On November 22, CI issued an RFP to select a strategic partner to assist in planning, strategy and execution of the University Web Refresh project.

We have invited the vendors with the top 8 highest scores in Phase 1 of our evaluation to participate in Phase 2, which includes the RFP submission process. We look forward to their responses. The deadline for their completed proposals is Friday, December 16.

Why do we need a strategic partner, can't we just do it ourselves? The fact is we have a very skillful and capable Web Services team of designers and developers that can (and will) do much of the implementation work for this project, including developing and implementing the final design within echoCI, our web content management system. Unfortunately, this talented team team is very small, and given their current workload of other projects and existing web operations, the team would be stretched too thin to complete the project of this scope within the expected time frame.

In addition, it's a great opportunity to leverage the insight and perspective that a partner with significant higher education experience can provide with respect to our web presence. We can use this perspective and experience to identify strengths and weaknesses and develop strategies and tactics to improve in our information architecture, web marketing, content development, social media, and mobile development efforts.

What do you think? What are the pros and cons of selecting a strategic partner? And what attributes of a strategic partner are important to ensure the right fit with the University for this project?

Post your thoughts and concerns as a comment here, or contact me directly at peter.mosinskis@csuci.edu. We look forward to your feedback.