Archive for the 'Strategy' Category
February 12, 2008
Quoted in Article on Effective Web Site Measurement
I was quoted in an article published by Microsoft Office Oline titled Deciphering your Web site traffic reports: 5 tips. I was interviewed by Christopher Elliott for the article, who does quite a bit of writing on travel and business issues.
Here is the section with my input, discussing how too much data can often be a bad thing:
Focus on the numbers that really matter. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with data, much of which doesn’t apply to your company. “Identify the top two or three statistics that actually allow you to make decisions about your site,” says C. David Gammel, an online media consultant and president of High Context Consulting in Salisbury, Md. “Ignore all the other data.”
Why disregard this wealth of information? Because poring over all the data will create what Gammel calls “analysis paralysis.” And that can detract you from your goal. His advice is to focus only on the metrics that are relevant to your business. For example, rather than obsessing over page views, look at the clicks to your online store and compare them with sales.
You are far more likely to make progress if you measure completion of specific, value producing goals, than simply trying to increase your overall page views and unique visitors.
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February 5, 2008
Internet Disruptions and Global Web Audiences
Several undersea telecommunications cables were cut in the Middle East/South Asia region last week. Networks from Egypt to India were impacted, creating very slow to broken connections. Outsource operations in India were a big concern but the large players had alternate connections available as part of their disaster response.
There has been a lot of speculation as to how the cables were cut and no ships have been identified yet in the areas where the cables were severed. John Robb posted today about how cutting undersea cables is a viable strategy for small groups to execute in a system disruption campaign.
All of which made me think about organizations who address a global audience via their web sites. If Robb is right, this kind of disruption could be become more frequent. If you have a large audience for your site outside your own region, you should consider how to ameliorate this risk in advance.
What could you do? The main thing I can think of is to distribute the hosting of your web sites around the globe, either by maintaining mirrored sites or deploying localized sites in their target regions. Locally deployed sites in key regions would provide you with continued service to those audiences even if they are disconnected from the Internet as a whole for a period of time. This is a non-trivial effort but if serving global audiences is a key part of achieving your goals, it could be a good investment against future disruption and associated losses.
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January 23, 2008
Products or Markets?
Kevin Holland posted last week about his position that associations should be driven by the needs of their market rather than any particular product they produce.
Many association do choose to drive their products and services based on the needs of their market (which are largely their members and others closely associated with them). This is fine and often works quite well.
I would like to make the point, however, that an association could choose to have a particular product or service (or set of products/services) as the driving force for their strategy, addressing any market that values them. Their customers and members would change over time as they find new markets for their core product. The CFA Institute is a good example of what this might look like in practice.
Driving your choice of markets by a particular set of products you produce is as valid a strategy as determining your products/services by the needs of a defined market. Each would lead to very different looking associations but that’s the whole point of strategy: picking a direction and putting it into action.
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November 15, 2007
Unleashing the Strategic Potential of the Web Audio Program and Workbook
I have launched a new downloadable product based on the presentation I gave last week.
Unleashing the Strategic Potential of the Web Audio and Workbook
This includes over an hour of audio from the session plus a workbook with which to develop your organization’s web strategy. I focus on how you can take your organization’s overall strategy and translate it to the web, maximizing the contribution that your site makes to your goals. Learn more here.
Here is a short sample of the audio:
Just for my blog readers, enter ‘blog’ without the quotes into the discount field to save $10 on the purchase price.
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November 9, 2007
Unleashing Web Strategy in Cambridge Maryland
I am presenting this afternoon at the Maryland Non Profits Annual Meeting in Cambridge, Maryland. The session, Unleashing the Strategic Potential of the Web, is about aligning your web strategy with that of the overall organization.
I will introduce several concepts and tools that are useful for defining and creating strategic alignment. We will then walk through the process right in the room. Everyone should leave with a good start on defining how their site should contribute to their overall mission and goals.
I am making an audio recording of the session. Let me know if you are interested and I’ll give you first crack at the audio product when it is ready.
Update: See the store for this now.
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October 19, 2007
When Data Crunches You
My most recent post on the We Have Always Done It That Way blog appears to have made a direct hit on the pitfalls of being too data-oriented: When Data Crunches You. Several comments so far and counting.
My co-authors and I are working on a new edition of the book, which was originally developed via collaboration on the blog. The current edition is available from both Lulu and Amazon if you haven’t read it yet.
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October 1, 2007
What is Web Strategy?
A lot of work I do with clients involves developing a strategy for their web efforts. But what is web strategy?
I picked up one of the better definitions for overall strategy that I have seen from Alan Weiss, who got it from Benjamin Tregoe and John Zimmerman in Top Management Strategy:
“We define strategy as the framework which guides those choices that determine the nature and direction of an organization.” (Page 17.)
The rest of the book discusses the framework they recommend for guiding strategic decisions. They identify 9 strategic areas and suggest that a company has to identify one of them as their driving force, which then determines their markets and products more than any other factor. It is a refreshingly concise yet powerful framework.
So what does this imply for your web strategy?
Tweaking their definition a bit, your web strategy should be a framework for guiding the choices that determine the nature and direction of your web site. It should determine which audiences you are going to address. It should determine which content and service you chose to offer online. And as a framework, it should help you to rationally assess and deal with both opportunities and challenges as they arise.
Ultimately, your web strategy should driven by your overall strategy. If your overall strategy indicates that you will serve certain markets with specific products, your task as a web strategist is to develop supporting strategies to execute that vision online.
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August 29, 2007
Public Relations and Social Media
A question about sample PR policies for social media came across a list I am on. I responded by saying that before writing policies, it’s important to know how you want to engage online and to what purpose. Without that, any policy is going to be irrelevant, at best, or more likely harmful.
I have written a framing device that you can use for yourself, team, or even your Board to discuss at what level your organization wants to and should be engaged in online conversations: Four Levels of Engagement in the Blogosphere.
Here are some questions you can use with the device:
- At what level are we currently?
- What level would best serve our goals and mission?
- What level will our current organizational culture support?
The answers to those questions should get you on solid footing for identifying how you want to engage online.
For more on PR and social media, see this post by Steve Rubel on why the future of PR is participation rather than pitching.
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August 21, 2007
How would you rate your experience with our coat hangers?
I just got an e-mail survey from Starwood Hotels, who wanted to know, in excruciating detail, about my experience at the Annapolis Sheraton two weeks ago.
The survey had over 60 questions. Sixty! I skipped most of them. The only feedback I wanted to give was that the A/C was out in the entire building except for the guest rooms and that the elevator almost stalled out on the way up to my floor. You know, big important items.
Instead, this survey asked 10-point likert scale questions on every possible facet of the room and hotel. They may as well have asked about the coat hangers too. This survey probably has a response rate of less than 1 percent and would generate data only from their guests who are willing to invest an hour filling it out. These people are probably not their desired customers.
Paging Fred Reichheld…
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August 16, 2007
Deep Thoughts from Peter on Associations and Participation
I was at ASAE’s Annual meeting earlier this week in Chicago and did not blog a single thing about it. Lots of others did, though. (An aside: seems like a blog tipping point was reached at this meeting. Very active and diverse blogging going on all over the place.)
Peter Turner has posted an interesting idea based on the Decision to Join report and Jeff De Cagna’s Ungovernance session:
The longer your association waits to implement governance and product development changes that are more “open and inclusive” to the rank and file member, the more likely you can expect to generate lower retention rates or product sales.
Closed ended models of governance and product development in an era of open innovation and product co-creation is THE CANCER in association management today.
Rings true to me. I think that all the excitement about social media in the association space is a direct response to the subconscious feeling that the time tested models aren’t going to work for much longer.
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