We wanted to take a minute to introduce ourselves to you.  We are Susan
Geller (UMN staff) and Sherwood Daniels (consultant), project directors
for the new Enterprise Portal project, a part of the Enterprise System
Upgrade Program (ESUP).  The U will be implementing a new portal in late
2014 and we are very much interested in consulting with you who are involved in the web world at the U as we do this work.  

We can see some of you rolling your eyes and shaking your head with "Heard that before" or "Portal is so 10 yrs ago" or "Sure, right, with PeopleSoft as the base?".  We can see some of you smiling and saying "Awesome, this will be fun!".  No comment on which is in the majority :-)

We want to build something that meets peoples needs, a product of the future, not one of the past.  We need your expertise to help make that happen.  We are partnering with many groups to help to create the best the U has to offer and we hope you'll join us. 

Here are three opportunities:

1.  Design Thinking Workshops starting March 5.  Design Thinking is great for figuring out the best shopping cart at the grocery store, for solving complex social problems, and now, too, for gathering input on the portal design!  We're gathering people from all over the U together to do some rapid and rough prototyping as way of getting ideas on the table and also of getting a quick pulse on what people want.  We are aiming for the product that has not yet been imagined.  We'd love to have you at these workshops. The first one is this Tuesday in St Paul and has plenty of space. There are other sessions through April around the state.  Space is limited and they are filling fast. Registration is required.  More info here.

2.  We'll be coming to the May meeting of WebStandards to get your ideas, to share some challenges and to brainstorm some solutions.  Please join us there.

3.  At any time, please share your ideas with us here. If your idea was captured on a card at our kickoff, then we have it already, but if you aren't sure about that or want to elaborate, please connect with us again.    

--Susan Geller and Sherwood Daniels

Portal Project Directors