High Context Consulting

Archive for February, 2007

February 21, 2007

The Value of Career Paths for Otherwise Dead-end Jobs

Joel Spolsky just posted a nice essay on how his company provides insanely good customer service. I have been on the receiving end of that service (back when Joel was often doing it himself) and it is indeed great. Read the whole essay, good stuff: Seven steps to remarkable customer service.

However, the most radical idea in the whole piece is nestled in at the end of the article. Joel creates career paths for his customer support staff. How can a small company do this? The career path shoots beyond the company within a few years:

Many qualified people get bored with front line customer service, and I’m OK with that. To compensate for this, I don’t hire people into those positions without an explicit career path. Here at Fog Creek, customer support is just the first year of a three-year management training program that includes a master’s degree in technology management at Columbia University. This allows us to get ambitious, smart geeks on a terrific career path talking to customers and solving their problems. We end up paying quite a bit more than average for these positions (especially when you consider $25,000 a year in tuition), but we get far more value out of them, too.

They pay good money and put their customer support folks through college (!) while they work the phones and e-mail, wowing Fog Creek’s customers. And then they leave for greener pastures, but it is by design. Highly talented people have to compete for these typically undersirable jobs, just for the chance to learn from Joel and get a great education. Joel has created the purple cow of customer support jobs. Amazing. But there is no reason you can’t do the same.

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February 8, 2007

Four Levels of Engagement in the Blogosphere

I used this device in a presentation last week to frame how you can have different levels of participation in the online world these days. The four levels are:

0: Unengaged
1: Listening
2: Commenting and Connecting
3: Fully Engaged

Let’s tackle them one by one.

0: Unengaged

This one might also be called “Blogowhat?” You aren’t listening to what people are saying online and have no idea what people are saying about your company, ideas, products, employees, you name it. You are not plugged into the online conversation.

1: Listening

At this level, you are regularly reading key blogs in your field or industry. You have subscribed to relevant keyword alerts on Google and Technorati. You search Wikipedia for articles that are relevant to your issues and analyze how well they do or do not represent them. You share what you hear and learn throughout your company so that others are more aware of what is going on. This is still largely passive but at least you are following along.

2: Commenting and Connecting

This level includes all of 1 plus actively commenting on relevant blog posts, adding comments to a Wikipedia discussion page, contacting bloggers directly to share your side of the story, etc. It also includes making connections with groups and individuals using social networking tools, such as LinkedIn, Facebook or MySpace. You are going beyond listening by reaching out to those who are leading the online conversation.

3: Fully Engaged

Finally, you are publishing your own blog, podcast, vidcast, etc., putting out your own story. You link to others talking about issues you care about, giving your perspective. You have a full presence in the online conversation.

Moving from 0 to 1 is a huge leap and requires learning a lot of skills and knowledge about the online world. Moving from 1 to 2 is much easier to do, although developing an effective tone for interaction may take some experimentation. Finally, moving to 3 is a bit of a leap but should be pretty smooth if you have been commenting actively for a while first.

What do you think?

Update: Added Connecting to level two. Thanks to Kathryn Lagden for the suggestion in the comments!

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February 6, 2007

IA’s Miss the Point

This thoughtful post by Christopher Fahey is a great example of how information architects tend to miss the point of their projects: The Holy Grail of Information Architecture. If you read through this post you hear a lot about process and tools and what form the ultimate deliverable from the project should take in order to be most effective. Christopher has concluded that standard deliverables aren’t the Holy Grail of an IA project but he doesn’t quite make the leap to what is: achieving the objectives of the organization.

The point of information architecture should be to help the organization in question to better achieve its goals. The output of an IA engagement should be the achievement of those business goals, not necessarily a nifty flow chart and set of wireframes. Selling widgets, providing membership value, business networking, politics, whatever the purpose of the site: IA should help to achieve those ends more effectively and efficiently. If you can provide that value simply by reviewing and discussing a site in a meeting, great! Don’t get hung up on the deliverables. Do focus on the outcomes to which you are contributing.

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February 5, 2007

Um, .um?

We don’t have .um to kick around anymore. I’d never heard of it, which isn’t surprising, since no one had actually registered a .um address.

I spotted this over on Eric Goldman’s Technology and Marketing Law blog. He posts great stuff on the intersection (or collision) of the online and legal worlds.

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