Project Management: Writers for Site Content

As a project manager for an information technology company dedicated to data and all of its myriad applications including data mining in contemporary business and operations practices, I believe it would be extremely valuable to implement a website that will augment our several trade conferences that we put on each year. Specifically, I am looking to find a group of individual freelance writers and band them together as a team to provide website content. Ideally, I would like a situation in which no less than three writers are pitching and producing one 1200 word article related to a various application of data (approved by me) each week. This updated content will continually attract and retain website viewership and increase our clientele at our trade show conferences. I would like the writers to contribute their 1200 weekly articles in four weeks’ time.

After I procure my pool of writers from Craigslist and screen their individual writing samples, I will foster personal mastery experiences for these writers by having them download or watch various conference panelists discuss topics that I will eventually have the writers convert into articles. This way, the writers will be given a comprehensive overview of the subject matter and have reliable sources with which to write their articles. In addition to gaining this specific, pertinent “education” about various data topics (each writer will be assigned a different subject), the writers will be able to demonstrate their mastery of the subject by writing a smaller article of 300 words, based on a general introduction and a sub-component of the topic.

I will model successful behaviors by providing the writers a 1200 word sample of a well-researched article that I have written. Moreover, I will then show them the initial 300 word excerpt that functions as a comprehensive introduction that goes into a subtopic. Writers will be charged with completing 300 words of their initial 1200 word assignment each week. One of the benefits of having writers complete their initial article in 300 word increments is the fact that doing so will enable me plenty of time to grant them both feedback and support. I will be able to see just how much they have learned and internalized from their personal mastery experiences and from my modeling of successful behaviors - something I've learned through organizational coaching courses. The shorter increments will also give them a chance to achieve short term goals and success for which I can praise them (“Creating S.M.A.R.T. Goals”). Although on an ongoing basis writers will be paid per completing their 1200 month articles, during the first week we will pay them per 300 word page, which will give them plenty of motivation and reason to help me achieve my goal. 

In addition to the positive emotions any superlative behavior and praise will garner, the 300 word increments will allow me to determine what areas writers can utilize more training or sources in. During the first article I will provide alternative sources (other than the mere conference) for them to utilize in their articles. These sources are valuable forms of information that should assist writers. The sources, of course, which writers can consider ongoing resources since they will be popular data-related websites, will be directly related to the articles writers are composing.

The purpose of this entire process is to create confidence in this newly formed team. The combination of my modeling of successful articles, provisioning websites and conference sources they can use—not just for their initial article but on an ongoing basis as well—and providing encouragement and constructive criticism should allow us to achieve both of our goals, which are actually not so respective of one another. The writers will get an opportunity to earn money. In doing so, they will allow my company and me an opportunity to expand our clientele base—resulting in our earning more money.  

Work Cited

“Creating S.M.A.R.T. Goals”. topachievement.com, 2011, http://topachievement.com/smart.html. Accessed 12 Oct 2014.