Archive for May, 2007
May 29, 2007
Engaging with Facebook
Rick Klau’s report on the Obama campaign’s Facebook application:
It’s smart for Facebook, because it reinforces their role as facilitator of the community… no doubt many people already go to My Barack Obama, but there’s a non-trivial number of people who want to hang out on Facebook and show their friends what matters to them. (Keep in mind, these people are not all college students, not by a long shot.) By embracing this, the campaign ensures that they’re where their supporters want to be, and aren’t forcing them to come to the campaign’s website in order to engage with the campaign.
If you have an interest in social networking applications, you should read the rest of the post from Rick. I think it is a good example of how to engage in an existing community in a somewhat structured way. Much better effort than the hash they made of their campaign effort in MySpace.
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May 27, 2007
Areas of Responsibility for Web Positions
One of the most popular pages on my site, getting hundreds of views a week, is my article on crafting web job descriptions. There are surprisingly few resources for this online. Given the demand, I’m working on expanding the article into an ebook on the topic: The Web Job Description Toolkit. I’ll cover more areas of responsibility in more detail, offer sample interview questions, job titles, discuss advertising positions, etc.
This book is targeted squarely at organizations that are not primarily web companies. For many of these companies, creating web positions can be a challenging task since they usually don’t have a lot of experience with the Web at the executive level, let alone in human resources. The purpose of this book is to help them understand the potential roles for web staff and how to design positions that will contribute the most value to their overall goals.
I’m working on the areas of responsibility that I’ll cover in the book. Below is my working list, with short descriptions. I recognize that many of these overlap or could have different labels. I appreciate any comments you may have on the list. Am I missing anything? Suggest another label for a section? Looks great? Let me know.
Anyone who comments and includes their full, real, name with the comment will get a thank you in the book! Include your e-mail and I’ll give you a free copy when it is published. (I reserve the right not to include spammers or abusive posts in this offer at my sole discretion.)
An important note about the list: the section labels are not job titles. They are areas of responsibility that can be mixed and matched to create position descriptions.
Here is the list, which is somewhat different from the original article:
Strategy
These deal with setting overall direction for your organization’s Web efforts. What are your goals? How do they support the overall goals of the organization? How do you intend to go about achieving them?
Management
This covers the day-to-day management responsibilities for running a Web team and the site. It also includes hiring, coaching and developing staff.
Content
Content is King, but someone has to be behind the curtain. This includes content authoring, editing and management duties. I’ll define this to include video, images and audio as well as text.
Marketing
This section will focus on marketing your web site. It will include search engine optimization, e-commerce, keyword advertising, etc.
Design
This covers the basics of web design, including developing overall look and feel, templates, user interfaces and supporting assets. It can also include interactive media such as Flash if your site requires it.
Findability
This is all about helping people to find your content once they are on your site. It covers information architecture, search engine tuning, navigation, etc. This could fit under content management as well but I think it’s important enough to break out.
Usability
Usability is important for any site but especially so for those that include a lot of data-driven applications or e-commerce. This section will identify responsibilities related to increasing the usability of your site. I will also cover accessibility here. This overlaps significantly with other sections but it is another one that deserves special attention, in my opinion.
User Support/Online Community
This section will cover the basics of user support tasks as well as more advanced Web 2.0-style community liaison roles.
Technical Administration
Keep the servers up and running. I’ll cover the basics here but it won’t go into the depth that this one topic deserves. That’ll have to wait for another book.
Programming
Same as above, I will cover the basic responsibilities for developing web applications here but won’t go into great detail.
Thanks for your comments!
And finally, if you would like to receive periodic e-mail updates about the book, sign up using the form on this page. I will not use your e-mail for any purpose other than Toolkit announcements unless you sign up for other e-mail newsletters on my site.
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May 25, 2007
Draft Standard from ASAE Data Standards Committee
If you need some reading for beach this weekend, have I got a draft standards document for you!
Seriously, the draft standard described in the announcement below is the first step in an overall effort to improve the ability of association systems to integrate more effectively and efficiently. If you are an association IT exec or a technology vendor serving this market, please take the time to review and comment upon the draft.
The ASAE Data Standards Task Force is pleased to announce the release of
a draft standard for expressing constituent records in XML. This
standard will serve as a core for expanding into other data
representations. Therefore, it is especially critical to gather feedback
on the draft standard from the association technology community.Please go to this page on the ASAE web site in order to download the
standards documents: http://www.asaecenter.org/datastandardsreview.Please review the draft standard and consider how well it serves your
needs as an association or those of your customers if you are a
technology vendor. Once you have reviewed the standard, please provide
your comments.You will need to register with the site in order to submit a comment,
but you do not have to be a member of ASAE. Go to the same page from
which you downloaded the documents
(http://www.asaecenter.org/datastandardsreview) and follow the
instructions on providing comments.Non-IE browser (Firefox, Safari) users: Before logging in, you will
receive an error message “Website Certified by an Unknown Authority”.
Accept the certificate permanently and you’ll be able to continue.Please share this message with your database experts on staff or with
supporting vendor companies. Their input as experts in implementing your
technology is highly valuable to the standards development process.We thank you in advance for your critical review of the draft standard
and the feedback you provide.
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May 24, 2007
A Couple Conference Opportunities for June
There are two conferences I’ll be attending in DC in June that I wanted to let you know about. They happen to overlap but are in the same building, so you could hit them both if you wanted.
First, Jeff De Cagna is spearheading a social media unconference for association executives on June 5, 2007 at ASAE & the Center’s meeting space in the Reagan Building. The event is free and will be driven by the attendees. Simply add your name to the registration list on the web site if you wish to attend. I’m very excited this event is happening and I encourage you to attend if you are passionate about social media and/or want to learn more about it.
The second event is the Gilbane Washington DC conference on June 5-6, 2007, also at the Reagan Building. This conference focuses on content management technologies for government and non-profit organizations. Content is tracked, so there should be something for everyone. I will be facilitating a panel on integrating association and content management systems and processes. This event is not free but you can get a $100 discount by entering my last name as a promotional code when you register.
I hope to see you at one or both events!
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May 22, 2007
On Launching and Marketing a Redesigned Web Site
There was an interesting thread last week on a list I subscribe to about how to best launch a major web site redesign. I ended up writing a white paper in response on how to best prepare for a web site launch from a technical standpoint: Five Critical Steps for a Successful Web Site Launch.
There was also a discussion of whether you should market the new site in advance or launch it quietly without fanfare. In my view, the decision should be driven by your overall goals and confidence in your timelines.
If the new site is the embodiment of a major initiative, making a splash with the launch may be in order. However, if you are not highly confident in your ability to stay on schedule, the soft launch will ameliorate a lot of potential risk.
Finally, when you do market the new site, focus on the new value it provides to visitors rather than the fact it is new. This sounds obvious but it is easy to lose sight of after the organization has invested so many resources in the effort.
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May 15, 2007
New Article: Avoid “Me Too” Web Site Benchmarking
I have added a new article to the site today: Avoid “Me Too” Web Site Benchmarking. This was originally published in Association Trends and discusses how to conduct web site benchmarking that actually advances your organization toward your own goals, rather than implementing a mishmash of tactics without critical analysis.
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May 15, 2007
The Only Interesting Use of Twitter I Have Seen
Adrian Bye went to Cuba and twittered from within the revolution. He is back home now but it was fascinating to read his miniature travelogue while he explored the island. Adrian couldn’t receive calls or texts while he was in Cuba, so he had no idea how many people might be reading his twitter posts.
Adrian is now posting several long entries in his blog about his experience in Cuba. Definitely worth checking out to hear his first hand account of what life in Cuba is like today.
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May 14, 2007
Big Book Stores and Amazon
So, when you compare Amazon to Barnes and Noble or Borders (just on book selling), how are they fundamentally different?
All three sell online and, while Amazon is still the best, the other two have reasonably easy interfaces for selling books. What is left? Physical stores. B&N and Borders have the liability and asset of a physical retail presence in many communities across the country. However, they fail horribly to the leverage the two together to improve overall sales.
If you are looking for a physical retail store, it is likely because you want to buy a book right away. If you are willing to wait a few days, you can just order online. But if you want it right now, say before you catch a flight that afternoon, you want to know if the store near you is carrying the title before making the trek out there. Making retail inventory available for search by store seems like a no-brainer. It relieves floor staff from having to answer as many phone calls and enables customers to find out if they can buy more immediately.
However, Borders buries this feature several levels down in their site and B&N doesn’t even offer it. What a wasted opportunity.
The ideal interface, I think, would be to set a cookie for the user’s zip code at some point and then offer local retail inventory results along with online inventory.
Gee, that sounds simple. Why don’t they do it? My guess would be that their performance measures don’t reward cross-selling between physical and online operations.
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May 11, 2007
Is IT Head Count a Relevant Benchmark?
I posted this question to an ASAE list earlier this week in response to a discussion of average IT positions per staff: do IT staffing averages serve much purpose these days?
My opinion is that, with so many options for outsourcing some functions combined with the increasing role of technology in operations (countervailing trends to a certain extent), I don’t think an average is going to be all that meaningful without a lot of additional controlling data that isn’t available in most studies. Similar organizations can have very different approaches to how much they use technology and how aggressively they outsource commodity functions. An average IT head count number won’t tell you anything useful on its own.
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May 11, 2007
Pre-requisites for a Successful Small Business Web Site
There are 6 pre-requisites for a successful small business web site. The are:
- Have one!
- It lists location, hours and contact information prominently on the home page.
- Services and/or products are clearly identified in general on the home page and in detail on dedicated pages.
- They qualify that they are the best source for whatever the business provides.
- The design looks reputable.
- They have updated their listings in the local search engines for Google and Yahoo!.
Hitting each of the above won’t guarantee success but it will prevent fundamental flaws from preventing the best possible outcomes for a business with their web site.
The above is based on part of my presentation to the American Association of Endodontists a couple weeks ago.
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