you before, we’ll say it now. If we have, we’ll say it again. Because you can never be too thankful for the folks that help you get where you’re going.

*Don’t forget that the website is a living thing, shifting and changing as we step into the future. We just had to rubber-stamp things to make sure we hit our project launch date of mid-August.