One on One with Rob Klause of Siteworx

Rob Klause is currently a senior practice manager at Siteworx. He has 17 years of experience in the management, design and development of high traffic websites. Prior to joining Siteworx, he served as the Executive Office of the President web manager until December 2009. At the White House, Rob oversaw the transition of the President George W. Bush's website to the National Archives, while simultaneously leading a successful launch of President Obama's new WhiteHouse.gov at 12:05 on Inauguration Day. 

We asked him about his time at the White House, his transition to the private sector and his choice of open source tools.

FierceContentManagement: What major differences did you see from a website perspective between the Bush and Obama administrations?

Rob Klause: One of the biggest differences between the two websites is content contribution. Content on the Bush site was driven mostly by the Press Office's Media Affairs Office and was primarily focused on documenting what the President was up to through press releases, speeches, videos and photographs. The Administration's policies were detailed in what were called "In Focus" features. The Obama site decentralizes much of the content contribution, not only telling the story of the President's day-to-day activities from a press perspective, but multiple authors share perspectives and policies through multi-author blogs on the site. Each entry displays the attributes of the author--who they are, the position they hold, and the office they work for--providing an added level of transparency.

FCM: What impact did using open source have on your project?

Klause: We actually had a long history of using open source tools at the EOP in various IT applications, from databases and operating systems, to application platforms and security tools. The first web content management system, used throughout the entire Bush Administration, was built in-house using Perl, the Apache web server, and the Postgres DBMS. Since the first system was built entirely in-house, all features of the website had to be coded from scratch--that meant long lead times when it came to getting new features and functionality to the site. Embracing a fully open source Web CMS provided the ability to leverage not just a platform, but code contributed by a large community. This allowed shorter cycles between identifying the need to deploy certain site features and functionality and seeing those features go into production.

FCM: Why did you decide to go with Drupal and how much customization was required for the White House website?

Klause: Drupal has a very strong, active developer community--a community that has extended an already solid core content management platform with thousands of modules offering much of the functionality desired by the Whitehouse.gov stakeholders such as multi-author and multi-organizational blogging, flexible access control, social network integration, multi-faceted search integration, and mobile browser support. Since many of the feature sets were already built by the community, they could be quickly integrated into the site. Most of the customization required was in the presentation layer, as the majority of the system leveraged community-contributed modules with no modification. There were a few modules that needed to be custom-built, and in a recent, very exciting announcement by Dave Cole of the White House New Media Team, Dave shared that these modules were “Open Sourced” to the community.

FCM: What are the major differences between working for the government and working for a consulting firm?

Klause: For the most part, when it comes to building websites, many of the issues are the same--accessibility, security, scaling, privacy issues, etc. On the consulting side, we do get to see more clients who are looking to deploy the latest trends and ideas to their audiences, particularly in mobile, but that is starting to pick up on the government side as well. Actually, I should say it’s more than just “picking up”--it's a super-charged acceleration. With the openness and transparency directives set forth by the current administration, we're seeing federal government websites racing to employ new features, functionality and engagement. Sites like the FCC's reboot, Data.gov, and the White House's mobile site are prime examples.

FCM: How do you bring your White House experience to bear on private sector projects?

Klause: The experience of working with a high-profile, highly functional, and highly trafficked site presented me with as many or more issues and challenges that most websites see. This experience lends itself well across several applications. It ensures seeing that projects employ thorough, layered approaches to security. When a website needs to scale, I can help determine if a horizontally-scaled architecture, a Content Distribution Network, or the combination of both is required. When projects call for multimedia distribution—from everything to simple podcasting all the way up to on-demand and live streaming, I can apply the experience gained from working with the various platforms and systems used to provide those capabilities from the lowest to highest tiers.

Websites are never "finished" and the focus is often on providing continuous features and content. What gets forgotten in this is the ongoing care and feeding of the system itself--the updating of the core software, the maintenance of the security layers, the monitoring of "health" and security of the system. My experience helps me ensure that projects are covered not just from the creative, front-end experience, but also that the back end systems remain able to provide that experience.

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