A new website? Nah!

 One of the things I hate most is contending with a new website, software or any kind of computer “improvement.”

I loathe changes in personal sites, work sites, updated software or even a new look for an old site. My own personal website hasn’t been updated in a couple of years, mostly because I haven’t been able to talk anyone into doing it for me - at least not without a significant investment in time and money, blood, sweat and tears.

As of October 17, the Evergreen Newspapers/High Timber Times new website went live and most people at the paper have eagerly awaited the change. 

Not me, however.

Years ago, I worked in a cubicle pushing numbers for the old Public Service Company of Colorado and sat next to the lady who would set up the installation of gas and electric meters for new customers. With great enthusiasm, PSCO announced new software and procedures to make our jobs easier. Her job that once took three computer steps to complete would be a little more complicated, but not too bad, they assured her.

It started slowly. We all heard the grunts of frustration emanating from her space as the realization hit that what took three steps now took 27. The work backed up and customers got angry and her breaking point occurred two weeks after the new software was in place. Early one morning, the tears started as a trickle and after 10 minutes, the sobs of despair cannoned over the top of the cubicle. A watercourse of frustration echoed through the office and I’ll never forget the image of her head resting on the keyboard as an error message blinked its single-minded diatribe over her head.

Ever since, I’ve been leery of website and software changes, which brings me back to my change aversion and the new High Timber Times website.

I will admit, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how easy our new system is to use, both for those of us on the “back-end” and for our readers as well. We can upload content faster with better results, there's space for more images, we now offer an option to purchase images, and there's space for blogs by staff and readers as well.

Today, I had someone ask me if there was a way to promote their company’s events on our website, and indeed there is.

Create an account with Evergreen Newspapers from the new website and readers can add events to the calendar page and create a blog. Another nice, new feature is the ability to see more photos from stories. With the old website, only one photo would show with the story, and now we can easily and quickly create galleries and most images are for purchase. Our goal is to have all photos from the week in a gallery for viewing. We also will be adding video to the site, at least once I figure out how to use our new video cameras. Oy. 

So, here’s to the new High Timber Times website; take a moment and check out what aspects of the website could benefit your life and community.

As for my tearful colleague, she eventually left the job and went into another career. She said she wanted something a little less stressful. Years later, I heard she went to work in the financial markets.