I just returned from Interaction 10, the always-exciting conference organized by the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). This year’s event was held in Savannah, Georgia. I know there was a lot of live tweeting, Johnny Holland was there, and the conference site will soon feature loads of videos. Folks have been busy on Flickr, too. So, since the event reporting has been pretty well covered by others, I thought it would be interesting to look at the physical paper trail this conference generated for me.
Interaction with dead trees I had a client years ago that refused to allow paper into the office. Everything was electronic. Needless to say, this got them a lot of PR, but made them fairly ineffective. Let’s face it, paper is really, really useful. (I’m partial to beermats…for taking notes).
But honestly, is all this paper really necessary? How can we make the world a little more sustainable? Just look at what I dragged home from Savannah:
2 train tickets for the Copenhagen subway
1 printout of a so-called “e-ticket”
4 boarding passes from Delta
2 luggage receipts
5 security stickers of various kinds on passport and luggage
1 receipt for currency exchange at Danske Bank
3 taxi receipts (1 Danish, two US)
1 paper conference badge
4 schedules and maps from inside the badge
1 map of Savannah
17 sundry receipts for meals, drinks, and other conference-related expenses
1 reservation sheet from the Hyatt
1 welcome letter from the Hyatt
1 check-out description from the Hyatt
1 bill from the Hyatt
3 Delta paper napkins (with sketches)
12 pieces of promotional literature from the conference sponsors
14 pieces of United States paper currency
43 business cards
I just came across an article suggesting no fewer than 60 ways to attract Twitter followers (http://is.gd/7maoX). It comes from @technotip (who is worth following).
I’m completely jazzed. I want followers. I crave followers. Followers are now my raison d’etre. Follow me @elreiss. My ego is suffering from hunger pains. FEED IT NOW!
Oops. Did I get carried away? (must remember to Tweet about this – check it out @elreiss)
Penis envy in cyberspace
You really have to laugh at some of these tactics. Number of Twitter followers seems to have become the social media equivalent of penis envy. And some of these scams are clearly the cyber-equivalent of a penis-extender. Henceforth, anyone who even considers running a Twitter contest will be added to my personal blacklist.
Why the tasteless self-promotion, @elreiss? This is an experiment. OK?
In addition to retweeting stuff from folks smarter than I am and recommending articles, I occasionally have original thoughts. Looking through some of the past year’s tweets, I found around 50 that seemed to stand the test of time better than most.
WTF, @elreiss? Get to the point!
I’m not really out to build a huge follower base, but I would like to experiment a bit with the “content is king” notion. So please remember to “unfollow” if my tweets don’t contribute in some useful way to your own life and work. I’m keeping track of follower stats from day to day. Read ‘em and weep-or-whatever.
52 tweets I (@elreiss) wrote and like
Will the iPon be a brand extension of the iPad?
Why follow your Twitter followers if you don’t care what folks say?
This is a day for avoiding real work. Which is why I’ve been pondering cross-dressers who wear burkas. How would anyone know?
I wish it was as big a crime to be dumb as it is to be dishonest.
The more time I spend on social media (Twitter and beyond), the more I’m convinced our society is in deep shit.
Not all pithy thoughts can be compressed to 140 characters no matter how hard you try.
If the meek inherit our earth, it’s because the strong have abandoned them.
I’m more convinced than ever that “unwired” has become the new “organic”.
TV news interviews are great reality programming. There’s nothing as dumb as an “expert” if you get them off their area of expertise.
If it’s dangerous to talk to yourself, it’s probably even more dangerous to listen.
Good design can never rescue bad strategy. When did pretty uniforms last win a war?
If your competition sells cheaper, it’s called “dumping”. If you sell cheaper, it’s called “supply side optimization”.
America’s infatuation with reality TV suggests that many viewers can no longer differentiate between talent and celebrity. Scary!
False friendships are the emotional downside of most current social media offerings.
I love teaching. I learn so much.
Do arbitrary rules really deserve more than arbitrary compliance?
Ahh. What would the world be like without rhetorical questions?
Packaging designers should be forced to clean and organize a larder once in a while. Valuable lessons to be learned.
If I always knew what I was doing, I’d never learn anything. A little adversity can be a really good thing.
Changing the world is easy. Changing it for the positive is the real challenge. That’s because no one agrees on what’s good.
If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right.
Still trying to change the world, but I’m more and more convinced that the world would prefer that I just butt out.
Pitting UX against IA is like having your toolbox pick a fight with your wrench. UX is a cognitive container for a variety of skills.
How come “altruistic” is never a value word for companies? Sometimes you’ve gotta do stuff simply because it’s the right thing to do.
Words of wisdom: Don’t burn your bridges before you come to them.
Looking for statistics to confirm my fear that the idiots now officially outnumber those of us who know what we’re doing.
I’m frustrated that there are so many folks in the UX business who are famous just for being famous, not for any work they’ve ever done.
Call yourself an expert? Do you really have 10,000 hours of experience, or just one hour, repeated 10,000 times?
Are you passionate or provocative? Passion comes from the heart. But most provocation seems to stem from ego.
Rules are created when people take advantage of that which is unwritten.
If content is king, is context the kingdom?
Bailouts have become the back-button of the financial industries.
How long is “new media” new? Are we now working with “middle-aged media”?
Jakob Nielsen talks about designing his tweets: http://bit.ly/KLmzf. This is what most people call “editing”.
The blogosphere is the Gong Show of Generation Y.
“Thought leadership” means thinking about a community of practice, not thinking about leadership.
No discernable correlation between your popular searches and your popular pages? You have a serious information architecture issue to solve.
Never judge a book by the taste of the binding.
If you want to be a thought leader, it’s best to start your career by fine-tuning your thinking, not your PR.
“Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer.” But does that really mean you have to put up with their silly twitter-chatter?
Words to live by: be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They’re often the same ones you meet on the way down.
The biggest threat to the future of the web is the neighbor’s kid, who is programming crap sites for legit businesses using FrontPage.
Maybe we designers ask too many questions. Maybe we threaten potential clients. Maybe folks don’t care if their website contributes to their business.
I’m seeing incredibly incompetent shops getting web work while really talented folks are out of work. What are the idiots doing right?
Responses to yesterday’s Twitter denial of service attack lead me to believe that some folks have serious addiction problems.
Ultimately, insistence on formalized processes and standardized deliverables strives not to collect answers but to obliterate questions.
The sooner our pitches reflect the fact that most business decisions are made emotionally and not rationally, the sooner we will get rich.
Political correctness is just another way to hide prejudice behind euphemism. I far prefer straight talk and honesty.
UX certification? Reminds me of Groucho Marx’s comment: “I wouldn’t want to be a member of a club that would accept me as a member.”
Gonna take flak from the American consultants…but…IMO ”It depends” is just an unnecessary click in the verbal clickstream.
Mashups can be SOOOO ugly. Here’s a new acronym: TIDE (Tight Integration of Diverse Experiences) Goes nicely with AJAX.
Amateurish SEO drives me mad. Keyword density is the worst fairydust of all time. Fact: you cannot bore people into buying something.
Again, if you like these, please follow me for a couple of weeks @elreiss and see if I continue to live up to expectations. If not, that’s cool – I’m not really out to build a huge follower base, but to experiment a bit with the “content is king” notion. And please remember to “unfollow” if my tweets don’t contribute in some useful way to your own life and work.
Hey, you can also comment right here! Let me know what YOU think about Twitter.
Denmark is a small market for advertisers – about 2.2 million households. And with the general cutbacks in advertising budgets due to the financial crisis, the TV channels are hurting. The result is that we’re seeing a lot more badly produced ads from companies that have never used television as an advertising medium.
But let’s not excuse crappy ads strictly because of low budgets. The fascinating thing is, organizations that can afford decent advertising are spending their money unwisely (i.e. the return is less than the cost). I sometimes think that many advertisers are economizing by bypassing the expensive creative department at their ad agency and going directly to the film producer.
Result? Nice films, lousy messaging. Don’t think that “all advertising is good advertising”, the Schlitz Brewery, once America’s second-largest, actually reported a downturn in sales among people who could remember their advertising.
Here are seven methods guaranteed to deliver unacceptable results.
1. Irritate viewers For some reason, this is an incredibly popular technique in Denmark right now. It seems advertisers think that if you yell, scream, and do stupid things, people will love your brand/product. Sorry. Most of you are actually suggesting that your brand or product is as stupid and/or irritating as your spokespersons.
My current “favorite” in this category is the jerk who advertises for the food-chain, Spar. I can’t find the more absurd ads on YouTube, but this is the one in which his character is introduced. The basic premise is, that this guy loves his supermarket so much that he decides to “help” the store owner by creating absurdly stupid advertising gimmicks. In this case, it’s a new version of the Danish birthday song. Even if you don’t understand Danish, you can’t help but wish this idiot would disappear:
Message: Don’t assume that “dumb” is necessarily entertaining. You cannot irritate people into buying anything. And you may get people to actually boycott your brand! (Ariel, I’ve still not forgiven you for your awful Helle Virkner ads).
2. Overestimate your brand recognition When you’ve built a brand, it’s easy to convince yourself that the whole world knows what you do. This is dangerous. The following ad is a classic example of this. The production values are high, the story piques ones curiosity (is she Princess Diana?). But unless you know the brand, the advertising is actually useless.
I have much more to say about this, but I would like you to visit their website first and view the ad they’re currently showing on CNN and other international channels. This will open in a new window, so when you’re done looking at the ad, come back and read on. Do not explore their site (yet):
Blank line. Don’t read ahead until you’ve seen the ad.
Another blank line.
Gosh, how many blank lines can we afford? Seems like such a waste…
Right. Now that you’ve seen the ad, tell me what does this company do? Can you remember the name of the brand? I couldn’t. And since the ad airs so infrequently, I didn’t get a chance to have the name hammered into my conscious mind. (in the ad biz, we talk about OTS – Opportunities To See).
Because I know Paris, I recognized the Place Vendôme (with Napoleon’s copy of Trajan’s Column in the middle). In the film, this monument seems to be right next to this shop. But no joy. I even used Google’s street view and could not find the red awning. All I could remember from the ad was that the brand name started with an “H” and the bags were red.
Searching for luxury brands didn’t help either. I was stuck. (and yes, this had become a slightly obsessive quest at this point)
This was my experience. But perhaps you know this brand. What would your reaction be?
Anyway, if you now return to the Hediard site, you’ll find that they sell fine foods. And they’re on Place Madeleine, just next to another of Paris’ fine food shops, Fauchon. No wonder they mislead with the Place Vendôme reference.
Basically, this ad could have been made much more effective simply by adding some shots of luscious displays within the shop and writing a better narration. It appears, though, that this ad may be an offshoot of an artistic installation produced by Comité Colbert (http://www.ccolbert.fr/), which aims to promote 70 French luxury brands, but doesn’t seem to know much about advertising. It also looks like they ripped off a concept developed for the Texas-based photographer, Matthew Mahon, whose site is well known in Flash communities (http://www.matthewmahon.com/).
Message: don’t assume everyone knows and loves your brand. Telling a story is good. But telling a story that communicates your brand essence is much, much better.
3. Use ineffective sales arguments Some arguments work, some don’t. Some arguments that used to work no longer do. Car safety, for example, is no longer a brand advantage or product position (e.g. Volvo), it’s now a prerequisite for all car manufacturers.
These days, there are a variety of anti-smoking campaigns running. Horror and disgust are often the creative keys. Alas, Jerry Bruckheimer’s CSI and Navy CIS feature so many gory, computer-generated journeys through bullet holes and other bodily damage that it’s tough to scare or disgust folks these days. Particularly hard-core smokers. We’ve seen it all before.
The University of Missouri claims that these scare campaigns work (see http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/11/17/scare-or-disgust-work-best-in-anti-smoking-ads/3360.html). But this is not entirely true. Although Napoleon rightly said that fear and self-interest are the two levers with which one can set a man in motion, the scare campaigns are only effective when people have already decided to change their behavior; in fact, the “Smoking Kills” message on cigarette packages has actually created a boomerang effect in some markets and increased the number of smokers - the forbidden-fruit-is-attractive syndrome.
In short, if you want people to stop smoking, there are more effective ways than scare campaigns. And I speak as a 27-year veteran of the non-filter brigade (Camels, Senior Service). Why do most hard-core smokers finally quit? Because it pegs you as a social loser – the habit is no longer glamorous. It prevents you from getting promotions, it hampers your social life, it makes you stand outside your office building 20 times a day instead of staying inside, exchanging gossip at the water cooler. Most importantly, it signals “stinky and boorish” rather than “suave and sophisticated. Yes. Times change. Check out Allan Carr’s Easy Way to stop smoking for a far more effective method.
Message: If you want to effect behavioural change, don’t preach to the choir. Moreover, threats only produce short-term results. True long-term behavioral change comes about by providing a positive alternative to the current situation.
4. Practice pseudocreativity
Sometimes lack of brand promise or genuine product/service advantages encourages advertisers to disguise the lack of message (or lack of a creative idea) behind an artsy-fartsy facade. The folks promoting Abu Dhabi are doing this right now.
We see a fellow in native Arab garb piloting a Mercedes through a Middle-Eastern city. The voice-over was written by a wannabe-poet-turned-copywriter: “As night crackles electric, a million promises are held.” The effect is hypnotic, but the commercial message is unclear. In fact, there is no brand promise whatsoever.
In the final frame, we see the name, “Abu Dhabi”. Alas, this only appears for a second and almost immediately whites out as the “Abu” in the text blends into the desert background.
What does the UAE want me to do? Should I visit this city? Invest? Shoot a feature film? Complain about their crap advertising on a blog?
Here’s the clip. Judge for yourself:
Message: Art is fine, but are you out to entertain or communicate? As advertising guru Rosser Reeves once said, “Do you want art, or do you want the goddam sales curve to go up?”
5. Switch media in mid stream
We all know this scenario: we’re watching TV and an ad tells us to visit a web address. No other explanation, only a URL. Or we’re reading a magazine and a full page ad displays nothing more than a URL.
Big mistake.
Yes, online/offline convergence is critical in any modern media plan. But when I’m sitting comfortably in front of the TV, don’t expect me to boot up my laptop – or even write down the web address. Granted, it’s reasonable to let me know where I can go for supplemental information (e.g. the web) . But don’t make your address your primary message. Make your message your message!
Message: Make every medium self-sufficient when it comes to stating your case and selling your product or service.
6. Upstage your message
If you’ve got something to say, say it. Make sure it comes across in clear, unmistakable terms. Unfortunately, a lot of advertisers get so wrapped up in the story they’re trying to tell that they forget to give us viewers a concrete call to action. They create scenaria that are so fascinating that the message is pushed to the background.
We’ve already seen how Hediard and Abu Dhabi blew their budget on ineffectual advertising. In both cases, the message was clearly upstaged by high production values and an artsy-fartsy story. But here’s another example that takes things in a decidedly lowbrow direction.
The leading Danish telephone service, Teledanmark – TDC – has introduced two characters in their television ads. They are named Klaus and Britta and are nudists (does TDC thinks nudists represent a core market?). The ads are fascinating, primarily because Britta is played by a well-known male Danish comedian. And Klaus is played by a well-known female comedian. Cross-dressing nudists? Hell of a campaign concept. But the rubber suits are fantastic. See for yourself:
Message: Make sure people remember what you’re trying to tell them from a branding/product/service point of view. If they remember your commercials, but not your message, you’ve lost the battle.
7. Rely on spin and lies No product or service can rely on one-time sales. You can con folks into buying almost anything once, but you won’t get them to buy your stuff a second time. Moreover, the service-industry gurus estimate that every time you have a good experience with a company, you tell three people. But if your experience is bad, you’ll end up telling 17.
Right now, L’Oreal is being sued by the Swedish Consumer Protection Agency for their smooth presentation of an anti-wrinkle cream. Dan-Sun, a Danish producer of solariums, is being chastised in the press for making health claims that can’t really stand the light of day. And almost all of the Danish banks are working hard to tell prospective customers that they are solid, honest, and are willing to extend credit. Incredible…
Message: Don’t lie. Good advertisers don’t. Only the amateurs really believe ”all advertisers lie”.
New Year’s is a time of reflection. In my case, I pondered the many and varied ways we can promote the cause of information architecture. And I think I’ve discovered a completely untapped opportunity: professional wrestling.
Amazingly, there is not a single professional wrestler with an IA background! I’ve considered making this career move myself, but my wife thinks I look dumb in a Speedo (then again, who doesn’t?). So since my plans seem to have been vetoed, let me share my thoughts with you – perhaps someone else will enter the arena to make this bold, long-overdue move.
The name’s the game First, professional wrestlers have a catchy name. I’ve considered the following:
Leo the Librarian (famous for the “Shssh of Death”)
Doctor Depends (never looks you straight in the eye)
The Terrible Thesaurus (a magical, yet misunderstood creature)
Getting a move on Next, all wrestlers have “signature moves,” so I think I should have a couple, too. For example, Hard-Boiled Haggerty is famous for his “Shillelagh Swing.” And Cowboy Bob Ellis has “The Bulldog Headlock.” Well, here are some ideas I’ve been tossing around.
The Polar Bearhug
Perfect for tackling large-scale opponents
The Wurman Whirl
Create anxiety through the deadly use of information overload
The Dewey Decimator
796.8 ways to send your foe back to the stacks
The Barbed Wireframe
Box in your target no matter where he happens to be.
The Berrypicking Brainbuster
A shrewd combination of the very best moves available at any given time.
Michigan Leg Swirl
Prevail by degrees (this move is known in the industry as an “MLS”)
The Morville Mindbender Become completely unfindable in the ring!
The Dublin Corner Trap your opponent in a maze of metadata
Full Nielsen Use statistics to pummel your adversaries into submission.
Defining the Damned Thing A horrifying manoeuvre from which there is no apparent escape.
Moving forward I have to confess, throughout my years as a professional information architect, I’ve had a secret mentor. I’d like to share his identity with you now:
People are always looking for something good to read over the holidays. So here are 12 books that I’ve recently read (or revisited). You probably won’t find many of these on the usual “best seller” lists.
Just to clue you in, my interests tend to focus on:
- good mystery stories
- 20th century history
- entrepreneurship
- stuff that helps me understand other cultures
- stuff that’s just plain entertaining
And I always read stuff that’s been recommended to me.
I hope you find something that fits your tastes. And there’re no particular order to these books – I don’t feel like playing librarian today.
I really like these 12 books. I hope you will, too.
Paris to the Moon
Adam Gopnik
Random House, 2001
Gopnik is a sensible, well-educated American who writes for the New Yorker. In 1995, he and his wife moved to Paris – simply because the city appealed to them. The book is a fascinating journey of discovery that moves the perception of “the artist’s Paris” beyond Hemingway, and demonstrates the enormous cultural gap between North America and Europe, even for people who are sensible and well-educated. Really, one of the most interesting, well-written books on ex-pat experiences I’ve read in many years.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Bill Bryson
Black Swan, 2007
Bryson is my age and grew up in Iowa. I grew up a couple of hours away in St. Louis. We watched the same TV shows as kids (Sky King, Lone Ranger, etc.) and share a frightening number of quintessentially Midwestern experiences (like meeting Stan Musial). And like me, he spent most of his adult life in Europe (Britain counts as Europe unless you’re British). This particular work is a kind of memoir. But Bryson has a dozen other books out there that are equally good. If you don’t know of him, you really should pick one up.
Memories of a Pure Spring
Duong Thu Huong
Picador, 2000
Once one of the most popular novelists in Vietnam, Ms. Huong’s books have been “withdrawn” in that country. This is a wonderfully poetic, yet emotionally intense trip through a nation emerging from three decades of civil war. Struggles with the modern bureaucracy, plus flashbacks to the “American War” can put a lot of things in perspective for those who experienced the war first hand, and those who only know Vietnam as a holiday destination. The only minus is that my edition “feels” translated – unfortunately Asian literature frequently does.
The Vicious Circle Mysteries and Crime Stories from the Algonquin Round Table
Fall River Press, 2009
Back in the 1920s and 30s, New York’s Algonquin Hotel played host to the cream of American literati, who lunched there every day. These luminaries included George S. Kaufman, Howard Dietz, Robert Benchley, Marc Connelly, Alexander Woollcott, Dorothy Parker, S.J. Perelman, Edna Ferber, and Ring Lardner. Each of these brilliant writers has contributed a short story to this entertaining compilation.
Twitterville Shel Israel
Portfolio, 2009
@elreiss Great book by a guy from my generation who really understands social media and doesn’t just play it lip service: http://is.gd/5tSkN
(and yes, that was EXACTLY 140 characters)
Business Stripped Bare Richard Branson
Virgin Books, 2009
For an entrepreneur like me, reading about Richard Branson’s exploits is as magical as Harry Potter. In fact, if I’d known about this fellow 30 years ago, I’d have moved to England and swept the floors in his office just to get to know him personally. This book shows you how much fun you can have when you like to build things rather than just buying expensive toys with the money you’ve made.
American Lightning
Howard Blum
Crown, 2008
A crime novel that is actually a history book. It’s about one of the early terrorist acts in the United States: the bombing of the Los Angeles Times on October 1, 1910. Curiously, the careers of William J. Burns (America’s foremost detective), D.W. Griffith (Hollywood’s industry-shaping filmmaker), and Clarence Darrow (America’s leading legal mind) intersected at Los Angeles’ legendary Alexandria Hotel at this time. Blum tells their story in a way reminiscent of Capote’s In Cold Blood.
The cover bills this as “Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century.” Howard Blum nailed them all. Great stuff.
Music and Silence Rose Tremain
Vintage, 2000
Here’s the story of King Christian the Fourth of Denmark. He sits in his summer residence, Rosenborg Castle, pondering the fate of his nation while listening to the music that permeates the building via ventilation ducts leading to a string quartet kept out of sight down in the basement. Not only is this a great read, it was suggested to me some years by the young Australian girlfriend of the Danish crown prince. Today, she is H.R.H. Crown Princess Mary. Interesting recommendation from someone destined to become Queen of Denmark.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian Marina Lewycka
Penguin, 2005
The first paragraph reads: “Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcée. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.”
I haven’t laughed so hard in years. This is a fabulously entertaining book.
Bing Ted Dewan
David Fickling Books
Bing is a stuffed bunny, who is helped by his friend Flop (also stuffed, but difficult to identify zoologically). They paint, they play, they bake, they make incredible messes. And they’re hugely entertaining. There are a bunch of Bing books – all great reads for kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, and folks like me.
I met Ted Dewan when he spoke at EuroGel in Copenhagen a few years back. We both do road happenings in our respective cities (Ted’s from Oxford) and it was like meeting a long lost brother. You’ve simply got to check these out!
Why Architecture Matters
Paul Goldberger
Yale University Press, 2009
No. This isn’t another history of architecture. Rather, it’s an erudite review of how and why architecture affects us emotionally and intellectually. For anyone doing design work, this could be the most exciting book you read this year (or next). Why, for example, have the utilitarian boxes of Walter Gropius survived the test of time, whereas the utilitarian boxes of Iron-Curtain-era Europe are being torn down?
Now that we’ve spent years figuring out how to build usable, utilitarian websites, it’s time to figure out how to make them both utilitarian AND exciting.
Three Trapped Tigers
G. Cabrera Infante
Harper & Row, 1971
An Argentinian friend of mind recommended this book to me about 20 years ago. I read it every year or so – for the language, for the history, for the entertainment, for the pathos. Infante was the son of Cuban revolutionaries and headed the Cuban Film Board after the rise of Castro. But Che Guevara (yes THAT Che) sent out a hit squad and Infante fled to London.
Three Trapped Tigers is the story of late-Batista-era Havana. The nightclubs, the girls, the vice, the graft. An altogether unforgettable story. It’s Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy meets the Tropicana Tiki Bar. And when the United States opens up legal tourism to Cuba again, this book is going to rocket to the top of the N.Y.Times bestseller list. Although the English translation is brilliant, if you can get it in the original Spanish, you’re really in for a treat.
For about a year now, FatDUX has been sharing the following article with business leaders and potential clients around the world. The feedback has been tremendously positive. We’d now like to share it with you. Happy holidays.
Feel free to use this in your own work. Here’s an easy-to-distribute PDF (25 kb):
The 10 dos and don’ts of website development (that every CEO should know)With the current economic downturn and significant layoffs among sales staff, the web has become more important than ever as a means of communicating with customers/clients/membership. But I have yet to meet a CEO who likes website development. It makes business leaders uncomfortable. The web experts speak in a cryptic language – CMS, KM, XML, CSS. The site seems to take forever to build, costs more than expected, and invariably provides less value than the organization had hoped.
No one likes signing a big check without some idea as to what they’re getting. So if you’re a business leader, here are a few basic, non-technical tips that will significantly increase your chances for online success. And they let you do what you do best – lead.
1. Don’t confuse marketing with communication
Most marketing efforts are concerned with gaining the attention and interest of a particular target audience – often quite aggressively. But on the web, your audience has come to you voluntarily. So, lighten up on the promotional hype. Yes, your site can become an important sales tool, but it should do so in straightforward, conversational language. Don’t let an eager salesrep talk you into blinking banners on every page. Instead, regard your website as part of your service mix first and your marketing mix second. It’s about creating a valuable experience for your site’s visitors, about starting a dialog with your customers (and potential customers). Therefore, make sure your web team represents a good cross section of disciplines in your organization.
Do: View your website as part of your customer-service package.
2. Don’t view your website as a software development projectCreating and maintaining most informational websites is no more a “software project” than publishing your annual report. You write reports using a standard word processing program; you publish to the web using a standard content-management system. There are dozens of superb systems available, and hundreds of excellent add-ons (survey systems, social networks, video channels, wikis, etc.) so don’t let anyone talk you into building one from scratch. That’s also why this activity shouldn’t be handed over to your IT department. Granted, a site with very sophisticated functionality will probably require special programming, but don’t count on your in-house skills as being enough.
Do: Whenever possible, purchase standard software from a single-focus vendor (Microsoft will probably not be on your shortlist).
3. Don’t couple unrelated initiatives
Just because one project concerning computers and customers is in the works, you won’t necessarily create synergy by tacking on other initiatives that also involve computers and customers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a frequent sinner. But unless you have a huge budget and sophisticated needs, both your website and your CRM activities will be far more successful (and much cheaper) if you tackle them one at a time. Keep your intranet development out of this, too (although you can probably use the same publishing software used for your website). In other words, don’t let HR take over the project either. And don’t turn your website into a software development project.
Do: Deal with your website – and just your website. Then take care of the other stuff.
4. Don’t be afraid to set measurable goals for your websiteYour website can be an active part of your business plan. In fact it should be. Don’t just view it as your extended business card or think that a graphic redesign is going to help you attract new customers/clients/members. Your website should be assigned targets just like every other department in your organization. And don’t just go for easily measurable numbers. Merely increasing the number of visitors is a poor goal. Shortening the sales process is better. Increasing your conversion rates is great. Streamlining logistics is a good goal. Reducing manual intervention in a sales or service process is a good goal, too. And there are dozens of others that have a direct effect on the bottom line – even for companies that don’t run an e-commerce site. So get your web team to tell you which needs they have identified, the goals they have set, and how they intend to achieve them. Since most in-house teams have limited experience in web development, this is one of the key reasons for hiring an outside strategic consultant.
Do: Insist that your website become an integrated part of your company’s business activities.
5. Don’t confuse your needs with those of your visitors
You may want your website to communicate your company’s values, service offerings, products, or something else entirely. But visitors to your site will have their own agendas. Your web team needs to identify these needs and address them with relevant content and functionality. The simple truth is, unless a site fulfills the needs of its visitors, it will never fulfill the needs of the site owner. Give your web team the time and budget to do their homework and actually talk to potential users. Very few companies truly understand how their customers use the internet.
Do: Encourage research. Accept surprises that go against your basic assumptions.
6. Don’t view your website as a fixed-term project
Your website is a process, not a project. Unlike a printed brochure that might have a useful lifetime of a year or so, your site’s content should be reviewed regularly (even daily) so that it remains accurate, interesting, and dynamic. For the most part, maintenance only takes a few minutes a day. But someone has to keep the process going, studying the statistics that tell you who has visited and what they did, and adjusting the content so that it becomes even more compelling. And that means you need to allocate resources to this critical task. Your website needs to be included in your annual budget each and every year.
Do: Once you start the process, make sure to keep it going.
7. Don’t confuse print design with web design
You probably have an ad agency. For them, “concept” means look and feel. But on the web, the “concept” is what your site can do. Your brand consists of how your website “acts” just as your brand is affected by how your employees act. Don’t let an old-school art director force you to sacrifice usability for the sake of a design guide developed for printed communications.
Do: Acknowledge and embrace web best-practices that run counter to your design guide.
8. Don’t let personal opinion cloud your focus
When it comes to websites, everyone has an opinion. But don’t just assign tasks to the people who are most enthusiastic or most vocal. Instead, find people with proven expertise and then do everything you can to help them do their jobs efficiently. And as the project progresses, try not to let your personal taste get in the way either. The only opinions that really matter are those of your website’s visitors – not your friends, family, or the well-meaning wife of the chairman. Ask yourself: “Do I want to get my way or do I want to get rich?”
Do: Seek out proven experts and support their work.
9. Don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions
There are no stupid questions. And no one should make you feel like you’ve asked one. But be prepared to remember the answer – asking someone to walk you through the same subject six times is bound to create friction.
Do: If in doubt, ask. Always.
10. Don’t hide in your office
Your active support for a web project can make the difference between success and failure. Make sure everyone on the team is pulling their weight – particularly those who are responsible for writing and updating online content. Make sure the team leader has access to you when policy questions arise. That said, don’t become a micromanager – hire the best and let them get on with it.
Do: Demonstrate your active support for the project. Keep the whole team inspired.
My thanks to the dozens of CEOs who have critiqued this piece. You’ve all contributed valuable information. Thanks for sharing with me so I can share with others.
Hi Eric –
Bad news. I’ve been laid off due to cutbacks. That said, the company just hired two new people in my division and our profits are the highest ever recorded. In fact, my division now has sales of EUR 35 million. So let’s assume there are other reasons for letting me go.
I still need another year and a half of salary to make ends meet, so I’m desperately looking for a new job. Now most folks think it’s impossible for a 67-year-old to get a new job, but as you know I’m used to dealing with impossible challenges. I’m looking for something either in Denmark or abroad that lets me use my marketing talents, and maybe even do a little Flash programming if need be. Even jobs that only last a week or two are welcome.
If you hear of something, I hope you’ll keep me in mind.
Cheers,
S
Damned right we’ll keep him in mind! Here’s some background on this fellow:
The incredibly narrow-minded management of this company has never really liked my pal’s out-of-the-box thinking. So each time he’s built up a profitable new business area (he’s created several), they take away his department and send him out to do something else. Recently, to get him away from headquarters, they packed him off to China. He taught himself Chinese and built up a multi-million Euro business selling his company’s products in a completely new market segment! When he needed interactive marketing materials and was denied a budget, he taught himself to program Flash (and he’s pretty good at it).
I’ve worked with this man for almost 20 years on a variety of marketing projects. He’s a real gentleman, his professionalism is exceptional, and he’s a seasoned innovator who produces measurable results. Not surprisingly, we’re going to try and work him into the FatDUX family. But in the meantime, if you hear anything, let me know and I’ll pass the word along.
Yesterday, I walked down to our local discount grocery store. I needed a bottle of milk (for breakfast), a tomato (for our turtle), and a bottle of vodka (for Cosmos and Bloody Marys).
We’ll start today’s post with the vodka.
Snarky story starts here The store has a lousy selection of booze, but when vodka is drowned in cranberry or tomato juice, most of the stuff is palatable. I asked for a bottle of “Rasputin” (cheap, Czech, and surprisingly mellow).
“Oh, you mean ‘Rezz pew TEEN’” corrected the kid behind the counter, perhaps a fan of the historically flawed 1978 Boney M hit.
“Thanks. Yes. ‘Raz PU tin’” I replied.
“Rezz pew TEEN,” he insisted.
“Well, I want the bottle you’re pointing at. But it’s actually pronounced like ‘Vladamir PU-tin – without the ‘ras’”
“Who?” he asked?
“Who?” I asked back, “The monk who influenced the Czarina Alexandra? Or the current prime minister of Russia?”
“Who the fuck cares?” he replied – which in retrospect was probably a reasonable response from an underpaid kid at a crappy discount grocery.
That said, my patience in these situations is notoriously low – my close friends say “non-existent.” My unspoken reply was, “you probably should care if your career plans go beyond minimum wage and a bar-code scanner.”
How Thomas Edison hired folks Edison invented the phonograph, the electric light, and a couple of other things. He had a special written test he gave to all new potential employees. It included stuff like “What is the capitol of Albania?” and “Name a poem by Longfellow.”*
Engineers and other skilled job applicants hated this test. They argued it was completely irrelevant to their work. But Edison replied, “The questions I ask are all related to things you should have learned in school. I’m not really interested in what you know. But I very much want to know what you’ve forgotten.”
How I interview
Whenever I interview people – from freelancers to salaried positions, I always look for people who can think outside the box. Of course to do so, folks have to know there IS a life outside the box. They need to be culturally literate. I’ve never given a prospective employee a formal test. But I do ask off-the-cuff questions you probably won’t hear at other interviews – I want to draw people out and find out if they know something of the world around them.
Personally, I have no long-term interest in the people who go through life wearing professional blinders. Nor do I want to work with folks who spend more time on self-promotion than on self-improvement. And I have absolutely no use for folks who, armed with a couple of expensive university degrees, insist they can change the world before they’ve taken the time to understand it.
Learning from my own dumb mistakes
My attitude has made me more enemies than friends - conviction is often mistaken for arrogance by the youthful. Nonetheless, this standpoint has made my life is richer and my company is stronger. And I build on hard-earned personal experience having made all three mistakes myself. When I arrived in Denmark at the ripe old age of 22 with a hot degree and a hot job title at the Royal Theatre, I thought I knew it all. Boy was I wrong. And thank goodnesss I had patient mentors who put up with my immature self-importance and helped me move forward.
Well, I’m a lousy mentor because I don’t have much patience with either arrogance or unjustified self-importance. Today, I seek out people who think, who are well-rounded. I want to work with people who are smarter than I am for only they can help me expand my own weltanschaung.
I don’t mind being told I’m full of shit. In fact, I welcome it. But be prepared to teach me why and help me grow.
Thank you, David Blumenthal
There was a memorial plaque on the wall of my high school to David Blumenthal (1936-1952): “Cease not to learn until Thou cease to live. Think that day lost wherein Thou draw’st no letter to make Thyself more learn’d, wiser, better.” This wonderful quote is credited to Guy du Faur de Pibrac and has since become my creed.
Cultural literacy should be a prerequisite in every job description. “Knowledge of HTML” – hell, that’s the easy part. But remembering your grade school social-studies class is tough. Nevertheless, I honestly believe that that is what’s going to help move our industry forward.
* Tirana and “Hiawatha” are acceptable answers. BTW, if anyone passes by Highland Park High School (north of Chicago), I’d love a photo of the plaque – if it still exists. It was near the north entrance, by the auditorium.
Back in January, 2009, I published my definition of user experience. UX, as user experience is popularly called, is a difficult subject to discuss with business clients. To them, “UX” is just more expensive hot air from the folks who brought us the dot bomb.
The basic problem is that discussing an experience – any experience – is highly subjective. And although others have attempted to set up metrics (notably Robert Rubinoff’s User Experience Audit, and Livia Labate’s User Experience Health Check), we don’t always end up with particularly useful data. Here at FatDUX, we were looking for a simple tool that could help us turn observations and subjective conclusions into useful dialog with our clients.
Our UX quantification model will undoubtedly be criticized by the scientific hardliners. But it does help us uncover many problems and communicate these to the client. And it works better than beating them over the head with statistics.
Please note, we take a very broad view of “user experience,” incorporating both online and offline interactions of three types:
Avoiding complicated algorithms
There are lots of complicated ways to work numbers, particularly when dealing with the subjective data that invariably lies at the heart of any discussion of user experience. But rather than putting together confusing formulae to present our research, we work directly with our clients to quantify empirical observations in a very simple model.
The model in brief We start by consolidating our research findings in a single first-person narrative – an X-log (experience log). This is somewhat related to phenomenology. Once we’ve assembled this story, we work together with the client to:
1. mark each individual interaction – we call these “snapshots”
2. assign a value from 1 to 3 to each snapshot in relation to its contribution to the overall experience
3. grade the experience on a scale from -3 to +3
4. multiply the value by the grade to get a score (this is the really useful number)
5. note any events that are recurring, unique, or may be influenced by chronology (cause and effect relationships).
Plugging in the numbers We mark each interaction, but some may later be thrown out if they are sufficiently trivial or so unique in character that they are deemed irrelevant in the broader, generic sense of the project. Although no individual snapshot can be assigned a value of 0, if you really think it deserves a value of 0, this is probably an interaction you’ll want to ignore.
When we grade the individual snapshots, we use the following scale:
+3 = fantastic
+2 = good
+1 = better than expected
0 = no effect on the ultimate user experience
-1 = poor
-2 = awful
-3 = mission critical
Unique or chronological events won’t always influence the score, but in the case of repeating events, the interaction clearly needs to be looked at carefully.
A sample narrative Here’s a simple story based on a trip to the movies. It represents an amalgam of several user interviews, onsite research, review of user-satisfaction surveys, etc.
My family (my wife, myself, and our two kids) decided to go to the movies. We checked the internet and found the website for our local cinema complex after a quick search on Google. But we had to click three times to get to the program page and wait through a silly animated ad for a movie that hadn’t even been released yet. Worse still, we were forced to download a pdf to find out the specific movie names and playing times. And after all that, we couldn’t even order tickets online, much less purchase them, so we couldn’t avoid waiting in line when we arrived. You’d think a big four-screen complex would have a more sophisticated website. But we did find out what was showing, decided to see the latest Harry Potter movie, and piled into the car.
Finding a parking place was easy. The theater has a big lot, which is important since driving to this particular theater is really our only option. Just as we were leaving the car, it really started to rain, but happily, the entrance wasn’t far away.
There were three ticket windows open, so the lines were short. The girl behind the counter was noisily chewing gum and barely looked up during the entire transaction. In fact, she didn’t say a single word to me except to ask for the money. Wow, prices have really increased this past year. I was surprised at how expensive it was.
The lobby was inviting and quite clean. We bought popcorn and soda at the concession and found our way to our particular auditorium. It was easy to spot the signs pointing the way. As we approached, we noticed overflowing trashcans with popcorn and other garbage from previous audiences.
The seats were well-marked and easy to find. The seating was comfortable but there was old popcorn underfoot. The temperature in the room was pleasant, although all of the wet people made it get a little steamy. The sound was great and really enhanced the special effects, so we really enjoyed the movie. When we left, there was a nice usher, who opened the exits and wished us a pleasant evening as we went out. And it had stopped raining. A nice end to a nice family outing.
Defining the interactions
Reading through the narrative, we mark the individual interactive events – the snapshots. This gives us the following list:
1. Find website on internet
2. Click three times to find relevant page on site
3. Reaction to irrelevant animation
4. Find schedule (download PDF)
5. Reaction to lack of purchasing options
5a. Opinion of website
6. Park car
7. Reaction to parking lot
8. Reaction to rain
9. Reaction to proximity of parking to entrance
10. Reaction to short line
11. Reaction to rude ticketseller
12. Buy tickets
13. Reaction to ticket prices
14. Reaction to lobby
15. Buy popcorn and soda
16. Find auditorium
17. React to overfilled trashcans
18. Find seats
19. Reaction to seats
20. Reaction to popcorn on floor
21. Reaction to temperature
22. Reaction to steaminess
23. Reaction to sound
24. Reaction to movie
25. Reaction to nice usher
26. Reaction to dry weather
26a. Opinion of evening
Note that opinions are not really interactions, hence we have 5a and 26a.
Assigning values and grades
Ask your clients to help you fill out the values and grades. This is a great way to get clients emotionally involved in the design project without having to show them pretty layouts.
Conclusions Having made this chart, there are several things that become painfully apparent. First, the lack of purchasing options is really a major problem. The need to watch irrelevant animations and resort to PDFs for information was also pretty bad. Snapshots 11, 15, and 25 suggest that additional emphasis should be placed on customer-service training for front-line personnel. Snapshots 17 and 20 illustrate that cleaning is a problem. Snapshot 22 revealed that the climate-control system was out of whack, which proved to be an easy repair.
The most important point of the exercise, though, was that the client suddenly understood how all of these events ultimately contributed to the total perception of the movie-going experience. The X-log narrative started a productive dialog about user experience and not about the color of the links.
FatDUX Zagreb is now well on its way to becoming a reality. Our new Croatian CEO, Vibor Cipan, and his outstanding team, are in the final stages of incorporating the company – and we already have several important clients.
Croatia is a fascinating market with a wide range of opportunities. Obviously, tourism and the hospitality industries rank high. Agriculture, too. But more importantly, Croatia has a growing and highly innovative high-tech sector. In fact, I recently addressed a group of IT executives at a meeting hosted by Microsoft Croatia on this very subject – innovation.
It’s interesting that here in Denmark, where “innovation” is on every company’s list of so-called “value words,” true innovation remains as rare as tits on a turtle. But in Croatia, they don’t talk about innovation, they just do it.
We’re delighted to have this opportunity to effect real change in Southern Europe. And we look forward to building our professional network in the region.
