With the falling revenues of dead-tree newspapers (Murdoch’s News Corp newspapers were down from $216m to a mere $7m this year) there’s a rolling dead whale in the publishing industry. Its a time of significant change and whether or not newspapers discover a workable business model, and whether that model involves the same or less revenue than their current expectations, remains to be seen. Naturally, advertising is migrating from television and newspapers onto the web.

Enter the bad ideas… the first of which is to attempt to charge newspaper readers for access to their content. I for one will never bother unless you can lock me out of the word of mouth and sharing aspect of the web community.

Its interesting that another bad idea is on the table as Media Post reports that 37 major websites are getting ready to storm your web experience with bigger, badder online advertising. To get an idea of exactly how large this online advertising will be you should check out the post by Robin Wauters on TechCrunch with relative-sized examples - yes OUCH. Yes, that’s a 418 pixel pushdown (banner advertisement) that rolls up to 66 pixels after five seconds. Close your eyes and imagine the user experience of that banner… perhaps the companies involved feel its a way to overcome the phenomenon of banner blindness by shouting even louder.

My intuitive answer to their question is that detracting from the web experience to shout louder will never work. And I mean never. So if you make bigger advertising that creates further usability obstacles for users, and if they detract from the actual visual design and the ability to find and sort information, then the potential spending consumer will go somewhere else for a better experience. What are needed in this conversation are experience designers like Bill Buxton. Because I don’t see anything in there that pays back for the consumers’ effort. We, the consumer, can go elsewhere, right? And pronto. And for free. That’s a competitive reality of the industry that has to be factored into the advertising business model. How does a company compete with free?

Just as a tip to anyone designing a web advertising business model… find ways of building relationships, loyalty and conversation. If you can get involved in that conversation it will be far more effective than shitting us off with 418 pixel banners. OK so you’re Mercedes Benz, CNN or the New York Times - get over yourself. Stop yelling and listen to those idea guys on the back bench that are coming up with new ideas. The old model has broken.

Bigger advertisements are just shouting louder. You’re wasting your money.

Of all the initiatives coming out of the W3C at the present time this incubator group is one of the most critical to achieving a standardised industry. With standardisation comes the ability to hire someone who has a qualification you can have confidence meets your needs. With standardisation we all receive a wider reach of web standards best practices through the industry which makes our lives a whole lot better, and with improved knowledge and practices entering the field we are going to see higher quality work. Standardisation is critical to improving our ability to provide effective robust and interoperable software via the web without chasing our tails constantly to assert domination over the minions of chaos.

At present, when someone rocks into your offices and says they know a little about making websites you really don’t know at face value whether they’re full of crap or the hidden genius in their mother’s basement. Partly due to the fact most people have been self-training by necessity in this industry, and also because education curriculum issues have involved denial of best practice at worst and often misguidance of best practice at best.

Because when we’re training people to work as web professionals its important to open their eyes to web standards from the beginning. Its important to show the student not only how to get a website up and running but how to do that with industry best practices (rather than just saying it works and shrugging their shoulders). Every time someone is handed a web related qualification that they technically don’t deserve it fundamentally degrades the qualifications out there that are in the hands of students which were well deserved. The goal then is to foster communication and share best practices among education providers to improve that situation.

Further, from an industry perspective, we need to keep approaching education institutions and demanding these specific skillsets. Its not enough to say it should be a certain way anymore… if you’ve got time or an inclination, get involved.

If we create something that looks awesome and beautiful in the eyes of our peers then we run the risk of creating barriers for the user experience. Similarly, in some instances, if we design and create a simple experience for our users then it can be severely undervalued by our peers (and in our portfolio). Because good design is not about looking pretty, or at least not fundamentally about that objective. Good web design, like any design process, should be about effectively balancing and negotiating the various trade-offs so the outcomes achieve the best overall user experience (given the available tools and constraints of the project).

In other words, when you look back at your work it should probably not be judged solely on the graphic design of the interfaces. Dig beneath the abstraction and look at the whole design of the product. It is possible that you have aesthetically beautiful work but it is obviously crap design. A visually spectacular shopping cart that has a fundamental process flaw, or a programming memory leak, or even an accessibility issue, is not a good design. Because good design, first and foremost, should work more effectively than the bad design.

Which brings us to the point, if not as briefly as I intended - customer review is worth a hundred times more than peer review. No, change that to a million times!

While peer review is an essential component it’s not the main objective. When we get more interested in our portfolios than the real objective of creating seamless applications then we’re into dangerous waters. Because who decides whether or not your new application is crap - yes, you got it… customers decide. Users decide. And, truely understanding the designer’s paradox can take your work to the next level.

Finally, what would you consider to be customer review? Do you ask them? You could do that, but I’m not entirely sold on the value of that methodology. My perception is that customers review your product every day by coming back or staying away, through the bottom line of profit and loss. Bums on seats. What is your conversion rate? If you really want to know how your design is working I’d suggest you run to your website stats and look for trends.

As one of the 40 jury picked finalists in this year’s award it was a bit disappointing that another engagement came up on the very same evening. The black and white digital photogaph I entered was of the anti-whaling vessel Steve Irwin when she returned to Hobart in our early Summer, scarred and battered from the controversial collision at sea. So I was up at dawn wandering around in the almost deserted wharf area with the trusty tripod and the Nikon, and the perfect moody sky added to that drama. You can check out the photograph online at my commercial photography and design website Steven Clark Studio; it’s called Waiting is not an option. A Planet without life is just a rock, ask any economist and is released in a limited edition of 10 at the size of 18″ x 12″ unframed. The unframed photograph is priced at AUD$240.

I guess its a case of entering again in 2011 and trying to make it to the exhibition opening. In the meantime, I’d just like to congratulate Cath again on a strong contemporary interpretation of brink. Its about the spaces in things…

In Robert Nyman’s post yesterday on Microsoft’s recent marketing campaigns there was some discussion about their recent flopped strategies. Someone in the comments suggested any PR is good PR, but that’s really an olden-days perspective of marketing. The answer is it depends.

In Microsoft’s case they don’t benefit at all from negative PR exposure. We didn’t improve Internet Explorer market share by hounding them about support for web standards and highlighting developer bugs. In their case it simply isn’t better to be talked about than not talked about. We’re hardly going to forget Office and Windows and Internet Explorer, nor are there many out there who have never heard of them. It would be similar with Google, or other iconic businesses.

However, if you’re a startup with everything to gain and very little to lose then any conversation about you is an opportunity to expose yourself to the potential customer base; an opportunity to grow. Being DUGG for a slight glitch in your cool little new project is going to be an awesome boost for your exposure. Its how you manage from that point forward that will determine your bottom line. In this case, the paradigm holds true that any PR is potentially good PR. But its entirely dependant on your reaction to and management of those onflow effects from that catalyst.

So, the real question underlying that is how do you deal with the conversation? This is where the lean agile business has a real advantage. Own up to your mistakes early and openly, engage the negative PR conversation (which gave you exposure, by the way) and turn that into satisfied customers; use the opportunity to develop relationships between your business and customers as well as provide customers the channels to engage with other customers in uncensored discussion about your business. On that front, your mission amounts to engaging the world view of individual customers. Because if they believe your product is crap, regardless of whether its the best little application they’ve needed since forever, then your product is crap.

What is good and bad about your business exists entirely as a concept within your customers own head. Its critical to understand the importance of that remark. If you want customers to give you money, use your product, then their world view better tell them you’re worth the effort, time or money.

How many people are talking about your product isn’t the issue. The real issue is about bums on seats - how many people are converting, buying-into, adding to your revenue stream? The conversation about your business - whether you call it PR or advertising or promotion - isn’t just about whether people are talking about you. At least not anymore. The important thing is how you manage those relationships and foster those connections once you’ve gained their limited attention.

Ask yourself: What type of business are you in? What are your goals and objectives? How do you measure success and failure quantitatively? And, given those answers, how does this effect the way you manage the world view of your customers?

Let’s face it, customers are going to be talking about you anyway - how do you manage that in a business context?

So what do I mean by relevant? OK, supposing you wrote it, when was that smick article about the best RAM chip in the world published? Three years ago? So, on face value, if I come to your website and read that the best RAM chip in the world is something I now know is a dog then I’ll think you’re an idiot. And if I don’t know but happen to rely on your information and get ripped off then I’ll really think you’re an idiot. Time relevance of information is without argument one of the critical factors for web managers to consider. It provides context, and without context your information is crap.

You can provide time-relevant information in several ways, too. The primary thing you can start doing, if you’re not using software that automatically outputs this, is to visibly publish the date and time the information became available. The second, if its in your control, is to provide it as HTML metadata so that someone can go to your source code and at least find the date published. The third thing you can do is to start cleaning out your old irrelevant information to make a leaner, more information-findable, website.

What does that leaner website offer you? Greater usability for your website users. Less crap to wade through.

If you are the web manager, consider providing a visible date last edited or reviewed for each page in their footers. On a bizarre note, a public service lead web designer argued heavily that this was a throwback that got in the way of the design - her design. Don’t believe that for a second. On an information website your priority is to provide relevant, reliable and findable information. Otherwise your site is crap, because people will think its crap.

Its extremely frustrating when you’re looking for information on the web because a reasonable person should be extremely aware anybody can publish information. We lack editorial process. So the reliability of the information is critical - it comes down to authority. And, you have to admit, if information isn’t findable then you may as well be providing free sausages to the vegan poor.

Ask yourself this when you’re publishing on the web… if someone were to find this worth reading, and they may not (but if they do), then how the hell are they going to know in 2012 that you didn’t just write it two days ago. Imagine this… you’re going for a job as web manager in 2012 and they Google something you are known to have authored or authorised… it says the best financial advice you can give anyone is to support company X… only in the interim company X became unethical and ripped off millions from their consumers. What you need to do is make sure your endorsement, information, timely advice is down on record so everyone understands the context.

In short, your information NEEDS context. Content needs context. Otherwise its crap for users. And who decides whether your website / information / endorsements are crap - too right, users do. Win all the design awards you can muster, get on every showcase that you desire - but users decide your website’s value in their world.

The Sound of Young America: Merlin Mann

We probably all suffer from the inner awareness that we suck, that we’re really imposters and will be discovered oneday and die a lonely death with crap in our pants (pretty much Merlin’s words, not mine). The biggest lesson to learn about life - be OK with the idea that you suck sometimes, and just get started.

If you’ve never heard Merlin Mann’s presentations then you’re in for a treat because his irreverence for the subject matter (aka comedic qualities), and compounded experience in the getting started department, make him almost uniquely engaging as a presenter. How do you get started? Why it may be as simple as accepting that your fingers need to start before your brain will kick in, or that you need to accept you’re never going to know everything before you start something. At some point you’re just going to have to turn off that email client and start writing. There you might just be started.

Whatever you do for a living, I’d recommend you listen to Merlin’s presentation.

Eric Karjaluoto’s essay Sweatpants forever discusses exactly that scenario - big legal firm wants to show they are outside the box but at a pinch they go back to the original designers for another (third of the price) imminent failure.

A lot of companies do just this. They take care of all kinds of things only to get sloppy with their messaging and presentation, thinking that their website or brand can be built by an 18 year old in Romania. Sure, the price may seem attractive, but the true cost is debilitating! If you want to differentiate your company, get ready to invest. It will cost you both in terms of a commitment to your organization and from a monetary standpoint. Then of course, you don’t want to wear those sweatpants forever, do you?Eric Karjaluoto

First and foremost look at your website as a business investment. What are your business goals and objectives? What is your marketing message - your authentic story that compels people to go hear it? What is the site for and what do you consider success or failure? How exactly will that success be measured? In short, you need a plan to achieve the successful website goal just like other business goals. If you pay some kid to punch up a few cheap pages you’re just pissing money into the wind and whinging about the spray. Do this right, invest from your marketing budget, don’t be a cheapskate - and trust a few professionals.

One of the problems is the myth of the industry that anyone can make a website. And as an industry we’ve made instant Content Management Systems and blogging platforms that allow the ordinary folk to put up a website in an hour or three. Even a half decent one. Now listen to this next line - businesses need to understand that with billions of websites out there it is pointless just putting up six pages of second rate rubbish. Every word on the page, every image, everything between the lines needs to be justified against that marketing message and the goals you’ve defined.

If you’re a business with a website I’d like to ask you a question. How much money did your website make you this year? How did you measure it? And, how much do you forecast it will make in the next year?

If you aren’t able to answer those questions then you probably don’t have a business website. I’d guess if you have a website you skimped. I’d guess if you hired a high school kid you didn’t make a cent from it.

Now let’s flip that on its head… what if someone told you that although there was risk you could substantially improve your bottom line if you invested in your online marketing strategy to specifically target certain people who have money and are interested in your product? You’d be an idiot not to invest, right? Right.

The worth of websites generally correlates, but not guaranteed to correlate, to the money and experience invested in achieving those business goals. In short, if you invest in research and development then you will possibly make money. If you fail to invest then you will nearly NEVER make money. And if your competitors do it right and you do it wrong then you’ve just got one hell of a lot of piss spray over the whole front of your business - you’ve lost the ballgame.

Let’s stop thinking this is an industry primarily about pretty pictures, or price, or content management. Business websites are about return on investment / wealth generation / specific strategies to achieve specific goals against measurable objectives.

It’s like doing business from a lemonade stand versus trading from a boutique salon.

I’ve run into this issue several times, and one time from a large multinational - directive from management, use Creative Commons photography instead of stock. I mean WTF is that decision about? What is the price of web quality stock anyway?

First, ignorance is no excuse when the original owner tracks your sorry arse down as the web designer - all roads lead to your office. Second, if you touch Creative Commons work commercially be prepared to prove you took every step to discover whether this photograph belonged to the Flickr account owner and that they owned the rights. Third, if they are the owner and they do allow this image used then READ THE CONDITIONS because Creative Commons licensing doesn’t mean free as in beer and they do retain copyright. Fourth, for the tiny sum you may save getting a photo of any quality on Flickr that suits your project you will never be 100% sure of it’s pedigree or potential business damage. Don’t take risks.

Advice. Buy a high quality camera, or hire a high quality photographer. If you’re not willing to invest in your product why would any customer want to give you money - are you worth it? If you have to use stock photography, use high quality reputable services and read the terms and conditions carefully. Consider the impact that common stock photos can have when they appear on other websites, thus watering down your brand. If you don’t believe in yourself why would anyone believe in you in return?

Your images aren’t just window dressing - invest and nurture an appreciation for them. Don’t risk litigation EVER. Doing Creative Commons on commercial projects can break you, so why risk it? That’s the way amateurs do their work, you’re better than that. Believe in yourself.

The kind of boss who has this expectation is exactly the one’s my bastard-radar picks up early nowdays, but I learned the hard way. The boss who doesn’t get this can be a tyrant and no matter how far you bend over backwards for them they’re going to give you grief. Worse, they’ll end up giving you bad word of mouth and causing all sorts of damage… usually their initial phone introduction begins… “I just fired the last guy because he’s an idiot”.

If you hear those words from a prospect employer, just cut the phonecall and you’ve lost nothing. The idiot they’re referring to is probably some schmuck who made a mistake because of constant pressure to provide large amounts of work, of high quality, and pronto. You can bet that handing over lots of work fast is going to mean your code is untested.

The question is probably which two do you provide in your business?

• high quantity of work at high quality of professionalism, but it takes time
• low quantity of work at high quality produced reasonably fast
• high quantity of work at low quality and provided fast

Fast isn’t an elastic band flying toy you can choose to provide or not provide; fast comes at a cost. So does quantity and quality. It’s a trade-off. But you probably already know that much, you just need the shove to get you thinking about it again. One thing I’ve noticed over the last few years is that the more anyone pressures me to push the limits past two of those, then the more my head tries to buckle and my life turns to mud and shit. And, critically, the more likely I’ll be handing over a whole bunch of untested crap (which they’ll expect is perfection guaranteed).

And, take it from me, if they ask you to provide all three at half the price because they have a prospect in India - hey there’s one line to cut and paste for those honcho bastards…

[ Go fuck yourselves you cheap ignorant bastards! ]

Quantity, quality, speed - which one do you trade-off? And have you ever just told the bastards to go fuck themselves? Oddly, such a manager does feel a little miffed and wonders why you don’t like them. You might feel a little bad. But just console yourself that they never dragged you deep enough to wreck your business… it happens.