It's a great saying: "Be Your Own Customer".
It's only when you actually experience being a customer that you really know what it is that you are selling. OK - you might be able to hold the product you are selling. You might be able to go into the shop and see the shop. It's not until you actually try and find the shop for the first time, find what you are looking for, buy it and take it home to use it that you truly experience what you are offering your customer.
The key point is this: you never sell a product - you always sell an experience.
Let's take an example. The iPod. The iPod has been phenomenally successful. You hear people extolling the virtues of the "user interface", the "design", the "packaging", the "marketing".
Really though, it's the sum of all of these parts (and more) that is the iPod experience. The marketing campaigns convey a simplicity and "cool factor". If you go to buy one from an apple store (online or in the high street), you are wowed by state of the art presentation. You may get good service in the shop, or - if online - you get site that is well designed and easy to buy from. The packaging is so slick, neat, clean. You unwrap your iPod and just "feels" great. You just plug it into your computer, it charges fast. You download iTunes - nice and easy. In fact, iTunes is just as much a part of the iPod experience as the player itself. It's all so easy. Then of course, there's the user interface - the simple controls. On top of that it just "looks" cool.
You see - the iPod is not successful for any one of these individual factors. The total "experience" is what counts. I'm not saying that everyone has a great experience every single time - I know of people who have a had batteries that fail after just a year. Some of these are genuinely annoyed and will never use Apple again (Apple, take note - "must improve here"). Equally though, there are fans that will just dump the old player whose batteries failed and just buy a new one. Their experience to date was SO good, that the simple fact that the product was substandard did not put them off buying another one. Kudos to Apple.
For any business therefore, every point of detail matters. The message, the communication, the product features, the sales process, the purchase experience, the convenience, delivery / pick up experience, customer service, product reliability. None of these details ever stand alone.
Unless you are a company of just one person, you always have different staff members dealing with different parts of the experience. As a result, none of them get to see the overall picture from a customer's perspective.
The only way to see what you are really delivering, is to be your own customer.
Go buy your own product. See what it feels like. Is it good enough? Is it better than your competitors? Go test their products too. Now you're getting somewhere.
Saturday 15 December 2007
Saturday 8 December 2007
What Is Customer Engagement?
You can't hide from your customers.
I don't know about you, but I've noticed a recent trend evolving whereby the term "customer engagement" is becoming increasingly prolific in online businesses.
There's been a lot of comment on the subject throughout the net, and if you want to get the definition, context and background, you'd do worse than read the Wikipedia entry on the subject.
If I was to explain what it is to my Mum, I'd most likely say something like...
"Well, until recently, companies had all the power when it came to communicating with their customers. They controlled their message through advertising and traditional marketing. In recent years, thanks to the rise of the internet, consumers increasingly have a voice, whether it be through blogs (Mum says: "What's a blog?"), posting product reviews, creating fan clubs around a product or indeed, the opposite: groups of disgruntled customers. Communication has become two-way. As such companies or organisations that embrace this and invite comment and involvement from their customers are more likely to be successful in the long term. The loyalty of their customers will increase and they will reduce the risk of being seen negatively if something goes wrong. Conversely if they bury their heads in the sand and ignore connecting with their customers they risk it back-firing in their face when all their competitors get it right".
I welcome this trend. It makes sense that companies are held accountable for the quality of their service and product. It ensures that competition does not just depend on price alone.
Just as "conversion" and "usability" are now well understood by many (and equally misunderstood by a surprisingly large number of companies), "customer engagement" will develop a following, experts will emerge, books and research will published and it won't be long before the majority of large E-commerce companies have a "customer engagement strategist" in their marketing team. We'll start to see standard vocabluary (i.e. jargon), measurement systems and sub-disciplines.
This week I was talking to a friend who had been at a management meeting of a small off-line company. They were talking about "the internet", what they could do to attract more business through their website etc. One person suggested adding a blog, allowing the company to post news and allow clients to comment. The immediate reaction was that this was too "risky", "what might be posted? - it could damage our reputation!".
Yes, it's true, you might get the odd negative comment, but these days disgruntled customers are able to get this out to an audience whether you let them or not. It's better to show you're interested and get a relationship with your customers. Better still, deliver a service that means that your customers will always be postive about their experience.
Until companies can take that leap of faith, they will still sit in the 20th centuary. There really is no option now for companies, especially online ones, to hide from their customers.
I don't know about you, but I've noticed a recent trend evolving whereby the term "customer engagement" is becoming increasingly prolific in online businesses.
There's been a lot of comment on the subject throughout the net, and if you want to get the definition, context and background, you'd do worse than read the Wikipedia entry on the subject.
If I was to explain what it is to my Mum, I'd most likely say something like...
"Well, until recently, companies had all the power when it came to communicating with their customers. They controlled their message through advertising and traditional marketing. In recent years, thanks to the rise of the internet, consumers increasingly have a voice, whether it be through blogs (Mum says: "What's a blog?"), posting product reviews, creating fan clubs around a product or indeed, the opposite: groups of disgruntled customers. Communication has become two-way. As such companies or organisations that embrace this and invite comment and involvement from their customers are more likely to be successful in the long term. The loyalty of their customers will increase and they will reduce the risk of being seen negatively if something goes wrong. Conversely if they bury their heads in the sand and ignore connecting with their customers they risk it back-firing in their face when all their competitors get it right".
I welcome this trend. It makes sense that companies are held accountable for the quality of their service and product. It ensures that competition does not just depend on price alone.
Just as "conversion" and "usability" are now well understood by many (and equally misunderstood by a surprisingly large number of companies), "customer engagement" will develop a following, experts will emerge, books and research will published and it won't be long before the majority of large E-commerce companies have a "customer engagement strategist" in their marketing team. We'll start to see standard vocabluary (i.e. jargon), measurement systems and sub-disciplines.
This week I was talking to a friend who had been at a management meeting of a small off-line company. They were talking about "the internet", what they could do to attract more business through their website etc. One person suggested adding a blog, allowing the company to post news and allow clients to comment. The immediate reaction was that this was too "risky", "what might be posted? - it could damage our reputation!".
Yes, it's true, you might get the odd negative comment, but these days disgruntled customers are able to get this out to an audience whether you let them or not. It's better to show you're interested and get a relationship with your customers. Better still, deliver a service that means that your customers will always be postive about their experience.
Until companies can take that leap of faith, they will still sit in the 20th centuary. There really is no option now for companies, especially online ones, to hide from their customers.
Sunday 2 December 2007
Social Networking Sites Are The Fastest Growing UK Online Brands
Neilsen Netratings' recent report showed that of the 10 fastest growing UK online brands, three were social networking tools (Rock You!, Slide and Bunnyhero labs), one was a social network (Facebook) and one was a professional network (LinkedIn).
Networks arrive, take hold, and surge. They reach a tipping point where suddenly they mutate like a contagion and take over the inboxes and phones of the country. Not surprising therefore that they dominate the top 10.
However, it takes a very special network to hold out. Remember Friends United? It was the "Facebook" of 5 years ago. Now, it's history. Today's users are fickle. What is cool to this generation will be old hat to the next. So you can expect networks to rise and fall like the tide. They arrive fast, they die fast. Only the lucky few survive.
However, despite this cynicism, I must admit that it seems that the age of the network has arrived. Is it a blip in the history of the internet or an era that will last? Time will tell.
In the meantime, what to do?
1. If you are creating a network, make sure it has some real value.
2. If you are in the business of promoting your product, you have to embrace the networks, or get left behind.
View the official Nielsen release here.
Networks arrive, take hold, and surge. They reach a tipping point where suddenly they mutate like a contagion and take over the inboxes and phones of the country. Not surprising therefore that they dominate the top 10.
However, it takes a very special network to hold out. Remember Friends United? It was the "Facebook" of 5 years ago. Now, it's history. Today's users are fickle. What is cool to this generation will be old hat to the next. So you can expect networks to rise and fall like the tide. They arrive fast, they die fast. Only the lucky few survive.
However, despite this cynicism, I must admit that it seems that the age of the network has arrived. Is it a blip in the history of the internet or an era that will last? Time will tell.
In the meantime, what to do?
1. If you are creating a network, make sure it has some real value.
2. If you are in the business of promoting your product, you have to embrace the networks, or get left behind.
View the official Nielsen release here.
Tuesday 20 November 2007
Bigger fonts come of age
Increasingly, I'm seeing more sites designed with bigger font. Nowadays, 10pt font is considered "small", and we're seeing more and more 12pt fonts as standard. Even if paragraph text is still relatively small, headlines and titles are getting bigger.
I love it.
Bigger screen sizes now mean that we have the space. What used to be readable on the old 800 x 600 screens of yesteryear now requires a magnifying glass if you put it on a 1280 x 1024. Only a tiny percentage of users now have the small screens.
Silver surfers are driving the demand for simplicity. When you get older, your eyesight deteriorates. Larger font sizes it make it easier to read what's going on. Usability is now a common place discipline in e-businesses (although not common enough in my opinion), and time after time, usability studies show that small fonts can create unnecessary hurdles.
It's not just older folks that benefit. The rest of us can see what's going on from a distance, in poor light, on the move.
How many sites have you got frustrated with because the font was too big? I can't think of any. What about sites where the font was too small? Now, I could think of a few there.
To illustrate why big works, here's some examples of sites that use larger fonts...
The new rightmove.co.uk property search site
BBC news
Amazon
37 signals
Jakob Neilsen's alertbox
Note that you don't need to use large fonts throughout. There is still a place for smaller fonts, although they shouldn't be standard.
Set your browser to "larger" font and start looking at sites with smaller fonts. You soon realise how much easier many of them would be to use if they increased their font size.
I love it.
Bigger screen sizes now mean that we have the space. What used to be readable on the old 800 x 600 screens of yesteryear now requires a magnifying glass if you put it on a 1280 x 1024. Only a tiny percentage of users now have the small screens.
Silver surfers are driving the demand for simplicity. When you get older, your eyesight deteriorates. Larger font sizes it make it easier to read what's going on. Usability is now a common place discipline in e-businesses (although not common enough in my opinion), and time after time, usability studies show that small fonts can create unnecessary hurdles.
It's not just older folks that benefit. The rest of us can see what's going on from a distance, in poor light, on the move.
How many sites have you got frustrated with because the font was too big? I can't think of any. What about sites where the font was too small? Now, I could think of a few there.
To illustrate why big works, here's some examples of sites that use larger fonts...
The new rightmove.co.uk property search site
BBC news
Amazon
37 signals
Jakob Neilsen's alertbox
Note that you don't need to use large fonts throughout. There is still a place for smaller fonts, although they shouldn't be standard.
Set your browser to "larger" font and start looking at sites with smaller fonts. You soon realise how much easier many of them would be to use if they increased their font size.
Sunday 18 November 2007
Free web-based mind mapping software
I do a lot of my thinking and work using Mindmaps.
Drop an idea on the screen, move it around, connect it to other ideas, and eventually build a map of how all the ideas fit together. For someone like me with a conceptual organisational mind, it's much more useful that just using Word, Visio or Excel.
I tend to use MindManager, a licenced application that is installed locally. A full licence is a hefty £199, although there is a Lite Version for home use at £49. If you want to send your maps to others you can export to PDF, and there is also a free MindManager viewer which others can install if they don't have the full software.
Recently however there are a couple of web-based alternatives to choose from.
Mindmeister and Mind42 are 2 web-based mind mapping tools which you can use for free. The big advantage of these is that you can collaborate with others and build maps together and store the map on the web.
Personally I found the user interface of MindMeister to be better. Neither are as smooth to use as MindManger, but of course - they are free!
Another free option is FreeMind, a free application (installed locally) written in Java. I haven't tried this as I already have MindManager, but it looks worth a look.
Get mapping! It's a great way to structure your thoughts and organise ideas.
Drop an idea on the screen, move it around, connect it to other ideas, and eventually build a map of how all the ideas fit together. For someone like me with a conceptual organisational mind, it's much more useful that just using Word, Visio or Excel.
I tend to use MindManager, a licenced application that is installed locally. A full licence is a hefty £199, although there is a Lite Version for home use at £49. If you want to send your maps to others you can export to PDF, and there is also a free MindManager viewer which others can install if they don't have the full software.
Recently however there are a couple of web-based alternatives to choose from.
Mindmeister and Mind42 are 2 web-based mind mapping tools which you can use for free. The big advantage of these is that you can collaborate with others and build maps together and store the map on the web.
Personally I found the user interface of MindMeister to be better. Neither are as smooth to use as MindManger, but of course - they are free!
Another free option is FreeMind, a free application (installed locally) written in Java. I haven't tried this as I already have MindManager, but it looks worth a look.
Get mapping! It's a great way to structure your thoughts and organise ideas.
Saturday 17 November 2007
Checklist For Reviewing Webpages
I'm often asked "what do you think of this web page"?
I immediately have a surge of mental activity that leads to a whole load of things I'd change. Increasingly though, the same old things keep coming up. So here's my basic checklist.
What is the user journey?
This is the most important question to ask first of all - what is it we are trying to get people to do here? Remove yourself from the page, the design and the clutter and write it down in simple steps. Go back to the page now and review the design against those steps.
Using font that people can read?
At least 10 point. Maybe 12 point if you can. Small sucks. Make it easy!
Is the contrast OK?
Text should always be either light text on a dark background or (preferably) dark text on a light background
Are text links underlined?
Ideally they should be. Exceptions are place where it's obvious that this is navigation (tabs or menus for example).
DON'T USE CAPS, Use sentence case
It's easier to read
Use only the words you need
On the web, less is more. Look at every detail of the page - forms, buttons etc - and only use the words that are needed
Is it obvious what this site is about?
If the site is well known, this is less important (e.g. Dell, Amazon, Google), everyone else should explain what the site is about. Either in simple terms (e.g. Bargainholidays.com - "more holiday than you bargained for") or in a sentence near the top of the page.
Is it obvious what this page is about?
Page title, big, saying what the page is about.
Is it obvious what I should / could do here?
The call to action, whether it be a price point, form button or text link, should be obvious. A few obvious calls to action are more effective than many obscure ones.
Is is clear where I am on the site...?
(...relative to the rest of the site). Which section am I in? How deep am I? How do I get to other sections/products like this? How do I get to the homepage?
Does the page use standard conventions?
Form buttons that look like buttons, text links that look like links (in blue), click able images having text appear to describe the link destination (alt tags).
Is the page design consistent with the rest of the site?
Thinking here about layouts, colours, imagery and copy
Do links describe what you're going to get on clicking?
("Click here" is absolutely banned in my world)
Do forms state what's optional versus required?
Make it easy using asterisks or other well recognised devices
Does error handling make sense?
Try and break the page - see what error messages you get
Is the URL meaningful, canonical and unique?
It should describe the content, avoid parameters & dynamic URLS
Does the page load fast?
Simple to say, simple to test
Does the HTML validate against W3.org standards?
Build it right first time
Does it work in all browsers, in all of the main sizes?
IE 6 and 7, Firefox 1.5 and 2 as minimum, ideally Safari too, on Windows and Apple Mac.
Can we track the activity that we want to improve?
Install web analytics if need be, and use it.
I immediately have a surge of mental activity that leads to a whole load of things I'd change. Increasingly though, the same old things keep coming up. So here's my basic checklist.
What is the user journey?
This is the most important question to ask first of all - what is it we are trying to get people to do here? Remove yourself from the page, the design and the clutter and write it down in simple steps. Go back to the page now and review the design against those steps.
Using font that people can read?
At least 10 point. Maybe 12 point if you can. Small sucks. Make it easy!
Is the contrast OK?
Text should always be either light text on a dark background or (preferably) dark text on a light background
Are text links underlined?
Ideally they should be. Exceptions are place where it's obvious that this is navigation (tabs or menus for example).
DON'T USE CAPS, Use sentence case
It's easier to read
Use only the words you need
On the web, less is more. Look at every detail of the page - forms, buttons etc - and only use the words that are needed
Is it obvious what this site is about?
If the site is well known, this is less important (e.g. Dell, Amazon, Google), everyone else should explain what the site is about. Either in simple terms (e.g. Bargainholidays.com - "more holiday than you bargained for") or in a sentence near the top of the page.
Is it obvious what this page is about?
Page title, big, saying what the page is about.
Is it obvious what I should / could do here?
The call to action, whether it be a price point, form button or text link, should be obvious. A few obvious calls to action are more effective than many obscure ones.
Is is clear where I am on the site...?
(...relative to the rest of the site). Which section am I in? How deep am I? How do I get to other sections/products like this? How do I get to the homepage?
Does the page use standard conventions?
Form buttons that look like buttons, text links that look like links (in blue), click able images having text appear to describe the link destination (alt tags).
Is the page design consistent with the rest of the site?
Thinking here about layouts, colours, imagery and copy
Do links describe what you're going to get on clicking?
("Click here" is absolutely banned in my world)
Do forms state what's optional versus required?
Make it easy using asterisks or other well recognised devices
Does error handling make sense?
Try and break the page - see what error messages you get
Is the URL meaningful, canonical and unique?
It should describe the content, avoid parameters & dynamic URLS
Does the page load fast?
Simple to say, simple to test
Does the HTML validate against W3.org standards?
Build it right first time
Does it work in all browsers, in all of the main sizes?
IE 6 and 7, Firefox 1.5 and 2 as minimum, ideally Safari too, on Windows and Apple Mac.
Can we track the activity that we want to improve?
Install web analytics if need be, and use it.
Friday 16 November 2007
The Answer To Life, The Universe And Everything
Friday fun.
Google is pretty damn clever these days.
Try this search for answer to life, the universe and everything.
Love it.
Google is pretty damn clever these days.
Try this search for answer to life, the universe and everything.
Love it.
Thursday 15 November 2007
Geo-tag Your Location
Geo-tagging is a way of tagging a website to describe it's location.
This is particularly useful in the case of say a restaurant or hotel website or any other webpage that is about business in a specific location. If a page is tagged, other websites and search engines will recognise its position. You will most likely get better rankings for localised search requests.
Geo-tagging uses latitude and longitude coordinates.
One of the simplest ways to tag a page is to add meta tags in the page header using the following syntax:
meta name="geo.placename" content="New York, NY, USA"
meta name="geo.position" content="40.757929;-73.985506"
meta name="geo.region" content="US-NY"
(The numbers above are latitide and longitude coordinates).
If you are not sure what your location coordinates are, you can find it on a map the following website and generate your tags: Mygeoposition.com
Increasingly as mobile phone users take their world with them in their pocket, a user's location will be an important point of reference and can be triangulated from GPS technology to nearby businesses and services on the web.
Consider that the iPhone (estimated to have 500,000 users in the UK by the end of the year) has Google Maps built-in.
Giving a site a location in cyber-space has never been more important. If a business has a locations it needs to communicate that address to the wider world.
This is particularly useful in the case of say a restaurant or hotel website or any other webpage that is about business in a specific location. If a page is tagged, other websites and search engines will recognise its position. You will most likely get better rankings for localised search requests.
Geo-tagging uses latitude and longitude coordinates.
One of the simplest ways to tag a page is to add meta tags in the page header using the following syntax:
meta name="geo.placename" content="New York, NY, USA"
meta name="geo.position" content="40.757929;-73.985506"
meta name="geo.region" content="US-NY"
(The numbers above are latitide and longitude coordinates).
If you are not sure what your location coordinates are, you can find it on a map the following website and generate your tags: Mygeoposition.com
Increasingly as mobile phone users take their world with them in their pocket, a user's location will be an important point of reference and can be triangulated from GPS technology to nearby businesses and services on the web.
Consider that the iPhone (estimated to have 500,000 users in the UK by the end of the year) has Google Maps built-in.
Giving a site a location in cyber-space has never been more important. If a business has a locations it needs to communicate that address to the wider world.
Wednesday 14 November 2007
Last Days For Last-Touch Attribution?
News in from the PhoCusWright annual travel conference in Orlando this week was that there is a Doubleclick product coming that will enable multi-variable attribution for purchases.
Typically online marketeers use a "last touch" rule to attribute sales to a marketing channel using cookie technology.
Consider this scenario...
1. User first visits site through an affliate link
2. Later they come back via a paid search link (PPC) for the destination site
3. On their third and final visit (when they purchase), they type in the brand name to Google, click through on the natural organic results
Typically the booking is attributed to the last paid marketing channel. In this instance it would be paid search. This is often referred to as "de-duping" marketing channels. You don't want to pay the commission twice, so you pay the last touch point.
However, it was the affliate that created the initial introduction. How come the affliate doesn't get paid? In the real world of bricks and mortar that just wouldn't happen - everyone would get their cut.
If Doubleclick can produce something that allows a fair and reasonable distribution of marketing costs by channel for each transaction, and if this is adopted as an industry standard it will be a major coup.
A couple of implications if this is approach is adopted...
1. The value of SEO will become more transparent. Early purchase lifecycle "long tail" touchpoints will show their true worth
2. Affliates will deploy new strategies based on the new ROI models that they will face
3. PPC efficiency will be a truer reflection of actual spend
My guess is this move must be in Google's interest given Google's attempted takeover over Doubleclick. If multi-variate attribution were to show that PPC were less efficient that it currently is, companies would reduce their spend and put it into other channels. I'm not sure Google would want that.
Mind you, the Doubleclick deals is still far from certain. Yesterday the EU commission refused to approve the proposed takeover and the Federal Trade Commission has yet to rule on the merger.
Typically online marketeers use a "last touch" rule to attribute sales to a marketing channel using cookie technology.
Consider this scenario...
1. User first visits site through an affliate link
2. Later they come back via a paid search link (PPC) for the destination site
3. On their third and final visit (when they purchase), they type in the brand name to Google, click through on the natural organic results
Typically the booking is attributed to the last paid marketing channel. In this instance it would be paid search. This is often referred to as "de-duping" marketing channels. You don't want to pay the commission twice, so you pay the last touch point.
However, it was the affliate that created the initial introduction. How come the affliate doesn't get paid? In the real world of bricks and mortar that just wouldn't happen - everyone would get their cut.
If Doubleclick can produce something that allows a fair and reasonable distribution of marketing costs by channel for each transaction, and if this is adopted as an industry standard it will be a major coup.
A couple of implications if this is approach is adopted...
1. The value of SEO will become more transparent. Early purchase lifecycle "long tail" touchpoints will show their true worth
2. Affliates will deploy new strategies based on the new ROI models that they will face
3. PPC efficiency will be a truer reflection of actual spend
My guess is this move must be in Google's interest given Google's attempted takeover over Doubleclick. If multi-variate attribution were to show that PPC were less efficient that it currently is, companies would reduce their spend and put it into other channels. I'm not sure Google would want that.
Mind you, the Doubleclick deals is still far from certain. Yesterday the EU commission refused to approve the proposed takeover and the Federal Trade Commission has yet to rule on the merger.
Tuesday 13 November 2007
What Is SMO (Social Media Optimisation)?
It's simply promoting and distributing your proposition to potential customers through social networks.
To do so requires that the individuals in networks do your promoting for you, and that they are motivated to do so in a compelling way. You can't push, you have to let them pull. Give them something interesting to pull in. Instead of your site being the destination, the users' own webpage is the destination - you invite them to pull your content to them in a way that adds value to them.
In practical terms this means enabling your content to travel (through widgets for example), sowing seeds that will grow of their own accord. You also need to know where to plant your seeds. As Malcolm Gladwell illustrated in "The Tipping Point" there's usually a few key individuals in any growth phenomenon that can trigger the critical mass needed to gain hold on a large scale.
Social Media Optimisation therefore requires
1. Site infrastructure flexibility to allow for distribution of content
2. Strategic thinking, idea generation (from the "pull perspective")
3. Tactical execution - knowing where and how to get your "campaign" off the ground
To do so requires that the individuals in networks do your promoting for you, and that they are motivated to do so in a compelling way. You can't push, you have to let them pull. Give them something interesting to pull in. Instead of your site being the destination, the users' own webpage is the destination - you invite them to pull your content to them in a way that adds value to them.
In practical terms this means enabling your content to travel (through widgets for example), sowing seeds that will grow of their own accord. You also need to know where to plant your seeds. As Malcolm Gladwell illustrated in "The Tipping Point" there's usually a few key individuals in any growth phenomenon that can trigger the critical mass needed to gain hold on a large scale.
Social Media Optimisation therefore requires
1. Site infrastructure flexibility to allow for distribution of content
2. Strategic thinking, idea generation (from the "pull perspective")
3. Tactical execution - knowing where and how to get your "campaign" off the ground
Saturday 10 November 2007
The User-Centred World
I predict a move from user-centred design to a user-centred web, and eventually to a user-centred world.
Imagine a world where all of your relationships, communication, interests and interactions are wrapped into a single digital communication portal. This portal would save all of your contact details, conversations & messages, whether these be phone calls, instant messages, emails photos, videos, music & other media.
Importantly, this portal would transcend any one device and any one software or hardware provider. It would not be just on your PC. It would not just be on your mobile phone. It would not be just through your TV. It would not just be through Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! or Facebook. This portal would sync with any device that you use, at any time, for any reason.
Imagine also that this portal could interact with you in your real world as well as your virtual world. It would track your position through GPS on your mobile phone (say) and give you directions to reach your friends in the vicinity. Maybe you would exchange contact details with new contacts just by bluetooth, and this would automatically sync with your online services such as your email, blog or birthday reminders list.
Why would we want this?
Why not? The digital era is getting ever so complicated. I've lost count of how many logins I have for different sites and services. Even keeping my contact lists up to date gets a little crazy... Mobile phone (personal, work), Outlook (personal, work), social networking site A, social networking site b, webmail a, webmail b, webmail c, address book at home.
Why should I have to keep of these devices in sync? As a human being my life is being carved up arbitrarily by the fact that different companies supply me with different devices, software and services. Do I care? My friends are my friends. My family is my family, and my work colleagues are my work colleagues. Real life is not divided into mobile phone, email, IM and social networking providers.
I want to interact with the real world as easily as possible. I want to have everything in one place. That one place is ME!
YOU are the centre of your universe and I am the centre of mine. (OK, some wouldn't agree, so don't get all philosophical on me now - let's keep this simple shall we!?)
I want to interact with people I like, need or can help. I don't want to interact with the rest of the world - life is too short!
I want to interact with companies that offer me things that I am interested in. I don't want to interact with companies that are polluting my life and time with things that I don't care about.
(Don't try and sell me a bed shorter than 2 metres in length (I won't fit in it). Don't try and sell me a steak (I'm vegetarian). Don't try and sell me shoes unless you stock size 12 - you're wasting my time. However, if you offer me a DVD subscription service better and cheaper than the one I have now, I might just be interested).
Anyway - if I could interact with all these people and companies through one profile, in any place, on any device, in a way that suits me, well that would be the user-centred world.
User-centred design can deliver commercial success. I predict though that the user-centred world will be absolutely more commercially successful than our current world. It's the ultimate "long-tail" in action.
This is already happening and I believe it will accelerate over the next few years. What example trends are there in this direction?
Users requesting information (pull, not push)
Google's iGoogle (personalised homepages)
RSS feeds
Customisation of desktops in Windows Vista
Tivo TV / Sky Plus
Podcasts
Contact across multiple devices
IM on mobile phones and PC
Email on a Blackberry
Mapping relationships and sharing interests
Social bookmarking (e.g. del.icio.us, Reddit)
Social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and others)
Business networking tools (Plaxo / Linkedin)
Infrastructure
Open-source software (e.g. Linux, Android)
Open source knowledge bases (e.g. Wikipedia)
Web enabled phones
GPS
Fingerprint based payment systems
Retina scanning security systems
Wi-Fi
10 steps to the user-centred world
1. User interests will be saved against user profiles and will be updated in real time in response to user activity
2. User relationships will be saved, categorised and constantly modified
3. There will be eventually a single user profile for each user
4. User locations will be tracked in the real world as they move about
5. Profiles in the digital world will transition to real world
6. All communication devices will centre on the same user profile
7. Content will be delivered to the user at the user's request
8. Advertising will be requested by the consumer, (pull not push)
9. "Popularity" will become increasingly more important in driving brands
10. Globalisation will allow faster networking of individuals and companies in a single digital reality that is entwined with the real world
Consumer demand for simplicity and convenience will ultimately take us down this path.
Remind me to read this post in 15 years time to see if we've done it.
Imagine a world where all of your relationships, communication, interests and interactions are wrapped into a single digital communication portal. This portal would save all of your contact details, conversations & messages, whether these be phone calls, instant messages, emails photos, videos, music & other media.
Importantly, this portal would transcend any one device and any one software or hardware provider. It would not be just on your PC. It would not just be on your mobile phone. It would not be just through your TV. It would not just be through Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! or Facebook. This portal would sync with any device that you use, at any time, for any reason.
Imagine also that this portal could interact with you in your real world as well as your virtual world. It would track your position through GPS on your mobile phone (say) and give you directions to reach your friends in the vicinity. Maybe you would exchange contact details with new contacts just by bluetooth, and this would automatically sync with your online services such as your email, blog or birthday reminders list.
Why would we want this?
Why not? The digital era is getting ever so complicated. I've lost count of how many logins I have for different sites and services. Even keeping my contact lists up to date gets a little crazy... Mobile phone (personal, work), Outlook (personal, work), social networking site A, social networking site b, webmail a, webmail b, webmail c, address book at home.
Why should I have to keep of these devices in sync? As a human being my life is being carved up arbitrarily by the fact that different companies supply me with different devices, software and services. Do I care? My friends are my friends. My family is my family, and my work colleagues are my work colleagues. Real life is not divided into mobile phone, email, IM and social networking providers.
I want to interact with the real world as easily as possible. I want to have everything in one place. That one place is ME!
YOU are the centre of your universe and I am the centre of mine. (OK, some wouldn't agree, so don't get all philosophical on me now - let's keep this simple shall we!?)
I want to interact with people I like, need or can help. I don't want to interact with the rest of the world - life is too short!
I want to interact with companies that offer me things that I am interested in. I don't want to interact with companies that are polluting my life and time with things that I don't care about.
(Don't try and sell me a bed shorter than 2 metres in length (I won't fit in it). Don't try and sell me a steak (I'm vegetarian). Don't try and sell me shoes unless you stock size 12 - you're wasting my time. However, if you offer me a DVD subscription service better and cheaper than the one I have now, I might just be interested).
Anyway - if I could interact with all these people and companies through one profile, in any place, on any device, in a way that suits me, well that would be the user-centred world.
User-centred design can deliver commercial success. I predict though that the user-centred world will be absolutely more commercially successful than our current world. It's the ultimate "long-tail" in action.
This is already happening and I believe it will accelerate over the next few years. What example trends are there in this direction?
Users requesting information (pull, not push)
Google's iGoogle (personalised homepages)
RSS feeds
Customisation of desktops in Windows Vista
Tivo TV / Sky Plus
Podcasts
Contact across multiple devices
IM on mobile phones and PC
Email on a Blackberry
Mapping relationships and sharing interests
Social bookmarking (e.g. del.icio.us, Reddit)
Social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and others)
Business networking tools (Plaxo / Linkedin)
Infrastructure
Open-source software (e.g. Linux, Android)
Open source knowledge bases (e.g. Wikipedia)
Web enabled phones
GPS
Fingerprint based payment systems
Retina scanning security systems
Wi-Fi
10 steps to the user-centred world
1. User interests will be saved against user profiles and will be updated in real time in response to user activity
2. User relationships will be saved, categorised and constantly modified
3. There will be eventually a single user profile for each user
4. User locations will be tracked in the real world as they move about
5. Profiles in the digital world will transition to real world
6. All communication devices will centre on the same user profile
7. Content will be delivered to the user at the user's request
8. Advertising will be requested by the consumer, (pull not push)
9. "Popularity" will become increasingly more important in driving brands
10. Globalisation will allow faster networking of individuals and companies in a single digital reality that is entwined with the real world
Consumer demand for simplicity and convenience will ultimately take us down this path.
Remind me to read this post in 15 years time to see if we've done it.
Friday 9 November 2007
How Facebook Will Break Into Search
Earlier this year Sproose was launched, a new kid on the block in search.
Using the principle of combining regular algorithmic search engine results with "votes" from users, it's kind of a cross between social bookmarking (think del.icio.us / Digg / Reddit) and the established search engines.
Why is this significant?
Search engines depend on relevancy. If users say "yes this is great site", it probably is. If you can capture that democracy and add it to a wider crawled base of sites, you end up with potentially relevant results.
Does it work?
Not yet. This project really depends on getting critical mass. I looked at the high volume terms for the travel sector "cheap flights" and "hotels" and there were 1 or 2 votes for the top 10 sites listed. These terms get hundreds of thousands of searches a month yet there's only 1 or 2 votes for the top ranked sites.
So if Sproose doesn't work, what will work?
If you combine an established bookmarking site such as Facebook, with an established search engine such as MSN, you could do the same thing, and (most importantly) get it in front of millions of users who would adopt it. If you had an advertising network to monetise that traffic, you'd be onto a winner.
Now didn't Microsoft just buy a share in Facebook?
Using the principle of combining regular algorithmic search engine results with "votes" from users, it's kind of a cross between social bookmarking (think del.icio.us / Digg / Reddit) and the established search engines.
Why is this significant?
Search engines depend on relevancy. If users say "yes this is great site", it probably is. If you can capture that democracy and add it to a wider crawled base of sites, you end up with potentially relevant results.
Does it work?
Not yet. This project really depends on getting critical mass. I looked at the high volume terms for the travel sector "cheap flights" and "hotels" and there were 1 or 2 votes for the top 10 sites listed. These terms get hundreds of thousands of searches a month yet there's only 1 or 2 votes for the top ranked sites.
So if Sproose doesn't work, what will work?
If you combine an established bookmarking site such as Facebook, with an established search engine such as MSN, you could do the same thing, and (most importantly) get it in front of millions of users who would adopt it. If you had an advertising network to monetise that traffic, you'd be onto a winner.
Now didn't Microsoft just buy a share in Facebook?
Thursday 8 November 2007
Will Social Networking Sites Be The New Portals?
In the heady first days of the Internet, portals were king. In those days Lycos, AOL, Altavista, Excite and Yahoo! were the first port of call for users. Remember Compuserve anyone?
For the last few years, search engines are the new portals; Google, Yahoo!, MSN being the big three.
Are their days numbered? Are Social Networking Sites such as Bebo, MySpace and Facebook going to dominate?
There's an interesting report just out from Jupiter Research, (Published November 6th) SOCIAL NETWORKING ACROSS EUROPE, Using Localization to Drive Growth.
Alert yourself to their predication: "Young online consumers will increasingly Use social networking sites as primary online portals".
That means Google will be increasingly under threat as an online advertising medium.
Also, 3 important announcements in the last week or two to bear in mind;
1. Google (Orkut is their social network platform) have got together with Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING to launch OPEN SOCIAL. It was officially launched last week.
This is an open-source platform that allows developers to build widgets one time and deploy them across multiple social networks. Important, because it will allow rapid deployment and spawn a micro-industry of widget building specialists.
2. Microsoft announced that they will open up the MySpace platform to outside developers
3. Facebook have announced (November 6th) that they are launching an ad platform.
What this all means is that the online media space could start to change radically in the next 12 months.
Ads will be distributed throughout social networking sites, with many users using these sites as their home portal rather than Google. Of course, Google realises this. and needs to keep access to it's audience, hence Open Social.
Add to this the announcement on Monday that Google is launching the Open Handset Alliance (dubbed "Android") for mobile phones, and you can see that the war is really hotting up.
If they can offer an open platform where developers can build mobile phone applications, you can see a clear convergence coming from social networking on the web, social networking on handsets and monetising that medium.
So, whilst search engines are not dead, they face a challenge to their dominance. Google so far have proved to be strategically very astute, so no doubt they will rise to the challenge.
For the last few years, search engines are the new portals; Google, Yahoo!, MSN being the big three.
Are their days numbered? Are Social Networking Sites such as Bebo, MySpace and Facebook going to dominate?
There's an interesting report just out from Jupiter Research, (Published November 6th) SOCIAL NETWORKING ACROSS EUROPE, Using Localization to Drive Growth.
Alert yourself to their predication: "Young online consumers will increasingly Use social networking sites as primary online portals".
That means Google will be increasingly under threat as an online advertising medium.
Also, 3 important announcements in the last week or two to bear in mind;
1. Google (Orkut is their social network platform) have got together with Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING to launch OPEN SOCIAL. It was officially launched last week.
This is an open-source platform that allows developers to build widgets one time and deploy them across multiple social networks. Important, because it will allow rapid deployment and spawn a micro-industry of widget building specialists.
2. Microsoft announced that they will open up the MySpace platform to outside developers
3. Facebook have announced (November 6th) that they are launching an ad platform.
What this all means is that the online media space could start to change radically in the next 12 months.
Ads will be distributed throughout social networking sites, with many users using these sites as their home portal rather than Google. Of course, Google realises this. and needs to keep access to it's audience, hence Open Social.
Add to this the announcement on Monday that Google is launching the Open Handset Alliance (dubbed "Android") for mobile phones, and you can see that the war is really hotting up.
If they can offer an open platform where developers can build mobile phone applications, you can see a clear convergence coming from social networking on the web, social networking on handsets and monetising that medium.
So, whilst search engines are not dead, they face a challenge to their dominance. Google so far have proved to be strategically very astute, so no doubt they will rise to the challenge.
Wednesday 7 November 2007
Web 2.1 - Reviews From People Like Me
The surge in user generated content, and specifically "user reviews" has been the backbone of many sites such as Tripadvisor and Amazon.
Why are user reviews so important? How do they need to evolve?
The importance of user reviews centres around the power of peer approval. Put simply, if other people rate something, it must be good - right? This concept is one of the 7 key methods of influence discussed by Robert Cialdini in his book "Influence".
(See my essential reading post for further information).
Peer approval has been a mainstay of marketing techniques since time began. However, it doesn't work for everyone. Some buyers couldn't give a monkeys about what other folks think. Jupiter Research found however that about 50% of users found them helpful.
(See Greg Howlett' summary at Marketing Pilgrim: Five More Important Facts About User Reviews in E-tail).
The other 50%? At the point of purchase on the web, other methods of influence are also in play. These are discussed by Bryan Eisenberg in "Call to Action". One example would be the person who is persuaded by the emotional longing created by enticing copy and lovely pictures. "Imagine yourself here / doing this / owning this" - this does it for them. Some others are influenced by the technical ctiteria of the product. In the case of a computer this might be the hard drive capacity, screen resolution, memory etc. In the case of a hotel maybe it would be the detail on the amenties, location and facilities. For others however, the price really really matters.
The important thing to realise therefore is that for a truly compelling product offering needs to relate to and pursuade on all of these fronts. You need good copy (inspirational, not just factual), great photos, lots of facts & specifications, and you also certainly need user reviews. User reviews therefore are an important part of the equation, but they're not the be all and end all.
Let's not forget though how powerful they are. They give a certain transparency to the product which gives the buyer a level of confidence that they would not get otherwise. They provide unique content (good for SEO). They give users a sense that the retailer has a wide and satisfied customer base. They also show a range of opinions.
User opinions do need to evolve though. We are only now at a very basic level of using them effectively. What does the future look like?
Let's take the example of purchasing a day trip, say a tour of New York City. It might include visits to several key sites and have a tour guide. The website would include perhaps user reviews of customers who have previously been on the trip.
Let's take 3 different prospects:
- John and Mary from Los Angeles, in the early seventies
- The Schmidt family from Berlin, with 3 children aged 2, 3 and 5
- Trixie and Noah, a young couple from London, backpacking around the world
Do these people have different needs? Of course. Would they rate their experience based on different measures? Definitely.
Consider each of the parties against each of these criteria...
The pace of the tour
The accent of the tour guide
The comfort of the transport
The cultural commentary
Highchairs and baby-changing facilities
The amount of commentary at each stop
The range of attractions
What could have been a wonderful tour for John and Mary could be a nightmare for Trixie and Noah. What could have been a fun experience for Trixie and Noah could have been hard work for the Schmidt parents. On every level each customer would view their experience with different rating scales on different criteria.
User reviews need to evolve to enable customers to filter reviews so that they can see reviews just from "people like me".
This is particularly important in the case of experiences. Experiences include things like destinations, hotels, restaurants, theatre, travel and other services. The use of a tangible product (e.g. hairdryer, camera) is less affected by personal preferences. With experiences, preferences do count. Peer reviews can actually be misleading rather than assisting.
The challenge in filtering peer review for experience-type products is three fold:
1. Identify the customer as they arrive on-site
2. Gathering customer profile information to store against the review
3. Filtering the display of reviews so that they match a customer
Imagine how powerful this could be.
- I want summer holiday recommendations, but only from vegetarians travelling with children under 2
- I want restaurant reviews, but only from business users
- I want ski resort reviews, but only from people that enjoy skiing off-piste
If you can deliver this content at the right time, you can provide real relevancy. It does however require some clever customer segmentation and profiling to get right.
Retailing is often cited as providing the right deal to the right person at the right time. I would argue that for online retailing of services, it also involves giving the right information to the right person for the right product.
That means giving the customer reviews "from people like me".
This is where the future of user generated content lies. It's a massive challenge and I look forward to seeing who can get it right and how they do it.
It would be web 2.1.
Why are user reviews so important? How do they need to evolve?
The importance of user reviews centres around the power of peer approval. Put simply, if other people rate something, it must be good - right? This concept is one of the 7 key methods of influence discussed by Robert Cialdini in his book "Influence".
(See my essential reading post for further information).
Peer approval has been a mainstay of marketing techniques since time began. However, it doesn't work for everyone. Some buyers couldn't give a monkeys about what other folks think. Jupiter Research found however that about 50% of users found them helpful.
(See Greg Howlett' summary at Marketing Pilgrim: Five More Important Facts About User Reviews in E-tail).
The other 50%? At the point of purchase on the web, other methods of influence are also in play. These are discussed by Bryan Eisenberg in "Call to Action". One example would be the person who is persuaded by the emotional longing created by enticing copy and lovely pictures. "Imagine yourself here / doing this / owning this" - this does it for them. Some others are influenced by the technical ctiteria of the product. In the case of a computer this might be the hard drive capacity, screen resolution, memory etc. In the case of a hotel maybe it would be the detail on the amenties, location and facilities. For others however, the price really really matters.
The important thing to realise therefore is that for a truly compelling product offering needs to relate to and pursuade on all of these fronts. You need good copy (inspirational, not just factual), great photos, lots of facts & specifications, and you also certainly need user reviews. User reviews therefore are an important part of the equation, but they're not the be all and end all.
Let's not forget though how powerful they are. They give a certain transparency to the product which gives the buyer a level of confidence that they would not get otherwise. They provide unique content (good for SEO). They give users a sense that the retailer has a wide and satisfied customer base. They also show a range of opinions.
User opinions do need to evolve though. We are only now at a very basic level of using them effectively. What does the future look like?
Let's take the example of purchasing a day trip, say a tour of New York City. It might include visits to several key sites and have a tour guide. The website would include perhaps user reviews of customers who have previously been on the trip.
Let's take 3 different prospects:
- John and Mary from Los Angeles, in the early seventies
- The Schmidt family from Berlin, with 3 children aged 2, 3 and 5
- Trixie and Noah, a young couple from London, backpacking around the world
Do these people have different needs? Of course. Would they rate their experience based on different measures? Definitely.
Consider each of the parties against each of these criteria...
The pace of the tour
The accent of the tour guide
The comfort of the transport
The cultural commentary
Highchairs and baby-changing facilities
The amount of commentary at each stop
The range of attractions
What could have been a wonderful tour for John and Mary could be a nightmare for Trixie and Noah. What could have been a fun experience for Trixie and Noah could have been hard work for the Schmidt parents. On every level each customer would view their experience with different rating scales on different criteria.
User reviews need to evolve to enable customers to filter reviews so that they can see reviews just from "people like me".
This is particularly important in the case of experiences. Experiences include things like destinations, hotels, restaurants, theatre, travel and other services. The use of a tangible product (e.g. hairdryer, camera) is less affected by personal preferences. With experiences, preferences do count. Peer reviews can actually be misleading rather than assisting.
The challenge in filtering peer review for experience-type products is three fold:
1. Identify the customer as they arrive on-site
2. Gathering customer profile information to store against the review
3. Filtering the display of reviews so that they match a customer
Imagine how powerful this could be.
- I want summer holiday recommendations, but only from vegetarians travelling with children under 2
- I want restaurant reviews, but only from business users
- I want ski resort reviews, but only from people that enjoy skiing off-piste
If you can deliver this content at the right time, you can provide real relevancy. It does however require some clever customer segmentation and profiling to get right.
Retailing is often cited as providing the right deal to the right person at the right time. I would argue that for online retailing of services, it also involves giving the right information to the right person for the right product.
That means giving the customer reviews "from people like me".
This is where the future of user generated content lies. It's a massive challenge and I look forward to seeing who can get it right and how they do it.
It would be web 2.1.
Monday 5 November 2007
I See What You're Saying, But...
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to spend a day with Alec Grimsley where we focused on amongst other things, how to run effective meetings.
One thing in particular has stuck with me since that day (it's not the only thing of course)...the effect of using the word "but".
"But", as it turns out is quite a polarising word.
Consider these two sentences....
A: I know we need to change customer behaviour, but I think we should follow this course of action.
B: Mary, I agree with you that we need to change customer behaviour, and I'd like to suggest that we could do it better by following this course of action.
Phrase A is our default, hard-wired way of talking in meetings. When you hear the "B" word, it instantly sounds like the person opposes you. Opposition means you veer towards a defence and/or attack. Immediately tensions can get raised, issues become amplified bigger than they need to be and sides are taken. Polarisation of opinion develops, especially when these two people both use "but" in everything they say - especially when they start sentences with "but".
Phrase B however has very little confrontation. The first part of the sentence suggests common ground/agreement, whilst the second part of the sentence takes the discussion to a new area without creating an aggressive front.
Read through the two examples again and you'll see what I mean.
Now, listen out for the word "but" in your next meeting. I guarantee you will hear it all the time.
Next, just try once in a meeting to avoid using the "but" word and replace it with "and". Almost all "but" sentences can be turned into "and" sentences. Try it and you'll realise just how hard it is to overturn your natural tendencies.
You could also try to use it in your day to email communications, your proposals, your family conversations. It's incredibly powerful.
Every day I try and remove the word from my sentences. I find it difficult and it is never easy. It is quite amazing how it can diffuse a situation that would have otherwise unnecessarily escalated.
Try it - no more but. Just use and. Good luck!
One thing in particular has stuck with me since that day (it's not the only thing of course)...the effect of using the word "but".
"But", as it turns out is quite a polarising word.
Consider these two sentences....
A: I know we need to change customer behaviour, but I think we should follow this course of action.
B: Mary, I agree with you that we need to change customer behaviour, and I'd like to suggest that we could do it better by following this course of action.
Phrase A is our default, hard-wired way of talking in meetings. When you hear the "B" word, it instantly sounds like the person opposes you. Opposition means you veer towards a defence and/or attack. Immediately tensions can get raised, issues become amplified bigger than they need to be and sides are taken. Polarisation of opinion develops, especially when these two people both use "but" in everything they say - especially when they start sentences with "but".
Phrase B however has very little confrontation. The first part of the sentence suggests common ground/agreement, whilst the second part of the sentence takes the discussion to a new area without creating an aggressive front.
Read through the two examples again and you'll see what I mean.
Now, listen out for the word "but" in your next meeting. I guarantee you will hear it all the time.
Next, just try once in a meeting to avoid using the "but" word and replace it with "and". Almost all "but" sentences can be turned into "and" sentences. Try it and you'll realise just how hard it is to overturn your natural tendencies.
You could also try to use it in your day to email communications, your proposals, your family conversations. It's incredibly powerful.
Every day I try and remove the word from my sentences. I find it difficult and it is never easy. It is quite amazing how it can diffuse a situation that would have otherwise unnecessarily escalated.
Try it - no more but. Just use and. Good luck!
Thursday 1 November 2007
Next Generation Breadcrumbs - Internal Linking For SEO
Five steps to internal linking heaven...
Breadcrumbs are a useful navigation tool indeed. Nowadays they have been given a "best practice" vote by the customer experience minded folks. Indeed Jakob Neilsen, king of usability says in a post Breadcrumb Navigation Increasingly Useful.
I know I like a page to have breadcrumb navigation. It makes it easy to jump up a level or up a couple of levels without going back to "home".
I often think of pages as being "parents" or "children" in a site. If the home page is your Matriachal Great Grandmother, the category homepage might be the grandfather (her son), the product group page the mother (his daughter) and the product page the child (her son)...
Home > Category > Product Grouping > Product
or...
Great Grandmother > Grandfather > Mother > Child
What have breadcrumbs got to do with SEO?
Breadcrumbs have everything to do with SEO. The search engine spiders will use your internal linking structure to determine which pages you think are most important. If you link more often to a page yourself, you must think it's important and search engines take that logic onboard when mapping out your site. Given that a breadcrumb consists of many links on all pages, it's a good place to start.
Step 1 - The basic state
Imagine the following (hypothetical) site with 4 levels in it's heirachy:
Home (1 page) > Category pages (8 pages) > Product grouping pages (30 pages per category) > Product pages (200 per category grouping).
This gives me a site with 6,249 unique pages.
Assume that the homepage does not have a breadcrumb, but that all the others pages have one do according to the site structure given above.
The total count of links into each page type created by breadcrumbs will be
Homepage: 8 + 240 + 48,000 = 48,248
Product category page: 6,030
Product grouping page: 200
Product page: 0
In this example, the homepage gets a huge number of links. After that, the page that gets most links from breadcrumbs is the product category page. The product page itself is not getting any links.
Step 2 - The medium state
You may not be happy about sending all of your links to your category pages. Perhaps on your website these pages are not the ones that you want to rank highest. Maybe your aim is to get the product grouping pages to rank higher. What can you do?
The next step is to try and add in some peer to peer linking. By this I mean linking from every page to all of it's "brothers and sisters". This could be done using say a side navigation bar. From a a usability point of view it might make sense as well - your users will be able to browse in a horizontal fashion. We do all the time in the real world. When we look at a pair of trousers in a clothes shop, we look at many pairs before trying some on - you wouldn't expect to have to go to the aisle end every time you'd looked at a pair.
The lower down pages in the heirachy have more sisters and brothers than the ones above them in the heirachy.
New links from "brother / sister" linking:
Homepage: 0
Product category page: 7
Product grouping page: 29
Product page: 199
Let's also assume also that your site template has "tabs" in the header that link to all of the category pages, plus the homepage.
New links from primary navigation (tabs)
Homepage: 6,248
Product category page: 6,248
Product grouping page: 6,248
Product page: 6,248
The new totals for internal links now stand as follows...
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 12,285
Product grouping page: 6,477
Product page: 6,447
We're getting there, but our category grouping pages need more help.
Step 3 - The advanced state
I'm still need more links to my product grouping pages. These are the ones I want to see top of Google's rankings.
What can I do?
Here's a simple idea. Link to every product grouping page from my site footer. This appears on every page of the site, that's another 6248 links (one from every page on the site) to each product grouping page.
New totals:
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 12,285
Product grouping page: 12,726
Product page: 6,447
Step 4 - The enlightened state
Here's the crunch point. Here's where you might want to mess with your nice neat site structure to benefit SEO. It could comprimise your usability, maybe not.
Here's what you do.
Change from:
Home > Category > Grouping > Product
To
Home > Category
And
Home > Grouping > Product
The Category page still has home as it's parent. However, if you navigate from this page onto the Grouping page your breadcrumb does not show the category page as the parent, it will still show Home as the parent.
"No no!", I hear the purists cry. I agree that this is less than optimal for usability, but just remember this - that your category pages are still accessible through the tabs.
Why do this? Well, if I do some calculations on the resulting link count per page it now ends up like this:
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 6,256
Product grouping page: 12,726
Product page: 6,447
Apart from my homepage, my product grouping pages (all 30 of them) are the highest linked pages on the site.
Job done. Or maybe not. You could still do more...
Step 5 - Linking nirvana
You might want to consider adding some "children" to your product pages. How about "product reviews", "colour options", and "sizing options". That's 3 pages per product page (6000 products), so that's another 18,000 pages you've just added to your site. That's 18,000 footer links, 18,000 header links and 18,000 breadcrumbs from pages you're not too fussed about whether they rank or not. What does that do to your link count?
Homepage: 72,497
Product category page: 6,256
Product grouping page: 48,726
Product page: 24,448
Now we're rocking.
Summary
Every page should have it's position in the hierarchy (family)
The URL does not need to reflect the hierarchy
The hierarchy does not always need to reflect the user journey
The hierarchy should create more links to your most important pages
Breadcrumbs are a useful navigation tool indeed. Nowadays they have been given a "best practice" vote by the customer experience minded folks. Indeed Jakob Neilsen, king of usability says in a post Breadcrumb Navigation Increasingly Useful.
I know I like a page to have breadcrumb navigation. It makes it easy to jump up a level or up a couple of levels without going back to "home".
I often think of pages as being "parents" or "children" in a site. If the home page is your Matriachal Great Grandmother, the category homepage might be the grandfather (her son), the product group page the mother (his daughter) and the product page the child (her son)...
Home > Category > Product Grouping > Product
or...
Great Grandmother > Grandfather > Mother > Child
What have breadcrumbs got to do with SEO?
Breadcrumbs have everything to do with SEO. The search engine spiders will use your internal linking structure to determine which pages you think are most important. If you link more often to a page yourself, you must think it's important and search engines take that logic onboard when mapping out your site. Given that a breadcrumb consists of many links on all pages, it's a good place to start.
Step 1 - The basic state
Imagine the following (hypothetical) site with 4 levels in it's heirachy:
Home (1 page) > Category pages (8 pages) > Product grouping pages (30 pages per category) > Product pages (200 per category grouping).
This gives me a site with 6,249 unique pages.
Assume that the homepage does not have a breadcrumb, but that all the others pages have one do according to the site structure given above.
The total count of links into each page type created by breadcrumbs will be
Homepage: 8 + 240 + 48,000 = 48,248
Product category page: 6,030
Product grouping page: 200
Product page: 0
In this example, the homepage gets a huge number of links. After that, the page that gets most links from breadcrumbs is the product category page. The product page itself is not getting any links.
Step 2 - The medium state
You may not be happy about sending all of your links to your category pages. Perhaps on your website these pages are not the ones that you want to rank highest. Maybe your aim is to get the product grouping pages to rank higher. What can you do?
The next step is to try and add in some peer to peer linking. By this I mean linking from every page to all of it's "brothers and sisters". This could be done using say a side navigation bar. From a a usability point of view it might make sense as well - your users will be able to browse in a horizontal fashion. We do all the time in the real world. When we look at a pair of trousers in a clothes shop, we look at many pairs before trying some on - you wouldn't expect to have to go to the aisle end every time you'd looked at a pair.
The lower down pages in the heirachy have more sisters and brothers than the ones above them in the heirachy.
New links from "brother / sister" linking:
Homepage: 0
Product category page: 7
Product grouping page: 29
Product page: 199
Let's also assume also that your site template has "tabs" in the header that link to all of the category pages, plus the homepage.
New links from primary navigation (tabs)
Homepage: 6,248
Product category page: 6,248
Product grouping page: 6,248
Product page: 6,248
The new totals for internal links now stand as follows...
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 12,285
Product grouping page: 6,477
Product page: 6,447
We're getting there, but our category grouping pages need more help.
Step 3 - The advanced state
I'm still need more links to my product grouping pages. These are the ones I want to see top of Google's rankings.
What can I do?
Here's a simple idea. Link to every product grouping page from my site footer. This appears on every page of the site, that's another 6248 links (one from every page on the site) to each product grouping page.
New totals:
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 12,285
Product grouping page: 12,726
Product page: 6,447
Step 4 - The enlightened state
Here's the crunch point. Here's where you might want to mess with your nice neat site structure to benefit SEO. It could comprimise your usability, maybe not.
Here's what you do.
Change from:
Home > Category > Grouping > Product
To
Home > Category
And
Home > Grouping > Product
The Category page still has home as it's parent. However, if you navigate from this page onto the Grouping page your breadcrumb does not show the category page as the parent, it will still show Home as the parent.
"No no!", I hear the purists cry. I agree that this is less than optimal for usability, but just remember this - that your category pages are still accessible through the tabs.
Why do this? Well, if I do some calculations on the resulting link count per page it now ends up like this:
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 6,256
Product grouping page: 12,726
Product page: 6,447
Apart from my homepage, my product grouping pages (all 30 of them) are the highest linked pages on the site.
Job done. Or maybe not. You could still do more...
Step 5 - Linking nirvana
You might want to consider adding some "children" to your product pages. How about "product reviews", "colour options", and "sizing options". That's 3 pages per product page (6000 products), so that's another 18,000 pages you've just added to your site. That's 18,000 footer links, 18,000 header links and 18,000 breadcrumbs from pages you're not too fussed about whether they rank or not. What does that do to your link count?
Homepage: 72,497
Product category page: 6,256
Product grouping page: 48,726
Product page: 24,448
Now we're rocking.
Summary
I hope I've got the maths correct in this post. If you find any errors be sure to let me know, but either way, the principles behind it do work.
Tuesday 30 October 2007
Everyscape - 3D Restaurant Interiors
Just saw this new site in beta. www.everyscape.com
Defintely worth checking out. It's a mapping site with a difference. You can browse a location as if you are inside it. You can walk into a restaurant in New York City and walk past the diners to the back, turn around and walk out again. Kind of like those 3D virtuals tours. Nothing new right? Wrong. This time you get to walk out the resturant, along the street and check out another building by going in the front door. Very cool.
You also get to see the 2D map to the right in a side panel to see where you are walking.
They've got trial versions of 4 US cities at the moment.
There's some pretty interesting revenue opportunities here for them if it takes off. Hoteliers, ticket brokers, restaurant booking agents, travel agents, they'll all want to get linked it if gets critical mass.
Defintely worth checking out. It's a mapping site with a difference. You can browse a location as if you are inside it. You can walk into a restaurant in New York City and walk past the diners to the back, turn around and walk out again. Kind of like those 3D virtuals tours. Nothing new right? Wrong. This time you get to walk out the resturant, along the street and check out another building by going in the front door. Very cool.
You also get to see the 2D map to the right in a side panel to see where you are walking.
They've got trial versions of 4 US cities at the moment.
There's some pretty interesting revenue opportunities here for them if it takes off. Hoteliers, ticket brokers, restaurant booking agents, travel agents, they'll all want to get linked it if gets critical mass.
Monday 29 October 2007
Try This In Your Next Team Meeting
You want to say "well done" more to your team?
I know I do. However, I'm just not a gushing type. Every management course I've ever been on emphasises the need to praise, to recognise, to make folks feel valued. The idea being of course is that feeling valued is motivational and sustains a team. Most of this I agree with of course.
Essentially, you want your team to do a good job. Giving praise is only a tiny part of that equation though. For some people, praise is their fuel, their driving force. Praise them and they'll do anything. For others, it's not so simple. Sure, I like to be told I'm doing a good job. Who doesn't? But does it get me out of bed in the morning? Nope. For me it's all about being engaged. Being engaged in what you're doing and feeling that your effort has some real value. Being engaged, plus doing every day what you do best. Learning new tricks and solving challenges, that's good too. Oh yeah - and a "well done" afterwards is a good bonus. Did I mention the money?
Anyway, you see my point - praise isn't the magic ingredient in management. It's not going to do much if all the other motivational factors are not in play. It's the icing on the cake. (Except for the few people that get so high on praise that it's their wonder drug - give them praise and it will be like a turbo charge).
It's hard to praise well. For me this is because firstly, the person needs to feel like they deserve the praise and secondly, the best praise is delivered in front of others. Tricky.
So - here's my idea. I've tried it out and it seems to work.
At the beginning of your team meeting, ask each team member to write up on a white board (or flip chart) one thing that they or the team (or another team member) did well last week and that helped them work towards achieving their objectives.
It's great! The team write up on the board things they know are worth highlighting. They are happy enough that these achievements are worthy of praise. So - problem one is solved, the person feels the achievement was praise worthy.
Often, team members will highlight things that they have done that aren't actual deliverables but are changes to the way in which the team works together. This is good, because it highlights process optimisation, communication and/or infrastructure improvements.
On other occasions they might highlight softer things like new starters joining the team.
And sometimes they praise each other rather than themselves. A double whammy - public and peer praise!
One interesting thing about this technique is that the team are creating a sense of positive behavioural re-enforcement. By writing the achievement on the wall, they are committing themselves to a viewpoint that this achievement was a good thing to do. Writing something down commits the person in a very strong way to continuing to behave in the same way in the future. It helps form their identity.
The process is unusual. By adopting it the team create a ritual that is a way to mark them out from other teams. Although it's not a big deal, it's an act that they share that others don't. So it strengthens the team identity, and it does so in a positive context.
Once everyone has had a go (I would go last), I then ask each team member to write on a post-it the item that they think was the best achievement of the week. We post the notes together on the wall at the same time. Usually one achievement stands out and I can then spend a few moments praising that effort in front of the whole team.
With everyone in a good mood and in a "team" mode, we then set about the rest of the agenda.
Saying "well done" has never been so easy or so much fun!
I know I do. However, I'm just not a gushing type. Every management course I've ever been on emphasises the need to praise, to recognise, to make folks feel valued. The idea being of course is that feeling valued is motivational and sustains a team. Most of this I agree with of course.
Essentially, you want your team to do a good job. Giving praise is only a tiny part of that equation though. For some people, praise is their fuel, their driving force. Praise them and they'll do anything. For others, it's not so simple. Sure, I like to be told I'm doing a good job. Who doesn't? But does it get me out of bed in the morning? Nope. For me it's all about being engaged. Being engaged in what you're doing and feeling that your effort has some real value. Being engaged, plus doing every day what you do best. Learning new tricks and solving challenges, that's good too. Oh yeah - and a "well done" afterwards is a good bonus. Did I mention the money?
Anyway, you see my point - praise isn't the magic ingredient in management. It's not going to do much if all the other motivational factors are not in play. It's the icing on the cake. (Except for the few people that get so high on praise that it's their wonder drug - give them praise and it will be like a turbo charge).
It's hard to praise well. For me this is because firstly, the person needs to feel like they deserve the praise and secondly, the best praise is delivered in front of others. Tricky.
So - here's my idea. I've tried it out and it seems to work.
At the beginning of your team meeting, ask each team member to write up on a white board (or flip chart) one thing that they or the team (or another team member) did well last week and that helped them work towards achieving their objectives.
It's great! The team write up on the board things they know are worth highlighting. They are happy enough that these achievements are worthy of praise. So - problem one is solved, the person feels the achievement was praise worthy.
Often, team members will highlight things that they have done that aren't actual deliverables but are changes to the way in which the team works together. This is good, because it highlights process optimisation, communication and/or infrastructure improvements.
On other occasions they might highlight softer things like new starters joining the team.
And sometimes they praise each other rather than themselves. A double whammy - public and peer praise!
One interesting thing about this technique is that the team are creating a sense of positive behavioural re-enforcement. By writing the achievement on the wall, they are committing themselves to a viewpoint that this achievement was a good thing to do. Writing something down commits the person in a very strong way to continuing to behave in the same way in the future. It helps form their identity.
The process is unusual. By adopting it the team create a ritual that is a way to mark them out from other teams. Although it's not a big deal, it's an act that they share that others don't. So it strengthens the team identity, and it does so in a positive context.
Once everyone has had a go (I would go last), I then ask each team member to write on a post-it the item that they think was the best achievement of the week. We post the notes together on the wall at the same time. Usually one achievement stands out and I can then spend a few moments praising that effort in front of the whole team.
With everyone in a good mood and in a "team" mode, we then set about the rest of the agenda.
Saying "well done" has never been so easy or so much fun!
Sunday 28 October 2007
Dunbar's Number, Cross 150 With Caution
Do organisational structures need to transform once they exceed 150 members in number?
In the fast growing companies of the dot com boom, and now in boom 2.0, many companies must experience the aggressive growth that takes them past the 150 team member mark without them realising what's happening to them.
Why 150? What is it with 150 that makes it significant?
The idea was first floated by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar (b. 1947), but subsequently popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in his book "The Tipping Point".
Known as "Dunbar's number", the number 150 is a theoretical maximum number of individuals with whom a group can maintain a social relationship where each knows who each other is and how they all connect socially.
So - in a group of 150, it is still possible to know everyone else, understand their roles and their relationships with each other. Beyond that, forget it.
This number is pretty significant therefore when it comes to shaping organisational structures. With a team of 150 you can still manage with a relatively flat reporting structure, fairly informal communication processes and decision making.
Once you cross from the "medium" company threshold into "large", the old ways just don't work any more. You need a different way of managing communication, direction, decision making. What's more the people that worked well in that environment most probably aren't the same type of people that work well in the smaller team. "Things aren't the same around here any more", "It's not what it used to be"... suddenly you've got 30% attrition and a super stressed out recruitment team.
Gore Associates (makers of Gore-Tex among other things) apparently keep their manufacturing plants under 150 persons. They found this size keeps people in touch with each other. If they need more production capacity, rather than expand a plant that's at the 150 limit, they'll start a new one.
Army regiments work in a similar manner. And just for good measure, Dunbar's surveys of settlements in ancient times show a tendency to be limited at about the 150 number.
Good companies require effective teams to succeed. Most companies however grow organically and rarely do leaders stop and ask how the social relationships in their teams work and what the effect of growth on those relationships might be.
So, a word of caution: if you are a small company doing well, and aim to hire employee number 150 in the coming months, start thinking about what your world needs to look like as you become a medium sized company.
See also: Wikipedia, Dunbar's number
In the fast growing companies of the dot com boom, and now in boom 2.0, many companies must experience the aggressive growth that takes them past the 150 team member mark without them realising what's happening to them.
Why 150? What is it with 150 that makes it significant?
The idea was first floated by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar (b. 1947), but subsequently popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in his book "The Tipping Point".
Known as "Dunbar's number", the number 150 is a theoretical maximum number of individuals with whom a group can maintain a social relationship where each knows who each other is and how they all connect socially.
So - in a group of 150, it is still possible to know everyone else, understand their roles and their relationships with each other. Beyond that, forget it.
This number is pretty significant therefore when it comes to shaping organisational structures. With a team of 150 you can still manage with a relatively flat reporting structure, fairly informal communication processes and decision making.
Once you cross from the "medium" company threshold into "large", the old ways just don't work any more. You need a different way of managing communication, direction, decision making. What's more the people that worked well in that environment most probably aren't the same type of people that work well in the smaller team. "Things aren't the same around here any more", "It's not what it used to be"... suddenly you've got 30% attrition and a super stressed out recruitment team.
Gore Associates (makers of Gore-Tex among other things) apparently keep their manufacturing plants under 150 persons. They found this size keeps people in touch with each other. If they need more production capacity, rather than expand a plant that's at the 150 limit, they'll start a new one.
Army regiments work in a similar manner. And just for good measure, Dunbar's surveys of settlements in ancient times show a tendency to be limited at about the 150 number.
Good companies require effective teams to succeed. Most companies however grow organically and rarely do leaders stop and ask how the social relationships in their teams work and what the effect of growth on those relationships might be.
So, a word of caution: if you are a small company doing well, and aim to hire employee number 150 in the coming months, start thinking about what your world needs to look like as you become a medium sized company.
See also: Wikipedia, Dunbar's number
Thursday 25 October 2007
The Long Tail and Brand Communication
The Elongating Tail of Brand Communication: An Approach to Brand-Building Incorporating Long Tail Economics by Iqbal Mohammed, Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, January 2007
You know when you get sent a link or article, and you're kind of interested, but you just don't have the time to digest it all? Usually, you skim read it, get the general idea, and then just move on?
When I received a link to this paper earlier this year, it stopped my day. I sat there and read it, word by word for 45 minutes. Wow - a really well articulated idea relevant to our changing world!
The main idea behind the article is that there is a real side effect from our increasing media diversity and multi-platform advertising. It is a fundamental shift to the way we should consider brand-building.
Based on Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory, the paper presents the case why the single-minded brand proposition is out of date and will fail in the future. A brand needs to be many things to it's audience. How can you use "long tail" thinking to build complex, layered and engaging brands through advertising?
Download the paper, it's available at SSRN:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1007403#PaperDownload
You know when you get sent a link or article, and you're kind of interested, but you just don't have the time to digest it all? Usually, you skim read it, get the general idea, and then just move on?
When I received a link to this paper earlier this year, it stopped my day. I sat there and read it, word by word for 45 minutes. Wow - a really well articulated idea relevant to our changing world!
The main idea behind the article is that there is a real side effect from our increasing media diversity and multi-platform advertising. It is a fundamental shift to the way we should consider brand-building.
Based on Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory, the paper presents the case why the single-minded brand proposition is out of date and will fail in the future. A brand needs to be many things to it's audience. How can you use "long tail" thinking to build complex, layered and engaging brands through advertising?
Download the paper, it's available at SSRN:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1007403#PaperDownload
Wednesday 24 October 2007
Planning Poker
Planning Poker is an unsual method of estimating tasks that I came across and have tried it out on a few projects. It's a good way to get maximum accuracy from minimal effort and it sounded interesting enough to have a go.
Objective: to estimate time required to complete projects not yet started
Why Planning Poker works
It brings together multiple expert opinions to do the estimating. Because these experts form a cross-functional team from all disciplines on a project, they are better suited to the estimation task than anyone else.
A lively dialogue ensues during planning poker, and estimators are called upon by their peers to justify their estimates. This has been found to improve the accuracy of the estimate, especially on items with large amounts of uncertainty.
Studies have shown that averaging individual estimates leads to better results as do group discussions of estimates.
Planning poker works because it’s fun.
How to play
1. Each member of team is given a deck of 6 cards.
Cards have the following values: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, Joker
Numbers on the cards represent days.
A Joker = more than 8 days (unknown)
2. For each user story (see: Introduction to Scrum) to be estimated, the moderator reads the description. Any questions arising are then answered.
3. After all questions are answered, each person privately selects a card representing their estimate. Cards are not shown until each estimator has made a selection. At that time, all cards are simultaneously turned over and shown so that all participants can see each estimate.
4. If the estimates are close, a consensus is reached and players move to the next user story. If the estimates vary wildly, the team can discuss their reasons for their estimates. They are only allowed 2 minutes to do this and then a new round is played and cards are put on the table again. This time limit is absolute. No exceptions.
This continues until a consensus is reached.
More information
You can now play planning poker online for free. Try it out at www.planningpoker.com
The orginal idea came from Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn
Objective: to estimate time required to complete projects not yet started
Why Planning Poker works
It brings together multiple expert opinions to do the estimating. Because these experts form a cross-functional team from all disciplines on a project, they are better suited to the estimation task than anyone else.
A lively dialogue ensues during planning poker, and estimators are called upon by their peers to justify their estimates. This has been found to improve the accuracy of the estimate, especially on items with large amounts of uncertainty.
Studies have shown that averaging individual estimates leads to better results as do group discussions of estimates.
Planning poker works because it’s fun.
How to play
1. Each member of team is given a deck of 6 cards.
Cards have the following values: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, Joker
Numbers on the cards represent days.
A Joker = more than 8 days (unknown)
2. For each user story (see: Introduction to Scrum) to be estimated, the moderator reads the description. Any questions arising are then answered.
3. After all questions are answered, each person privately selects a card representing their estimate. Cards are not shown until each estimator has made a selection. At that time, all cards are simultaneously turned over and shown so that all participants can see each estimate.
4. If the estimates are close, a consensus is reached and players move to the next user story. If the estimates vary wildly, the team can discuss their reasons for their estimates. They are only allowed 2 minutes to do this and then a new round is played and cards are put on the table again. This time limit is absolute. No exceptions.
This continues until a consensus is reached.
More information
You can now play planning poker online for free. Try it out at www.planningpoker.com
The orginal idea came from Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn
An Introduction To Scrum
Getting things done using Scrum - an introduction to the Scrum software development framework.
Manager: "I want my work delivered when you say it will be delivered"!"
Tech guy: "Stop changing the goal posts every few days and just let me get on with it!"
Sounds familiar?
One process that aims to address these frustrations is "Scrum". "What on earth is that!", you may well ask.
If you are a manager in an internet company you may or may not have heard the technical team talk about "Scrum" and "Agile Development". You may have wondered what it is and why it's becoming so popular. It's actually quite a simple way of organising work into (usually) 2 weeks blocks. To do this a number of roles are created and a number of meetings happen to keep things moving. I'll explain these, but first - why do it?
Benefits of Scrum
Managers get a clear process to prioritise the work flow
Managers can be sure that the team is always working on the highest priority work items / projects
Developers give commitment to get the job done
The development team muck in together to solve problems and share work
Developers are not continuously interrupted and can focus
There is a relentless focus on quality delivery
It does not require complicated technology or tools
Terminology
There's some terminology unique to Scrum. The word Scrum for a start. Yes, I know it's a rugby term, but in this case it doesn't mean anything in particular other than a word to describe the process framework.
At the most basic level you need to understand that work is organised into periods of time called sprints. A sprint is usually a two week period, although it could be almost any time between 1 week and a month. It depends on what works for the team. We found that 2 week sprints worked well for us.
The team commits to deliver a specified amount of work in the upcoming sprint. The resulting work-list is called a sprint backlog.
To describe the rest of the process, I will focus on the following 3 areas:
Roles
Meetings
Time frame
Key roles in Scrum
1. The Product Owner
This is the person responsible for specifying the changes required. They may do this by themselves or they may represent a wider group of business owners. Their purpose is to scope out the work and arrive at a single list of priorities. The list of priorities is known as the product backlog. Each item on the product backlog is known as a story.
2. The Scrummaster
The Scrummaster is a facilitator. They are usually one of the team and have equal status to all others on the team. They are however responsible for ensuring that the team knows what is expected of them and leads the various meetings to make the process work. They also are charged with working to remove any impediments to progress that are reported by the team.
3. The team
The team is usually a group of developers and related functions (e.g. designer, testers). For Scrum to work well, you probably need at least 4 people, and no more than 10. These are not strict limits - Scrum is just a framework that you need to adapt to make it work for you. In my experience a team of 8 or 9 works great. If I had 20 people I would create two teams rather than have one huge team.
Meetings needed to make the process work
1. Sprint planning meeting
The day before the sprint starts, the team meet to plan the next sprint. They figure out from the product backlog, what tasks are required to deliver each story. They then estimate the time it will take them for each task. Knowing this they can then take on add a number of stories (in priority order) to the sprint backlog.
2. The daily scrum
This is a meeting that happens at the same time every day. In our case we chose 09.30, but it could be any time that works for the team. Every day means every day and it's not optional.
Each team member answers 3 questions in turn,
i) what did you work on yesterday?
ii) what will you work on today?
iii) what is blocking your progress?
The team organise their work around the sprint board. We mounted a white board on the wall and used post-it notes of different colours to represent the tasks. We used different colours for design, development and test. I've also seen magnetic boards that use magnetic post-its. Both work.
The board shows all of the work for the current sprint. (Click to enlarge)
You can see from the board that each story is broken down into tasks. These tasks are placed on the board according to their status. They are either in the queue, being worked on, being tested or are complete.
3. Sprint review
The sprint review is a meeting where the team present their completed stories to the product owner.
4. Sprint retrospective
This meeting happens at the end of the sprint and allows the team to discuss what went well in the sprint, what could have gone better and what they will change for the future. This allows for issues to be addressed and allows for a self-optimising team and process.
Time frame
The length of your sprints can be what you want it to be. Usually a 2 or 4 week cycle is chosen depending on the type of work you receive.
The start day of the sprint does not have to be a Monday. You can start say on a Wednesday and run your sprints Wednesday to Tuesday. Whatever works best for the team.
On a 2 week (10 working day) sprint you might do the following
Day 1 (am) - Sprint planning
Day 2 to day 10 - Daily Scrum
Day 10 (pm) - Sprint review
Day 10 (pm) - Sprint Retrospective
Why does it work?
The team have a clear set of priorities that they have committed to deliver over the coming sprint. They have thought through was required of them, they've discussed it in detail and they've agreed what they can achieve. Once committed, the team work together to maintain their collective reputation by delivering on their promises.
The management start to see stuff getting done. Every 2 weeks they see results. They know that the most important stuff is being worked on first. They know the team are not wasting their time on things that are not a priority for the business.
What can go wrong?
The process only works if the team are not interrupted once the sprint has started. New work should not enter into the current sprint unless the team agree it is possible to take it on. Otherwise, if the priorities really have changed you need to stop the sprint and start a new one. Management need to get used to the fact that they need to plan ahead. Will it wait 2 weeks until the next sprint starts? (In reality, the answer is usually yes).
The other important factor is that the team really need to believe in the structure. All team members need to be behind it and support it. Having one resistant member will spoil the party.
Rituals and rites
One way of rallying human behaviour around a cause is to introduce rituals. Religion of course has done this for centuries, but all social groupings have their rituals and behaviours. Songs and scarves (football supporters), national holidays (counties), opening ceremony (Olympics), holy days (religions).
What's interesting about Scrum is that the meetings, the terminology and the routine give a sense of shared identity to the Scrum team. Through following this process they re-enforce their sense of being a team. It's a very useful by-product of the efficiency of the process.
How to get started with Scrum
I was first introduced to Scrum by Tobias Mayer. He gave a simple but compelling overview of the Scrum process to our team. This planted the seed from which we grew to explore and adopt Scrum. It was simple enough for the key decision makers to "get it" and interesting enough for developers to want to learn more. If you want to introduce Scrum to your organisation, he'd be a good person to do this.
You need to start with one of two key individuals that are keen to get involved. They will be your champions. Get them trained on a Scrum training course. A good course to start with could be Rachael Davies' Scrum Awareness Course. Then get them back in the business and think through with them what needs change in the organisation if you are going to give it a go. Who will take up each of the key roles?
Then, you most definitely need senior management buy-in. They cannot just come to the team and demand work requests - they will also need to channel their requests in the right way, through the Product Owner.
Most importantly for Scrum to work the team needs to dedicate themselves to it's implementation. All the team need to feel that it is a benefit to work this way. Also - it needs to work in a way that suits them, their obstacles, people, goals and company organisation.
It takes a while to get right. We found it took us about 6 months before we really got going and had a clockwork process in place.
I found that the results though were worth it. I had a predicatble process to work with, my team were energised, they took ownership for their work - and most importantly - stuff got done.
Further reading:
Controlchaos.com - Ken Schwaber, The man who wrote the book on Scrum.
Scrum Alliance - Scrum community resource centre
Scrumworks Pro - software to manage your Scrum work flow
Conferences / Events
London Scrum gathering November 2007
Manager: "I want my work delivered when you say it will be delivered"!"
Tech guy: "Stop changing the goal posts every few days and just let me get on with it!"
Sounds familiar?
One process that aims to address these frustrations is "Scrum". "What on earth is that!", you may well ask.
If you are a manager in an internet company you may or may not have heard the technical team talk about "Scrum" and "Agile Development". You may have wondered what it is and why it's becoming so popular. It's actually quite a simple way of organising work into (usually) 2 weeks blocks. To do this a number of roles are created and a number of meetings happen to keep things moving. I'll explain these, but first - why do it?
Benefits of Scrum
Terminology
There's some terminology unique to Scrum. The word Scrum for a start. Yes, I know it's a rugby term, but in this case it doesn't mean anything in particular other than a word to describe the process framework.
At the most basic level you need to understand that work is organised into periods of time called sprints. A sprint is usually a two week period, although it could be almost any time between 1 week and a month. It depends on what works for the team. We found that 2 week sprints worked well for us.
The team commits to deliver a specified amount of work in the upcoming sprint. The resulting work-list is called a sprint backlog.
To describe the rest of the process, I will focus on the following 3 areas:
Key roles in Scrum
1. The Product Owner
This is the person responsible for specifying the changes required. They may do this by themselves or they may represent a wider group of business owners. Their purpose is to scope out the work and arrive at a single list of priorities. The list of priorities is known as the product backlog. Each item on the product backlog is known as a story.
2. The Scrummaster
The Scrummaster is a facilitator. They are usually one of the team and have equal status to all others on the team. They are however responsible for ensuring that the team knows what is expected of them and leads the various meetings to make the process work. They also are charged with working to remove any impediments to progress that are reported by the team.
3. The team
The team is usually a group of developers and related functions (e.g. designer, testers). For Scrum to work well, you probably need at least 4 people, and no more than 10. These are not strict limits - Scrum is just a framework that you need to adapt to make it work for you. In my experience a team of 8 or 9 works great. If I had 20 people I would create two teams rather than have one huge team.
Meetings needed to make the process work
1. Sprint planning meeting
The day before the sprint starts, the team meet to plan the next sprint. They figure out from the product backlog, what tasks are required to deliver each story. They then estimate the time it will take them for each task. Knowing this they can then take on add a number of stories (in priority order) to the sprint backlog.
2. The daily scrum
This is a meeting that happens at the same time every day. In our case we chose 09.30, but it could be any time that works for the team. Every day means every day and it's not optional.
Each team member answers 3 questions in turn,
i) what did you work on yesterday?
ii) what will you work on today?
iii) what is blocking your progress?
The team organise their work around the sprint board. We mounted a white board on the wall and used post-it notes of different colours to represent the tasks. We used different colours for design, development and test. I've also seen magnetic boards that use magnetic post-its. Both work.
The board shows all of the work for the current sprint. (Click to enlarge)
You can see from the board that each story is broken down into tasks. These tasks are placed on the board according to their status. They are either in the queue, being worked on, being tested or are complete.
3. Sprint review
The sprint review is a meeting where the team present their completed stories to the product owner.
4. Sprint retrospective
This meeting happens at the end of the sprint and allows the team to discuss what went well in the sprint, what could have gone better and what they will change for the future. This allows for issues to be addressed and allows for a self-optimising team and process.
Time frame
The length of your sprints can be what you want it to be. Usually a 2 or 4 week cycle is chosen depending on the type of work you receive.
The start day of the sprint does not have to be a Monday. You can start say on a Wednesday and run your sprints Wednesday to Tuesday. Whatever works best for the team.
On a 2 week (10 working day) sprint you might do the following
Day 1 (am) - Sprint planning
Day 2 to day 10 - Daily Scrum
Day 10 (pm) - Sprint review
Day 10 (pm) - Sprint Retrospective
Why does it work?
The team have a clear set of priorities that they have committed to deliver over the coming sprint. They have thought through was required of them, they've discussed it in detail and they've agreed what they can achieve. Once committed, the team work together to maintain their collective reputation by delivering on their promises.
The management start to see stuff getting done. Every 2 weeks they see results. They know that the most important stuff is being worked on first. They know the team are not wasting their time on things that are not a priority for the business.
What can go wrong?
The process only works if the team are not interrupted once the sprint has started. New work should not enter into the current sprint unless the team agree it is possible to take it on. Otherwise, if the priorities really have changed you need to stop the sprint and start a new one. Management need to get used to the fact that they need to plan ahead. Will it wait 2 weeks until the next sprint starts? (In reality, the answer is usually yes).
The other important factor is that the team really need to believe in the structure. All team members need to be behind it and support it. Having one resistant member will spoil the party.
Rituals and rites
One way of rallying human behaviour around a cause is to introduce rituals. Religion of course has done this for centuries, but all social groupings have their rituals and behaviours. Songs and scarves (football supporters), national holidays (counties), opening ceremony (Olympics), holy days (religions).
What's interesting about Scrum is that the meetings, the terminology and the routine give a sense of shared identity to the Scrum team. Through following this process they re-enforce their sense of being a team. It's a very useful by-product of the efficiency of the process.
How to get started with Scrum
I was first introduced to Scrum by Tobias Mayer. He gave a simple but compelling overview of the Scrum process to our team. This planted the seed from which we grew to explore and adopt Scrum. It was simple enough for the key decision makers to "get it" and interesting enough for developers to want to learn more. If you want to introduce Scrum to your organisation, he'd be a good person to do this.
You need to start with one of two key individuals that are keen to get involved. They will be your champions. Get them trained on a Scrum training course. A good course to start with could be Rachael Davies' Scrum Awareness Course. Then get them back in the business and think through with them what needs change in the organisation if you are going to give it a go. Who will take up each of the key roles?
Then, you most definitely need senior management buy-in. They cannot just come to the team and demand work requests - they will also need to channel their requests in the right way, through the Product Owner.
Most importantly for Scrum to work the team needs to dedicate themselves to it's implementation. All the team need to feel that it is a benefit to work this way. Also - it needs to work in a way that suits them, their obstacles, people, goals and company organisation.
It takes a while to get right. We found it took us about 6 months before we really got going and had a clockwork process in place.
I found that the results though were worth it. I had a predicatble process to work with, my team were energised, they took ownership for their work - and most importantly - stuff got done.
Further reading:
Controlchaos.com - Ken Schwaber, The man who wrote the book on Scrum.
Scrum Alliance - Scrum community resource centre
Scrumworks Pro - software to manage your Scrum work flow
Conferences / Events
London Scrum gathering November 2007
Tuesday 23 October 2007
Search Engine Strategies Conference 2008
Want to understand SEO? This is a good place to start.
I've been to the Search Engine Strategies London conference for several years now. It's a 3 day event that focuses on both PPC and SEO (natural and paid search).
For 2008 it will be held at the Business Design Centre, Islington (North London).
For a fiver less than a grand you get to attend for all 3 days (February 19-21, 2008). I suggest that you carefully plan your visit to focus on the areas that you're most interested in. Once you're there, don't be afraid to leave a session that isn't giving you what you need.
You should come away from the conference having built up a very good awareness of the key issues to address when optimising a site. At the end of the day it's pretty simple: if a site is built well it will be both well optimised for users and for search engines. They are not mutually exclusive.
If you need a hotel or accommodation in London during your stay, try hotels in London from Expedia.co.uk. They have a good range of hotels to choose from at good prices.
I've been to the Search Engine Strategies London conference for several years now. It's a 3 day event that focuses on both PPC and SEO (natural and paid search).
For 2008 it will be held at the Business Design Centre, Islington (North London).
For a fiver less than a grand you get to attend for all 3 days (February 19-21, 2008). I suggest that you carefully plan your visit to focus on the areas that you're most interested in. Once you're there, don't be afraid to leave a session that isn't giving you what you need.
You should come away from the conference having built up a very good awareness of the key issues to address when optimising a site. At the end of the day it's pretty simple: if a site is built well it will be both well optimised for users and for search engines. They are not mutually exclusive.
If you need a hotel or accommodation in London during your stay, try hotels in London from Expedia.co.uk. They have a good range of hotels to choose from at good prices.
Monday 22 October 2007
Online Copywriting Best Practice
So how should you write for the web? Here's some top tips to get you started.
1. Keep sentences short
Short sentences are easier to digest. They require less brainpower. Your visitors are one click away from your competitors, so don't make it difficult. If your sentence can be written simply, write it simply.
2. Get the message across quickly
You can get the essence of your communication across in the first few words. Don't make someone read through a whole paragraph to get to the point - they'll not get that far.
3. Use the words of your audience
Your vocabulary needs to use the words that your readers are familiar with. There are 2 good reasons for this. One: it's easier to understand. Two: these are the words most likely to be typed in by your visitors to Google. If you put these words on your page, your copy will already be on the way to being optimised for search engines. Use Google's keyword suggestion tool to research what words to use.
4. Keep paragraphs short
A good example of this is the BBC news site. Each paragraph is simple, short and easy to digest. Long paragraphs are just hard work.
BBC example article: Facebook's developer platform
5. Use good grammar and spelling
It sounds simple, and it is. I don't claim to be perfect either. I do however see sites that lose credibility at the last hurdle with a spelling mistake.
6. Be consistent in your style
By style I mean the way in which you use numbers, abbreviations, dates and terminology. It just makes your site more coherent.
7. DON'T USE UPPER CASE
It's so much easier to read sentence case!
8. Use headings, subheadings and bullet points
This gives your article structure, makes it easy to scan read. Website visitors rarely read every word - they need to be able to scan through quickly and select what copy they feel like engaging with. Ask yourself the question: "can I see at a glance what this article is about from 5 feet away?"
Related articles
- Interesting article from Jakob Neilson: Passive Voice Is Redeemed For Web Headings
- Fantastic site for online copy writing: Nick Usbourne's Excess Voice - copy writing tips for the web
Friday 19 October 2007
Essential Reading for Ecommerce Leaders
I enjoy understanding social influence - the effect we all have on each other.
Online pursuasion. It's the basis of conversion. In fact, you could say it's a way of thinking. Once you start seeing your website as a pursuasion tool and not as a shop window you're getting somewhere.
You see - an ecommerce site is both the shop and the shop assistant. It's also the sign posting to get there (SEO).
To get you in the right frame of mind, here is my recommended reading list for budding internet retailers. Individually they may not all directly seem relevant. Put them all together and you'll get a viewpoint that will help you move forward with conviction.
If you want to get into my head, these are some of my favourite books...
Influence - Robert B. Cialdini
The tricks of the trade. What techniques are used by folks to influence each other, why do they work, and how can you "protect yourself" from these techniques? Equally as useful if you are selling or if you are being sold to. Fascinating.
Why we buy - Paco Underhill
This guy has spent decades observing consumer behaviour in retail outlets. He helps you understand just how smart some shops are, at the same time you start to understand how so many could be so much better. I look at shop space now with a whole different view.
Freakonomics - Steven D Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
Using economic methodology to try and understand social trends, this is a fascinating collection of studies. Two of my favourite were; the trends found in baby-naming, and the reason for the drop in NYC crime: abortion. Read it to find out more.
The Pyramid Principle - Barbara Minto
I read so many poorly written emails, presentations and documentation. This book helps you avoid doing so too by taking a very structured approach to your communications. Written by an ex-McKinsey consultant, the basic message is very simple (of course), but it's quite tricky to get right in the real world. If you've ever used MindManager software to map out your ideas, this book helps you craft communication from your mind-maps.
Now, Discover Your Strengths - Marcus Buckingham
We're all different. We all have different strengths. I guess you know that. Do you know what your strengths are? I thought I did, and then I read this book. With the book comes access to an online questionnaire that you complete to create your profile. The results made a lot of sense. The important message here is that you should focus on what you're good at and excel. Leave what you're not so good at to others, or at least do some training for damage limitation. In the end you are who you are - make sure you spend time on being the best you.
The Paradox of Choice - Barry Schwartz
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Barry gets you thinking about just how you make choices in life. Choosing requires mental energy and can become a burden. The paradox is that we continously hail consumer choice as a good thing when in fact on many occasions, less is often more. A what cost do we pursue perfection?
The Search - John Battelle
The story of Google. More specifically, how a new business model emerged where advertisers only pay for results. You know about Google of course, but what I didn't know before reading this was the human story of how they grew, what deals were made and what the future might hold. Anyone who works in the online industry needs to read it.
Call to Action - Bryan Eisenberg
If Paco Underhill (see above) studies the real world of retailing, Bryan Eisenburg studies how to influence customers online. The book is not particularly well structured, but he presents case studies that make you realise just how tricky it is to get it right online and when you do, just how powerful it can be. At the crux of this book is how you persuade people in an interactive medium where the website is just one part of the experience.
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
In this book you are treated to real life examples where a "tipping point" was needed in order create an overwhelming self-perpetuating phenomenon. From shoe trends to diseases, what is needed to create the momentum?
Don't Make Me Think! - Steve Krug
If you have any responsibility whatsoever for a website - as a manager, designer, developer - any role in fact - you need to read this book. It's a really simple introduction to the ways in which you can screw up a customer's experience without much effort. What takes effort is to keep it simple. Steve shows you how.
The Concise 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene
There is a longer version of this book, but this concise version serves the same purpose. This book demonstrates 48 different ways in which powerful people gain and hold on to power. I must admit, much of the methodology goes right against how I prefer to treat people. In any company, society or family, some of the methods described here surface, so if anything, it's useful to be aware of what's going on and what you can do to avoid being screwed over.
Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Another one from Malcolm Gladwell. This book has a really simple central idea and goes through many chapters to illustrate it over and over again. The simple idea is that your gut reaction (the one that you have before you've got time to think something through) is most likely to be the right reaction - IF you have enough experience in that area to fall back on. Firefighters, pilots, drivers, art experts - they are all highly experienced in their area, and their intuition makes for some pretty good reactive decision making. It made me confident in my own decision making and not needing to analyse every option before comitting to course of action.
Online pursuasion. It's the basis of conversion. In fact, you could say it's a way of thinking. Once you start seeing your website as a pursuasion tool and not as a shop window you're getting somewhere.
You see - an ecommerce site is both the shop and the shop assistant. It's also the sign posting to get there (SEO).
To get you in the right frame of mind, here is my recommended reading list for budding internet retailers. Individually they may not all directly seem relevant. Put them all together and you'll get a viewpoint that will help you move forward with conviction.
If you want to get into my head, these are some of my favourite books...
Influence - Robert B. Cialdini
The tricks of the trade. What techniques are used by folks to influence each other, why do they work, and how can you "protect yourself" from these techniques? Equally as useful if you are selling or if you are being sold to. Fascinating.
Why we buy - Paco Underhill
This guy has spent decades observing consumer behaviour in retail outlets. He helps you understand just how smart some shops are, at the same time you start to understand how so many could be so much better. I look at shop space now with a whole different view.
Freakonomics - Steven D Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
Using economic methodology to try and understand social trends, this is a fascinating collection of studies. Two of my favourite were; the trends found in baby-naming, and the reason for the drop in NYC crime: abortion. Read it to find out more.
The Pyramid Principle - Barbara Minto
I read so many poorly written emails, presentations and documentation. This book helps you avoid doing so too by taking a very structured approach to your communications. Written by an ex-McKinsey consultant, the basic message is very simple (of course), but it's quite tricky to get right in the real world. If you've ever used MindManager software to map out your ideas, this book helps you craft communication from your mind-maps.
Now, Discover Your Strengths - Marcus Buckingham
We're all different. We all have different strengths. I guess you know that. Do you know what your strengths are? I thought I did, and then I read this book. With the book comes access to an online questionnaire that you complete to create your profile. The results made a lot of sense. The important message here is that you should focus on what you're good at and excel. Leave what you're not so good at to others, or at least do some training for damage limitation. In the end you are who you are - make sure you spend time on being the best you.
The Paradox of Choice - Barry Schwartz
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Barry gets you thinking about just how you make choices in life. Choosing requires mental energy and can become a burden. The paradox is that we continously hail consumer choice as a good thing when in fact on many occasions, less is often more. A what cost do we pursue perfection?
The Search - John Battelle
The story of Google. More specifically, how a new business model emerged where advertisers only pay for results. You know about Google of course, but what I didn't know before reading this was the human story of how they grew, what deals were made and what the future might hold. Anyone who works in the online industry needs to read it.
Call to Action - Bryan Eisenberg
If Paco Underhill (see above) studies the real world of retailing, Bryan Eisenburg studies how to influence customers online. The book is not particularly well structured, but he presents case studies that make you realise just how tricky it is to get it right online and when you do, just how powerful it can be. At the crux of this book is how you persuade people in an interactive medium where the website is just one part of the experience.
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
In this book you are treated to real life examples where a "tipping point" was needed in order create an overwhelming self-perpetuating phenomenon. From shoe trends to diseases, what is needed to create the momentum?
Don't Make Me Think! - Steve Krug
If you have any responsibility whatsoever for a website - as a manager, designer, developer - any role in fact - you need to read this book. It's a really simple introduction to the ways in which you can screw up a customer's experience without much effort. What takes effort is to keep it simple. Steve shows you how.
The Concise 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene
There is a longer version of this book, but this concise version serves the same purpose. This book demonstrates 48 different ways in which powerful people gain and hold on to power. I must admit, much of the methodology goes right against how I prefer to treat people. In any company, society or family, some of the methods described here surface, so if anything, it's useful to be aware of what's going on and what you can do to avoid being screwed over.
Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Another one from Malcolm Gladwell. This book has a really simple central idea and goes through many chapters to illustrate it over and over again. The simple idea is that your gut reaction (the one that you have before you've got time to think something through) is most likely to be the right reaction - IF you have enough experience in that area to fall back on. Firefighters, pilots, drivers, art experts - they are all highly experienced in their area, and their intuition makes for some pretty good reactive decision making. It made me confident in my own decision making and not needing to analyse every option before comitting to course of action.
Tuesday 9 October 2007
50 Ways to Make Google Love Your Web Site
Steve Johnston has just published an ebook called 50 Ways to Make Google Love Your Web Site. It is a great SEO read for webmasters.
Who is Steve Johnston? He's a Google Consultant, he specialises in getting under the skin of your website and making sure that you know what you need to do to get your site ranked in Google and to do it in a way that it above board with no hidden tricks. I've employed Steve on a project and was pleased with his professionalism, work ethic and advice.
Who is Steve Johnston? He's a Google Consultant, he specialises in getting under the skin of your website and making sure that you know what you need to do to get your site ranked in Google and to do it in a way that it above board with no hidden tricks. I've employed Steve on a project and was pleased with his professionalism, work ethic and advice.
Wednesday 3 October 2007
Scottish Mountain Biking
At Scottish Mountain Bike my brother Andrew created a fantastic site where you'll find everything you need to plan your cycling trip to Scotland's mountain bike centres.
This was his first website, and I'm impressed! Go go little bro!
This was his first website, and I'm impressed! Go go little bro!
Tuesday 2 October 2007
Making a Decision Without All The Data
"You don't need a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing" - Bob Dylan
I heard this on my ipod the other day and it got me thinking. In business you can often get to "analysis paralysis". By this I mean where leaders only make decisions when they have a full set of data, a fully developed business model, risk assessment models, etc etc.
In many cases making decisions on a well research data set is the right thing to do.
Yet there comes a point where gathering more information is not going to get give you significantly more insight.
Example: for usability testing, Jakob Neilson has shown that it only takes five users to give you enough information to work from. See his article Why You Only Need to Test With 5 Users. Five users can identify 80% of the usability problems. To get 100%, you need to test 15 users. You can get working quicker on resolving the issues if you just test 5, fix them, and then re-test.
Going back to Bob Dylan. The point is this... you can't predict the weather without specific data, but you can predict the seasons. Summer always follows spring, and it's usually warmer. You know this from your experience. Your experience feeds your intuition.
The role of your experience in decision making is considered in more detail by Malcolm Gladwell in his book "Blink". See my recommended reading post for more details.
If you have experience in an area, sometimes you just need to take a view and go with it. You'll probably be right.
I heard this on my ipod the other day and it got me thinking. In business you can often get to "analysis paralysis". By this I mean where leaders only make decisions when they have a full set of data, a fully developed business model, risk assessment models, etc etc.
In many cases making decisions on a well research data set is the right thing to do.
Yet there comes a point where gathering more information is not going to get give you significantly more insight.
Example: for usability testing, Jakob Neilson has shown that it only takes five users to give you enough information to work from. See his article Why You Only Need to Test With 5 Users. Five users can identify 80% of the usability problems. To get 100%, you need to test 15 users. You can get working quicker on resolving the issues if you just test 5, fix them, and then re-test.
Going back to Bob Dylan. The point is this... you can't predict the weather without specific data, but you can predict the seasons. Summer always follows spring, and it's usually warmer. You know this from your experience. Your experience feeds your intuition.
The role of your experience in decision making is considered in more detail by Malcolm Gladwell in his book "Blink". See my recommended reading post for more details.
If you have experience in an area, sometimes you just need to take a view and go with it. You'll probably be right.
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