Circle 44 by DigiKnow

W³ Awards Recognize DigiKnow

2008-11-10T10:35:18-05:00

Received a nice piece of email recently from the W³ Awards recognizing DigiKnow for its work for Ohio Tourism Division. Seems our redesign of DiscoverOhio.com picked up a Silver Award in the international competition.

The W³ Awards honors creative excellence on the Web, and recognizes the creative and marketing professionals behind award winning Websites, Web Video and Online Marketing programs.

The W³ Awards is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a "Who's Who" of acclaimed media, advertising, and marketing firms.

Online Communities: Build, Buy or Steal

2008-10-31T14:21:05-04:00

Everyone is clamoring to build an online community today. Not only is it the marketing technique of the year, it is also a very effective way to strengthen your products and grow your business. The question is where do you start, how do you grow and what do you do with your critical mass once you have it. As the title of this post implies, there are a many ways to grow your community, some more appropriate than others.

This whole post was triggered by the recent events by SpeedDate.com. If you haven't heard (or had it happen to you), SpeedDate has been buying Facebook applications from various developers over the past few months and "stealing" their members over to SpeedDate. Last week, they bought and took over an app called Oregon Trail (You remember, the game on your Apple II or Commodore 64 where you leading a wagon train across the United States). To me, this is worse than a traditional bait and switch. You've signed up for a fun game...reminiscing back to your childhood...and then BAM, you now have a dating application on your profile (and your wife is asking why). Even though SpeedDate has over 500,000 users, I'll be watching to see if any of this negative press hurts their existing community.

Ok, so we've established that stealing members is just wrong, but what about buying members. This is a little more gray because of the many ways you can "buy" a community member. If you are thinking about promoting your community though a contest or promotion, be aware of the downsides to this approach. The majority of your new members are only interested in the prize you are offering, not long term benefits. That being said, you will get some new members that will stick around, become loyal participants and even brand advocates. These true gains need to be measured against promotional costs, not the superficial total registration count.

That leaves us with the build option. Of course this is the best option, but it is the most difficult. Not only do you need to create an environment that adds value to the member's experience, you need to promote this community and spread the word of your offerings. I'd recommend starting the promotion process with your own employees. Hopefully they are your biggest brand advocates and you can use their stature in social networks to start establishing your community. If you are creating a new site, have your employees link to it from their blogs and network profiles. If you are creating an area on an existing network, have your employees join in. Using what you have and people you know is a great place to start.

Best practices and techniques will continue to evolve, but being up front and transparent with your potential community members is the best way to create a good reputation and continue to build a strong online brand.

Listen, Listen, Listen

2008-09-26T15:04:13-04:00

Today a series of events triggered me to share a little bit about one company's ability to serve its customers, rather than just serving itself. LEGO has been a favorite toy of children for over 50 years. From their home in Denmark, the little plastic bricks have traveled around the world. Because of the longevity and popularity of the LEGO bricks, not only are they popular with kids, but they are very popular with adults too. In fact, in a February 2008 press conference Lego CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp estimated that 20% of Lego sales come from adults.

Today's event was the release of the Castle Advent Calendar and while the product seems interesting, the story is how it came to be released is the real story. As with many international companies, the products LEGO sells vary by country. Frequently LEGO will release a product in one location before others and then expand the release. This calendar set was announced to be Europe-only in early September and the AFOL (Adult Fans of Lego) in the US and elsewhere were distraught that they were missing out.

In addition to standard ways that fans cry out to a company (blogs, forums, email), fans had another unique channel setup by Lego earlier this year, Ambassadors. Many brands have official advocates and/or VIP customers, but as with almost everything they do, LEGO went about selecting their advocates in a unique and better way, they let the fans select their “representatives”. Each of the approximately 10 US fan websites (and many international sites) was able to nominate their slate of ambassadors and in June, LEGO announced the 2008-2009 Lego Ambassadors.

All of this came together yesterday when LEGO announced that they heard the fans outcry and are releasing the set to North America (sorry rest of the world). Since LEGO was still resisting a full release of the product, they provided a special product code and phone number for US and Canadian fans via popular LEGO website Brothers Brick.

So how can you apply this to your business? Though most of us don't have a fan-base that is dying for our product, we do have customers who want to be heard. My advice:

Build a the best product in your category
Establish liaisons selected by the community
Listen and react when the community speaks
Use the community’s tools to respond back them

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site. You can visit the official LEGO® website at www.LEGO.com.

(On top of listening to fans, Lego is very straight forward in how to use and not use their name, logos and other intellectual property with their Fair Play policy)

Play Well!

Technorati Tags: lego,customer service,liaison,ambassador,vip,digiknow,scott chapin

A Good Idea: It's All in the Timing

2008-09-09T15:56:47-04:00

A library of 1000's of albums. Listening to free music samples before you buy. One click music purchase. Sound great? Sounds like iTunes? Well, I'm actually describing MCI's 1-800-MUSIC-NOW service. I was cleaning my attic and came a cross a compilation of articles from the Washington Post in 1996. I figured I'd leaf through it before recycling it and it fell open to an article about MCI's service. For those that don't remember (since it only lasted about a year), the service allowed you to call 1-800-MUSIC-NOW, enter an artist's name and sample the album. If you already had an account setup, you just pushed a button and the CD arrived at your front door in a few days. How simple. How convenient. What a failure. MCI recognized an opportunity to both make themselves more than a phone company and address a potential market need, but sampling over the phone and waiting for physical shipping just weren't what people needed. Five years later, facilitated by the tremendous growth of the Net, Apple introduced iTunes and changed the way we buy music.

I think often about some of the innovations that DigiKnow has been a part of, several of which were built before their time. Most near and dear to my heart are some of the projects we envisioned for the Cleveland Indians, back in the days before MLBAM.

Live Blogging - In 1996, before we were even familiar with the term blogging, DigiKnow staffers provided a text-based play-by-play "Cybercast" of every Indians game so out-of-market fans with no TV or radio access could be a part of the game as it happened.
Subscription-based Audio/Video - In 1998, the next evolution from text was to audio and video for out-of-market fans, called IndiansXtra. This subscription-based service allowed fans to listen to live audio feeds and get immediate post-game video highlights.
View from Your Seat - In 1999, we added a seat viewer function to allow ticket holders and interested buyers to checkout what the view looked like from every section in the stadium.
Ticket Exchange - In 2000, we built what may have been the first online ticket exchange. This system allowed season ticket holders to put tickets up for sale to other season ticket holders (at face value).

So what happened to all these great systems?

Live Blogging - As Java/Flash replaced good ol' HTML, the written version was replaced by visual play-by-play we see today.
Subscription-based Audio/Video - Although there were hundreds of dedicated fans getting their audio and video, there wasn't the critical mass necessary to sustain the service. Today, MLB TV and their other audio/video products are wildly successful.
View from Your Seat - Just about every stadium in the country now has some kind of view from the seats. Basic images are starting to give way to 3D renderings and video from your seat, but the concept remains generally unchanged.
Ticket Exchange - Unfortunately, the system never took off for the Indians. Today between Ticketmaster, StubHub and others, you can buy and sell seats for almost any event through a secondary market.

With all that, is a good idea still good if it is ahead of its time? My short answer is no. A good idea must bring value to the market and if there is no buyer for a service, then there is no value. But yesterday's failure can be tomorrow's success, so stop and think about an idea from the past could be redeveloped today.

Technorati Tags: innovation,good idea,mlb,live blogging,mci,itunes,digiknow,scott chapin

Labor Pains

2008-08-28T01:09:03-04:00

Back in February, I wrote a blog post for Valentine's Day about some of the things I loved about the Internet. At the end of that post I said there were many things that are still harder to do online than they should be, and I suggested that might make a good Labor Day post.

Well, here we are. Where the heck did the spring and summer go?

With Labor Day just around the corner, here's a list of a few things I'm still working too hard for. In no particular order...

- By default, make all thumbnail preview images clickable to the larger view. Even if you include a text link to click to the full image, for gosh sake, make the photo clickable as well. That should just be Web law. Moving that mouse around more than I need to makes me tired.

- I may be the only person on the planet who feels this way, but the Flickr.com interface should be simpler. The site has some very nice features, but I feel like I'm always clicking on one thing expecting something else will happen. I could provide specific examples to illustrate my point, but it would take too much effort to do that.

- Don't use false or misleading claims to get me to buy anything. Period. Last week I downloaded a demo version of some software I needed, and after testing it out I decided to buy it. The order form clearly stated "Access Code Emailed Instantly", which was cool because I needed the full working version, well... instantly. But did I get an access code emailed instantly? No. Upon completing the transaction, I received a confirmation email stating the access code would be emailed within a couple hours. I did get the access code in about 30 minutes, but by that time I had already written and sent an email pointing out the error of their ways. And writing that email made me work entirely too hard.

- I'm happy to see some of the improved functionality in LinkedIn.com groups, but the whole pre-approval process and sending out invitations could be streamlined. Do I really need to open a separate email program to send invites? Time is money, people. I need 12 hours of sleep and a bowl of Wheaties just thinking about it.

- Stop creating spiffy Flash animations with navigation elements that move away when I want to click on them. You all know what I'm talking about. When I'm in the mood for hide and seek I'll have my people call my kids' people. Enough said.

- Don't even think about catching my attention with an online ad and then pulling a generic home page dump-off on me, especially if the ad doesn't relate directly to something on that home page. This is like stopping by Victoria's Secret at the mall because I saw sexy nighties (hubba-hubba) in a commercial and the sales associate directs me to the mall entrance. Sorry, I'm interested, but not THAT interested.

- Don't make me sign up for one of YOUR email accounts for the privilege of using YOUR service. I understand why Yahoo, Google, etc. does this, but I still find it annoying. I'll sign up for additional email accounts when I want them, thank you. Simplify. Simplify.

- Stop using underlines to emphasize words or as a typographic style choice. Sorry, but they still look like text links. I know, this sounds like a rant from 1998, but old habits die hard.

- Kudos to Nintendo for the backwards compatibility of the Wii, the resourcefulness of the "Wii Shop" channel, and their very social implementation of the "Everybody Votes" and "Check Mii Out" channels. I'm not much of a gamer -- so correct me if I missed something -- but is there any reason I can't connect to the same site(s) from a regular old computer? Do I always have to go through the Wii? Shouldn't I be able to log in to my Nintendo.com account through the Web and do the same things?

- Don't get me all hyped up about your Internet startup, jumping on the bus along with hundreds of thousands of other hopefuls, only to find out your operation is under-capitalized and doesn't have the technical infrastructure to support even a modest level of success. I'm working wicked too hard if while using your service, I have to sit waiting for your servers to respond and, even then, getting an "over capacity" error message.

Well, that's it -- in honor of Labor Day, a handful of things I shouldn't have to work so hard at (and neither should you) on the Internet. I could go on, but that would require more effort than I'm willing to expend. If you have any other pet peeves, feel free to pile on. I'd enjoy hearing from you, and I'll even make an effort to respond.

Book Review: Predictably Irrational

2008-08-25T10:17:27-04:00

I realized as I finished reading Predictably Irrational (Dan Ariely) that it's has been a long time since I've shared a book review on this blog. It isn't that I've stopped reading, more that I've gotten lazy in sharing. Some great books I've read recently and would recommend are: How Now Shall We Live? [Chuck Colson], I Am America (And So Can You!) [Stephen Colbert] and Super Crunchers [Ian Ayres]. These are more tied to my personal interests, but they are all a great read.

Predictably Irrational kept coming up on some blog/podcasts that I read/listen to so I figured I better grab it and check it out for myself. The book is an amazing set of studies and research diving into the fact that we make a lot of decisions in an illogical fashion, but somehow we are extremely regular in our bad decision making.

It is hard to pick a favorite example of this, but one of the most obvious is the concept of "free". We all know that people love free stuff, but the extent to which this is true is amazing. In their experiment, they offered a Hershey kiss (so-so chocolate) for free and a Lindt truffle (quality chocolate) for $0.14. 69% of the participants went for the free item, even though the truffle was a much greater discount/value. (Of course read the book for the full experiment and analysis).

While this is interesting, the crazy part for me is that even though I just read the book explaining how irrational our decision-making can be, when I got a coupon for a free pop at the local gas station, I took it with full intention to use it. Then even after I talked to my wife about this book and the fact that there is no way I'd stop if they were offering me $0.69 in cash (the value of the coupon), I still will probably stop to get my free pop. Completely irrational!!

How can we use this as marketers? Just remember that traditional economics and pure supply & demand doesn't cover this kind of irrational behavior. We all make illogical decisions on impulse or as part of larger patters and marketers need to be on the front end of these decisions to connect and keep our predictably irrational customers using our products over the competition.

Technorati Tags: Predictably Irrational,Dan Ariely,social economics,free,scott chapin,digiknow

Agency Web Development - A Primer (Part 2)

2008-08-15T10:15:00-04:00

Over the past 15 years, websites have grown from single page sites to robust marketing applications. With that evolution, the processes needed and the people involved to create a successful website have grown tremendously. In part one of this series, I reviewed the people involved in building a website. Today I'll review the processes typically encountered when working with an interactive agency to develop a website.

Building a successful website requires planning and preparation before development begins. While the exact steps will vary between agencies, the overall approach and general deliverables should be based on industry best practices and business needs. In addition to development of the website itself, an interactive agency will help guide drive traffic to it and create a more comprehensive digital presence for them including search, banner ads, rich media, social marketing etc?

Setting a Vision
The first step in developing a proper website is reviewing and solidifying the purpose of your online presence. When working with an agency, this process starts with interviews of the key stakeholders, both internal and external. During and after the interview period, analysis on the successes and challenges on the current website should be analyzed. This happens through website analytics, focus group testing plus general content and structure analysis. The final step in the discovery process is market research, identifying the company’s position in the online space through surveys, focus groups and market position comparisons. The work done in this discovery phase is run by the analysts with support from other team members.
With the discovery process complete, strategies and recommendations can be set. In the visioning stage, the strategies are developed ranging from operational needs to audience engagement plans. These strategies are technology independent allowing them to be used to drive the current project, but also establishing guiding principles for future growth and development. Goals and objectives along with the website’s target audience profiles are used to drive the features and functionality needed to achieve the goals. This strategic roadmap is developed by analysts and key client contacts.

Planning the Details
With a long-term and project-specific vision established, the detailing process can now begin. Detailed planning starts with the analyst, user interface designer and client, working together to establish a site map for the pages and components that will be used to construct the website. Using this architecture, the project manager supported by the analyst, can begin to develop the detailed business documentation, the Functional Specifications document. This document outlines the user experience, including processes and assumptions, and drives the development of wireframes by the user interface designer. Systems engineers along with the application developers and database administrators develop the technical documentation to drive custom development, software selection and application integration. Throughout the planning process, the account executive keeps the client updated and reviews progress regularly. The planning process also covers solutions to drive traffic and create a more comprehensive digital presence including search, online advertising and social marketing.

Executing the Plan
Once detailed plans are completed, development begins. Driven by the documentation and led by the project manager, the project team comes together to construct the solution to a client’s online needs. The graphic designer and CSS specialist work together to design and optimize templates pages including the home page and other key site pages. In a parallel path, application developers and database administrators begin to develop the framework for the website’s code-base. The designs, custom coding and third-party applications are integrated into the site by the CSS specialists and developers. During the process, the quality assurance specialist tests individual components, and as the site nears completion, it is moved to a staging server for robust testing. When testing is complete and client sign-off has been received, the site is moved to the production server for use by the public.

Agency Web Development - A Primer

2008-08-06T10:12:00-04:00

Over the past 15 years, websites have grown from single page sites to robust marketing applications. With that evolution, the processes needed and the people involved to create a successful website have grown tremendously. In this two part series, I'll review the people and the processes typically encountered when working with an interactive agency to develop a website.

While the individual titles and roles in any organization will vary, the skills required to develop a website are universal. Because projects vary in size, multiple roles may be held by a single person, but for a robust website development, all the roles are represented.

Analyst - The analyst approaches a development project from the highest level. With years of experience in the online world, the analyst looks at the overall situation and helps to develop a comprehensive strategy for the website and any related applications or marketing efforts. Other common terms for an analyst are consultant or architect.

Account Executive (AE) - The account executive is the primary contact point between the agency and the client. The AE brings the project team and the client together, identifying business needs and project goals, leading to a solution that can be developed into a new online application or website. Account executives are frequently supported by account coordinators (AC). Another common term for an account executive is account manager (AM).

Project Manager (PM) - The project manager is responsible for the day-to-day details of the project development. A PM builds the detailed project plans, and then oversees the execution of the plan, coordinating the activities of the project team, monitoring the project timeline and tracking expenses against the project budget.

User Interface Designer - The user interface designer develops the skeletal structure of a website to best facilitate user interaction and encourage desirable user behavior. The user interface designer works in close collaboration with the client, graphic designers and application developers to deliver a solution that meets client objectives while satisfying user expectations. Another common term for a user interface designer is user experience designer.

Graphic Designer - A graphic designer creates the look and feel of a website, taking into consideration the branding and marketing needs, along with accessibility considerations. Another common term for a graphic designer is interactive designer.

CSS Specialist - A CSS specialist takes the completed designs produced by the graphic designer and optimizes them for use on the web through XHTML and CSS. These pages serve as the templates for all public facing pages on a website. Other common terms for a CSS specialist are front-end developer, html producer, production developer and content developer.

Systems Engineer - A systems engineer develops the technical documentation for a project and oversees the detailed execution of the technical plans. Other common terms for an application developer are technical project manager and systems analyst.
Database Administrator (DBA) - The database administrator designs the architecture of the website’s database and builds the procedures that are used to create, update and retrieve data from the database.

Application Developer - An application developer programs the code that connects the database to the front-end templates. Developers handle custom development of new solutions and integration between off-the-shelf solutions and the designed page templates. Other common terms for an application developer are programmer and software engineer.

Quality Assurance Specialist - A quality assurance (QA) specialist is responsible for reviewing the project’s documentation and testing of all website components for errors and inconsistencies. These tests range from usability to code validation.

Many other roles such as copywriting, multimedia development or media buying may also be involved in some projects. The list above focuses on the core requirements of any project.

In part 2, I'll review the typical process from planning through execution.

How Alive is Your Website?

2008-07-31T16:52:55-04:00

If a visitor came to your website today, would they know if your site is current? Would they be able to guess at how many visits you get on a daily basis? Would they know they aren't alone?

I've talked at length in the past about growing traffic through search and email, improving your site experience through optimization, and I realized I haven't really talked about the personality of your site. I'm not talking about the tone of the content or the design of the pages. I'm asking does a new visitor know they aren't your first customer and does a return visitor gain new value from each visit.

I've been thinking about what I'll call "website death" over the past week and I wanted to share some ideas to cheat death when it comes to your visitor's experience.

1. Keep your content fresh and accurate

The first (and probably easiest) step is to keep your content current. This means updating content, creating new content and maybe most critically, removing old content. If you wrote a great case study in 2005 and want to keep it on the site, make sure you check the content for dates or other indicators of its age (outdated processes, technologies, etc).

2. Let your visitors add value

Allowing visitors to share their options on products is good way to help your site become more "alive". Seeing user comments and ratings shows that I'm not the first visitor and that people are passionate about your products. If you don't sell a product, you can still allow comments on news articles or the company blog you've been thinking about starting.

3. Let them make your website

Once you've let your customers add to your content, why not let them make their own. While being the next YouTube or Wikipedia may not be in your corporate plans, allowing customers upload solutions done with your products or share stories not only makes your site more alive, it validates and increases your brand's awareness in the market.

When a visitor comes to your site, there should be no question that your brand is surrounded by a vibrant community of customers (or even employees). Think about how you are perceived today and start making the small adjustments to keep the your site's pulse strong.

Technorati Tags: dead or alive,fresh content,user generated content,website death,scott chapin,digiknow

Improve Your Website on a Budget: Usability

2008-06-27T13:15:09-04:00

There are countless tools available to make incremental improvements to your website ranging from free to thousands of dollars per year. I'm taking a look at five categories of tools and presenting some low-cost starter options as well as how to take it to the next level. We've looked at external research, content optimization, SEO and web analytics tools. Today, we wrap up this series with usability.

Part 5: Usability

User-interface design and usability are frequently overlooked in web design projects because they seem overwhelming and expensive. While it is true that you could spend $10,000+ on a usability lab, participants and analysis, for most, that is not required or even the best approach.

As with almost all of the topics I've discussed in this series, I recommend starting small. Certainly you personally are doing some usability testing when you review a design or prototype. Unfortunately, if you've been working on or with the project for more than a few days, you area already too deep into the forest to be objective. To solve this, grab a co-worker or better yet, your spouse or children. Have them take a look and get some feedback.

From there, you can get a little more refined and have actual system users (customers, clients, etc.) use the site and provide their feedback in a comparable format. Give them a task and ask about their experience (easy, hard, etc) and also ask if they had any challenges along the way.

Finally, if you don't think their feedback is detailed enough, watch them perform your tasks and YOU record their actions. The ideal setting is one where they are comfortable (not a stark conference room), but use what you have. Take all this feedback into consideration as you update the design and user interface for the website.

There are a few websites that offer user interaction logging where every mouse movement is tracked for playback. ClickTale and CrazyEgg are two of these sites and they both will allow you to use the service for free up to a certain threshold.

Thank you for joining me over the past month to look at ways to improve your website on a budget. Tools will change, but these five areas will continue to be key focus areas for website improvement.