Archive for March, 2009
March 31, 2009
David Gammel’s Web Strategy Report, Volume 2, Issue 3
Subscribe to receive this in your e-mail.
Thoughts On Strategy: Changing Web Strategy without a Redesign
Did you know that you can adjust and implement your web strategy without a complete web site redesign? It’s true!
That’s just what Kevin Holland at Air Conditioning Contractors of America did when he shifted a webinar series from individual registration events to a monthly subscription. A few tweaks to their content and functionality and they launched a revamp program that is easier to market and creating a greater return for the organization. You can read Kevin’s write up on what they did here.
My boldest clients are forging ahead and repositioning themselves to be prepared to provide maximum value when better times inevitably occur. Even if your budgets are tight this year you can still make modest changes to your online presence to bring it in line with your operational goals without starting from square one. (In fact, this is ideal since you get the most return on your investment if it’s feasible.)
Your next question is probably, well, how do I get there? Here are three steps to take:
1. Review your primary web site outcomes and audiences.
Your web site exists to serve higher level business goals. Have those goals changed? If so, are there different outcomes your site should be contributing?
The audiences for your site are driven by your overall market. Has that market changed? Are the people behaving differently? Are there entire new people or groups that have dropped out? Determine what has changed about your existing audience’s needs, desired and perceptions as well as new audiences you should add into the mix.
Getting a handle on changes to your online outcomes and audiences enables you to take the next step.
2. Which strategic web site outcomes serve those business needs and audiences?
There are seven potential strategic outcomes for any web site. (You can download a white paper on these strategies here.) The trick is to pick the right mix to best serve your desired web site outcomes and anticipated audiences. Compare your current strategies to your outcomes and audiences. How should the mix change to better serve our needs?
If your outcomes are the same, how can you shift strategies to better serve them? The ACCA example above is a great sample of shifting strategy in pursuit of the same outcome.
With those answers, you can then go on to the next step of making changes to your site.
3. Adjust the content, design and functionality of your site to better support your strategy.
A good web strategy helps you decide what content, design and functionality will best serve your needs and create the most value for your organization. While avoiding a full redesign, consider what tweaks and changes you can make to what you have that will incrementally move you in the direction set by your updated strategies.
At all costs, avoid what I like to call ‘big projectitis’ where the web site is placed into stasis while you wait for the budget and capacity to free up for a full redesign. It’s unnecessary and counter productive in the extreme.
Be bold! Shake things up and try something new to goose the value your site is contributing to your efforts. If you don’t do it, who will? If you would like to discuss likely areas to improve your site, drop me a line.
Case Study: Expanding Webinars Beyond the Event with Podcasts
I have been conducting a lot of webinar events over the past six months or so. Lately I have tried something new that I want to share with you in this issue of the newsletter.
Boston Conferencing invited me to conduct a webinar for them on increasing participation in association social media programs. I recorded a short piece of audio promoting the event that BC placed on their site and that I posted to my site as a podcast. The week before the event, a person I know on Twitter who had signed up for the event let me know they were looking forward to a particular part of the content listed in the promo. The event was such a success and drew so many questions that I was unable to get to that bit of content by the end of the program.
I promised, live at the end of the webinar, to record that part of the content and post it as a podcast to my site. We also had dozens of unanswered questions we couldn’t get to, so I answered those in a podcast as well. Both were posted on my site, promoted on Twitter and attendees were notified by the organizer to access them.
The podcasts probably took less than an hour total for me to put together. The benefits of creating them include:
- I kept my promise about the content we announced we were going to deliver;
- Every question was answered;
- People who didn’t attend the event could sample some of it via these podcasts and follow a link to get the archive if they wanted more;
- Approximately 50 people signed up for my newsletter, which they saw after coming to my site for the podcasts.
You can achieve even greater value for your online educational events by applying similar techniques. Be nimble, be creative, and don’t hesitate.
I’m now receiving regular requests for Q&A podcasts from people who didn’t even attend the event. Nice buzz!
You can find all of the podcasts mentioned in this article here.
High Geekery: Two Cool Tools and One Great Process
Here are two tools I’ve learned of recently that are very useful in their own right but even more so when used together.
First up, is UserFly. This service lets you track how someone interacts with your site, down to the level of where their mouse is pointing and how they scroll the page. Each session can be replayed as a movie, making it very easy to see how they used your site. In my experience, viewing real people using your site rapidly identifies numerous improvements. With UserFly, you can do this with anyone coming to your site without scheduling an appointment or them even being aware of it. (Be sure the terms of use on your site covers data collection and analysis.)
Next, is an interface mock-up tool called Balsamiq Mockups. Mockups makes it dead simple to create mock-ups of application interfaces for the desktop or web. This kind of activity is great when determining how to brainstorm interface design before developers code it. This often saves a lot of time and expense because it takes seconds to change the interface in a mock-up while it can take hours after it is actually coded in an application.
Here is how to leverage the two together. Review several UserFly sessions on a critical web application (such as a membership application) with your programmers and designers. Note where users tend to hesitate or generate errors or simply give up. Based on those issues, work together with Mockups to sketch out a new interface that solves those issues. Get agreement right there on the changes you’ll make and then your technical folks can go forth and make it happen. This could dramatically improve key parts of your site while shaving a few weeks off of more traditional processes.
Offerings from David
Webinar Archive Available!
They Built It and We Were There
Is your social network anything but? Do your blog entries draw more crickets than comments? Are you tweetless on Twitter?
If so, purchase the archive of my webinar with Boston Conferencing on how to best achieve participation and member value with association social media programs. This session will zero in on topics such as:
- How you can use social media to engage with members anywhere online, not just on your own site
- How to use social media to create valuable outcomes for members and the organization
- The power of social media when used as a long term engagement strategy
- The top three ways to accidentally kill an online community and the one key requirement for success
Purchase the archived audio and slides here.
New Service
Achieving Breakthrough Results with Social Media
I am launching a new service for membership executives who want to create breakthrough results with social media for their organization and members. You will receive an e-mail announcement about the service next Monday. Stay tuned!
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Comment
March 27, 2009
The Dangerous Seas of Machine Translation
Wes Trochlil pointed me to an article in which he was quoted that has suffered from round trip machine translation. The original article was in English, translated to something else and then back to English in this version. According to the article now, Wes has received his first naval commission, becoming Admiral of Effective Database Management.
Round trip machine translation such as this exaggerates the errors but shows very well why automated translation simply doesn’t cut it for critical content. It’s good enough to get a sense of what the text is about but if your content is important enough to translate for key audiences then it is important enough to do so with qualified human translators. They may be assisted by automated software but still add their critical value to the process.
If this topic is relevant to your web efforts, check out my article Web Design Implications for Translated Web Sites.
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | One Comment
March 26, 2009
Marketing Annual Meetings Webinar Q&A
I gave a webinar presentation about marketing annual meetings on Monday as part of Avectra’s Academy. The full archive of the audio and slides is available for free on the Avectra web site: Marketing Strategies and Tips to Drive Annual Meeting Attendance.
I have also recorded another podcast covering some additional questions from the session that I wasn’t able to cover. I also go back over some questions I thought were particularly important.
Finally, here is a link to Kevin Holland’s post the served as one of the cases I covered in the presentation.
Enjoy!
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Comment
March 25, 2009
Two Resources for You Today
How did it get to be Wednesday already! Fast week.
Here are two resources for your data and social media needs.
First, Wes Trochlil’s book on data management had just been released by ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership this week: Putting Your Data to Work: 52 Tips and Techniques for Effectively Managing Your Database. You can get it in ebook or dead tree versions. If you manage membership data, you should buy this book.
Second, the archive of my webinar on increasing social media participation for associations is now available from Boston Conferencing: They Built It and We Were There: Maximizing Participation in Association Social Media Programs. If you want to increase participation in your social media programs, you should buy the recording. You can hear some free follow-up podcasts on this session here and here.
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | One Comment
March 15, 2009
They Built It and We Were There: More Qs and As
Here is one more podcast following up on the webinar last week about increasing participation in association social media programs. I merged a few similar questions into one. An archive of the program will be available soon and I’ll update this post with a link when I have it.
Here are a few supporting links:
HashTags.org: for tracking hashtags on twitter.
search.twitter.com: main search page for twitter, showing trending topics. Now also rolled into main Twitter interface.
Association People on Twitter: part of the Association Social Media Wiki.
Association Social Media Wiki: great site for seeing who is up to what with social media in the association world.
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | One Comment
March 12, 2009
They Built It and We Were There: The Missing Tapes
We had a great crowd at the webinar today. I spoke about increasing participation with association social media programs. About 100 sites signed on, many of them with teams listening in. We had over 30 questions submitted and I didn’t get through all of the promised content for the session. So, without further ado, here is a podcast of the 3 ways to kill an online community and the one secret to success. (Runtime: 5 minute-ish.)
3 Ways to Kill an Online Community and the 1 Secret to Success [4:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadAlso, Ryan at Boston Conferencing is going to send me the unanswered questions which I will address in another podcast on this blog. Hope to record and post it over the weekend, so stay tuned!
By the way, I am available for keynotes and workshops to address your staff, members, customers and other audiences. Check out the speaking page for more. I’m starting to book out late summer and into fall now.
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Comment
March 9, 2009
Hedging Software as a Service
With marginal (and some formerly healthy!) companies being forced out of existence these days, it’s important to assess any technologies you use as a software as a service (SaaS) model.
The beautiful pro’s of SaaS-based services is that companies and organizations can access technologies and services at an affordable price point, paying monthly rather than massive annual licensing and support agreements. You also avoid needing to run or lease your own hardware for the service. A lot of companies can use tech that wouldn’t be availalbe to them otherwise.
However (you knew that was coming!), there are some risks that are much greater today than when growth was much easier for everyone. The primary risk is: what if the company providing the service goes under or ceases to offer the service you rely on? The more central that service is to your core operations, the higher this risk becomes.
That’s not to say that SaaS is a bad model. It’s a great one for many organizations and situations. Given our current economic environment, it’s good to assess your risk and do what you can to mitigate it.
Here are a few suggestions for minimizing and controlling that risk:
- Back-up your data to your own storage. Your storage should be backed up as well
- Identify other vendors who can potentially step into the breach. If the worst does happen you’ll need to get back up as quickly as you can. Knowing who is out there in advance will save you some valuable time.
- Have a plan. What, precisely would you do if you had one week’s notice? How about no notice? For core services, this kind of disaster planning is critical.
- Talk to your current SaaS provider frequently. Touch base at least once a month to see how things are going. Firms that are going to fail often give some clues before it happens if you are paying attention.
Proper planning and preparation can help hedge your SaaS risk to a great extent. The worst will still impact you but you’ll be able to get back in business much faster than you could otherwise.
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | One Comment
March 6, 2009
Webinar Next Week: They Built It and We Were There
I am leading a webinar with Boston Conferencing next week on social media and associations. The session is titled They Built It and We Were There: Maximizing Participation in Association Social Media Programs. The session will be held at 12 Noon Eastern on Thursday March 12.
Here is an audio summary of the program.
David Gammel's Introduction to They Built It and We Were There [0:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadLots of organizations are experimenting with social media these days. I often hear laments about lack of participation and engagement during early efforts. If that is something you are concerned about then this is the session for you!
Our learning objectives for the session include:
- Top uses of social media to create value for associations and their members
- A clear plan of action for developing and sustaining social media projects
- Key staff and volunteer capabilities for working with social media
- Concrete examples and ideas that you can use immediately
Should be a fun program! For those of you who were following me on Twitter earlier this week, the discussion about cathedrals and bazaars will be a central theme and framing device for our discussion of social media and associations.
I hope you will register for the program and join us online next Thursday!
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | 2 Comments
March 3, 2009
NYT API – FTW!
I saw via Twitter last week (sorry, can’t remember who posted it!) this post about the New York Times Newswire API. In essence, the Times has published an interface with which you can access their latest headlines, including tons of meta data options to slice and dice your query.
This kind of API tends to result in a lot of experimentation and new value in presenting the content available via the system. Twitter’s API is a great example of this.
Pretty innovative stuff. If you are in the business of moving content this is something to check out.
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Comment
+1 (410) 742-9088 | david@highcontext.com
Copyright © 2010 High Context Consulting
Privacy Policy: HCC will never share your information with anyone without your permission.