The web today has changed so much that communication specialists don’t have to rely on technology specialists as much as they used to. But, at the same time, there are several things they should know about. I’m not sure I totally buy all 5 points from Wilson, but man they are a great start.

I too respect Ralph Wilson a great deal. I might take issue with this list, however, not in terms of the specifics but with the implication that one person can do all of this effectively. In my day job as an internet strategist, the company I work for would never think of looking for someone with all these skills. Instead, we have a graphics department. We have an outside web developer. We have a consultant who specializes in navigation and usability. We have consultants who help us with SEO and pay-per-click marketing. It’s not that a single web designer might not have a cursory knowledge of all of this - it’s just that I tend to think that cursory knowledge won’t be effective.

On the other hand, I know that most churches and ministries would shudder at the thought of using (or hiring!) multiple people with different areas of expertise (gosh, most churches and ministries shudder at the thought of hiring anyone for something so “unimportant” as web development). But if they had just an inkling of where the world is heading (and already is in many ways), those churches and ministries would be investing as much as they can (in terms of time, thought, and yes, funds) to utilize digital technology in the most effective manner. If we’re going to be effective in the digital realm, we have to leave behind the idea that we just have to launch a website and then we can pretty much forget it (because we think we’ve accomplished the mission).

The one item on Dr. Wilson’s list that I would especially applaud (again, it’s not the list that is bad - just the implication that only one person is needed) is the suggestion that we should have a content management system which allows the company (or in our case, the church or ministry) to update the site themselves. Eliminating bottlenecks in the flow of information up to a website is one of the most important things needed to make a website effective.

What tools do I use? For the personal projects I’m still involved in, my favorites are:

1. Expression Engine for content management.
2. Photoshop for graphics (although I’m using Fireworks right now as I unfortunately found, in the wake of a nearly catastrophic system crash several months ago, that my Photoshop CD is cracked)
3. The validation tools at w3.org to check my sometimes hopeless code
4. Google Analytics for stats
5. Google AdWords Editor to manage a large AdWords account
6. Feedburner for the feeds on one site (and hopefully for all my sites once I can get around to it)
7. Sage to read feeds
8. iStockPhoto for stock photography

Those are the main tools I use anyway.