Hello everyone! I'm currently bashing this out on one of the two massively popular open-access laptops provided at the NUSSL convention to allow delegates to check their Facebook catch up on important work ;o) As a result, this is going to be a bit hurried...

A quick bit of background: NUSSL is, to all intents and purposes, the trading side of the NUS, providing large-scale buying power to students' unions across the country for a wide variety of services. Each year, the NUSSL convention is held in some plush location, and is basically a big networking-and-freebie-grabbing opportunity - the antithesis of the NUS Conference, if you like.

While sitting in NUSSL's AGM this morning (notable for being possibly the shortest AGM in the history of mankind), I decided to start scratching out some thoughts on the strategy I'd like to see the Union's online media employing in the coming years. Much of it is already in operation in some form or other, and much of it is common sense, but we don't - as far as I know! - have a "ten commandments" listing of the key underpinnings which can and do make the Union's online media presence great.

So, here's my first, very rough draft of the things that I think might be vitally important to the Union if it is to make sure that what it is doing online continues to be relevant and effective for its students in the coming few years. If you can be bothered to read on (and, I'll be honest, these ramblings are usually enough to make even the most committed person stifle a yawn or two), then please bear in mind a) that this is a VERY rough draft, that b) there are more people involved in setting the overall direction of the Union that just myself, by a very long shot, and c) that nothing below is presented in any order of priority. At this stage this is just a simple listing of ideas.

As a result, the bullet points below will no doubt be reworded and rejigged, and may completely change, in the coming couple of months. That said, I hope some of the common-sense aspects will stay in some form or other!

Hokay, let's go: in the next couple of years, I would like the Union to focus on...

• Content digitisation: get *everything* online, delete nothing, and make it as easy and logical as possible for people to discover this information,
• Instilling a cultural shift in the Union's staff and student volunteers: it is important to seek to foster a sense of ownership and a desire to invest time, effort and - where appropriate - money into the development of the Union's web presence,
• Ensuring training is a cornerstone of everything we do online: it is important that any new aspect to the website, any new tools, and any new functionality, is both as easy to use as possible, and as well-documented as possible, so that it is as easy as possible for anyone to quickly pick up and use a new system,
• Investing in developing and documenting the current Content Management System (a Frankenstein-like version of Mambo): the only way to get the most out of UPSU.net is to make it as easy as possible for developers and owners alike to develop it*,
• Committing and maintaining its focus on the importance of accessible and usable design**,
• Avoiding the temptation to allow invasive advertising practises: too many good websites are let down by an overwhelming abundance of adverts which only serve to annoy visitors with very little effective gain. Sorry for the mini-rant!
• Investing in staff: I really do think that we can justify employing a member of staff to work full-time on the website. With the right commitment from the Union's myriad staff and student volunteers, the job of maintaining, updating, and develo...
  
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A happy new year to you all out there in readerland. We're in the middle of putting together issue 7 of Pugwash News, the first (hopefully of many!) for 2008.

I hope you all spent at least some of your free time over the holidays taking a break from coursework and/or the obligatory part-time job almost every University student I've ever known has had to take on to pay the bills.

Students are generally regarded as one of the most hard-core groups of job-hunters, accepting offers of employment as diverse as turkey inseminators (eww) and deckchair assistants (a position better suited to the summer months, admittedly), and anything in-between.

I've spent my Christmas taking a good look at what makes student employment tick, looking at students' union "job shop" websites across the country, as well as some of the larger ones including Monster and The Grauniad... sorry, The Guardian.

This hasn't been because I'm getting cold feet in my current position as Media Officer, but because I've been working hard on the new UPSU JobShop website. The old website's done us proud, with thousands of students finding part-time work each year through the Union - and not a single turkey-farm job in sight - but for technical reasons, the old JobShop website hasn't seen any development over the last few years, and has to run on a separate web server away from the rest of the UPSU.net website, making it difficult to really highlight the wide range of part-time jobs our JobShop is so popular for across the rest of the website.

Hopefully it’ll all be done and dusted and ready to turn on (at upsu.net/jobshop) around the third week of January, fingers crossed!

We’ve also got a massive archive of back-issues of Pugwash magazine and Pugwash News online on the Pugwash website - there’s loads of great articles in there from previous years which are still as relevant today as they were when they were published, and are well worth a look (during breaks in revision, of course!).

I've also spent some of my hard-earned on a new pair of DJing headphones, as my last pair fell apart after 12 years' use, so at last I should be able to start putting together some new mixes to listen to, play on Pure FM, and annoy everyone in the Sabb office with ;o)

There’s a point to this rambling stream-of-consciousness, of course: with the Sabb Elections beginning in the next couple of weeks, and voting in the first week of March, I’ve been thinking about what makes a good Media Officer.

I’ve got a bit of a web design background, have a passing acquaintance with DJing and radio production, can use Quark and Photoshop to knock out something approaching a half-decent publication, and even know which way round to hold a camera.

Similarly, previous Media Officers have boasted skills as wide-ranging as video production, radio presenting, news journalism, management experience (and something they call “people skills”, although I’m not convinced they’re any more real than the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus… ;o), artistic flair… the list goes on.

There doesn’t seem to be any particular “theme” here though - UPSU Media Officers don’t seem to have a common interest, hobby, past-time or skill, apart - possibly - from a masochistic streak when it comes to working hard.

Generally speaking, what sets Sabbatical Officers apart from your average student? It’s as simple - and as vague - as this:...

The office is empty and so quiet it feels like everything's fallen asleep - apart from me and my cup of tea - and once I've cleared my desk and finished playing this Paul Van Dyk mix at ASBO volume, I too am going to be packing up and clearing off home until the start of January.

I've been in office now for a smidge under five months, and it's been nothing short of a whirlwind ride - there have been late nights, lots of hard work, dangling from trees, "ideas theft" from other students' unions around the country, awards, tears, new ground broken, relationships made and un-made, shouting, hugging and even the occasional drink.

Scattered around my desk are piles of to-dos scrawled hurriedly on the back of yellow post-it notes. These probably total less than 10% of my overall pile of "things I must do two weeks ago or the world comes to an end", and even if I could clone myself over Christmas and not sleep, I wouldn't be able to complete everything I need to.

Still, this year has been, this far at least, an incredible learning experience. I've been more stressed and grumpy than I've ever been, and spent more money on bills and less on my social life - now a distance memory - than ever before, but I wouldn't change the majority of it for the world.

Last night over a beer, the conversation wandered onto the forthcoming Sabbatical elections, which pretty much kick off as soon as we come back in the New Year. We agreed that one of the hardest things any election candidate has to get their heads around is the fact that, as a Sabb, you're a trustee of the Union charity first - taking on all the responsibilities and duties that go with that role - and a president/sports officer/support officer/meeja whore/etc second.

What this boils down to is having to modify your thinking a little... Ok, a lot: when it comes to making important decisions about the future of the Union, as the Sabb team each year is tasked with doing to make sure the Union continues to provide a democratic and student-focused service, you have to have your "trustee hat" on.

For me, this year, this has already brought me a couple of sleepless nights where I've had to make decisions which call into question whether it's more important to put my trustee's responsibilities first, or my media responsibilities. Without going into detail (for I fear I may be taken outside and shot... Ok, maybe not shot...) I hope I made the right calls, but sometimes the only person who can be sure your decision was the right one is you, especially if the rest of the world happens to think you're the devil incarnate for making the choice you made, because they don't understand your reasoning.

I know the other sabbs this year have also faced some tough decisions they never expected to have to make, and possibly the second hardest part of being a Sabb is going from higher education - where you have lecturers and course mates to guide you to making The Right Decision - into a role where the future isn't planned, the decisions aren't clear, and the "right" answer is only right if you believe in it, commit to it, and do the hard work which your particular decision entails to make it happen.

This rambling monologue seems to be circling a potential problem - as a former maths teacher of mine put it, "always show your workings"; it's all too easy to fall into the trap of making decisions which affect students as a Sabb team without explaining to the student body why the decision was made on their behalf, and what factors were taken into account. In fact, it's all too easy to completely miss telling students that a decision has been made by the Sabb Exec which affects them!

This year, we've made some major inroads into further developing regular lines of communication between the Sabbs and students, making it easier and more beneficial for students...

UPSU newspaper is go - starting with 8 pages per issue, fortnightly, possibly in colour. New iMacs are still lovely (lots of cooing and stroking... Too much information?). Fraggy, Steve and Mike are making the Directory look very nice indeed. Wallplanners are still here. Freshers' Fortnight is looking great. Extreme Sports night @ UPSU, anyone? Journalists, writers and designers wanted for the newspaper - want to get involved? Call me! The Union - Use It, Keep It, Love It, hokay? Uhhm... I'll think of some more stuff later...

/al