TeXt ex machina - Communication strategies for humans.

Notes on OxonDigital: Connecting the Digital Industry in Oxford

Amy — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:19:39 +0000

Language English

OxonDigital started as a small meeting of digital service professionals in Oxford on July 20th this year. With around 15 attendees at the first meeting, the group was very friendly and it was easy to strike up conversations with like-minded people.

After a round of feedback, organiser Daniel Bianchini created a format based on the input of the early members.

Two months later word had gotten out: Turnout at the second meet-up quadrupled! The September event featured two speakers and a larger venue in Oxford. The sponsors of the event, SEOptimise and Zest Digital, funded the room and the first drink for each of the participants.

The talks by Daniel Bianchini and Alex Minchin were quite insightful and the presentations gave a highly practical overview on the basics of Search Engine Optimisation. Both speakers shared their slides:

Alex Minchin: Local SEO Tips
Daniel Bianchini: 10 Basic SEO Tips for Web Designers & Developers

I met a host of lovely professionals and had a great time chatting with like-minded people! It’s well worth the 75-minute commute from Swindon and a fantastic place to meet the community. With a lot of positive feedback after the first two events, this meeting for digital service professionals fills a gap in the local community. So many thanks to Dan and the sponsors for making the event possible!

The OxonDigital group will hold its meet-ups every two months at Copa Bar. There is no membership or attendance fee, but you should register via Eventbrite to reserve your free ticket, name tag and drink for November 23rd. ;)

See you at the next OxonDigital‽

The Two Modes of Content Strategy: Disaster Response & Disaster Prevention

Amy — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:36:26 +0000

Language English

I’ve been following the public debate around content strategy for a while now. Listening to the fantastic advocates and great speakers pushing the debate forward, writing their impressive manifestos… one could come to the conclusion content strategy has already been sold.

I mean this in the best way possible: content is important, content deserves an advocate and a process within Web projects. We got it—so let’s get to work already!

However, on a day-to-day basis, in real situations with real businesses and organisations I often feel like I’m having the same old Web 1.0 conversations. Content still seems to be an «insider issue» at those parties.

When I meet business folks at local networking events, I still encounter many people who are genuinely overwhelmed by the digital challenge. I get to know plenty of people who don’t have a Web site for their business, let alone a digital or content strategy. This seems to be the case even for a lot of design and communication folks out there. Much to my surprise and puzzlement, they get by just fine, or so it seems. Or maybe I’m just going to the wrong kind of parties.

This clash of realities—super sophisticated conversations on one side, an inexperience with digital communication on the other side—to me is like a clash of alternative universes.

I thought about the concepts that may apply to help understand this time and conversation lag. I wanted to solve this disparity without relying too much on the usual early adopters vs. laggards generalisations.

It’s about timing

Looking at the development and adoption of any technology, one cannot overstate the importance of timing. The success of innovative products and technologies relies on timing in all sorts of ways, from inception to execution to market share.

Now that technology caught up with our fragmented lifestyles, the need arises for matching up those lifestyles and our life cycles. Firmly orientated toward pushing the boundaries of our field, experts and thinkers «on the bleeding edge» have a different perspective on what constitutes urgent issues than those who have to take this on board and execute it.

As I look at the business communities I’m part of, it did not take me long to see a familiar pattern. Timing really is everything. We know the distinction between before and after, ex post facto and ex ante from other fields, such as disaster management, economics, and law.

Asymmetry of demand vs. success

Simplifying the matter greatly, one can say that in disaster management there are two distinct operational modes, i.e. contexts in which to think about the management of (large scale) emergencies: disaster response and disaster prevention.

The fundamental difference between the two approaches lays in their relationship with time: prevention happens before disaster strikes; response to an emergency naturally happens when or after an incident occurred.

Notice how this relates to content strategy: Isn’t it peculiar that most of the topics we talk about in user experience and content strategy intend to prevent project or Web «disasters» by ensuring user (and client) success? However, in my experience, the budget to implement content strategy seems to be allocated mostly to sort out and manage projects that have already gone awry.

I will try to compare the two contexts of content strategy and how they tie in with project work as well as illustrate the virtues and limitations of each approach. Of course, these are broad generalisations. Every project will be different and every team may be capable of tackling those issues in different ways.

In any case, the timing of the two approaches will influence their respective potential for success.

Ex post: disaster response

The scenario: Content strategy in a «disaster response» mode is deployed when a project does not perform as expected after launch day. Another scenario would be using content strategy as a means to «sort out» a Web site without being integrated into a larger project, such as a re-design, re-launch or design from scratch.

Some general characteristics that apply to content strategy in disaster response mode include:

Content strategy, as a tool box, is brought in after the fact; it is used as a reaction to some sort of failure or suboptimal performance of a Web property.

The mandate is to «clean up and sort out», to address the most immediate points of failure, and to «make due» with what’s already there or what can be «borrowed» (in terms of resources). This can lead to a focus on «yesterday’s war» and embark on damage control for the disaster you know.

As «disaster» has already struck, for instance a suboptimal launch of a Web site or service, there is the danger of falling into a false sense of security. Having addressed the unintended outcomes of this crisis, one can easily settle in a «this won’t hit us again» frame of mind. Unfortunately, surviving «yesterday’s war» does not prevent other unlucky strikes in the future.

The approach is usually under much more pressure due to constraints in terms of time and budget.

The work of the content strategists starts with a high sense of urgency which usually limits the opportunities for high level «visionary» planning as «damage control» favours a «getting things done quickly»-approach. This doesn’t mean there is no long-term planning. However, it usually isn’t as extensive as planning for the long-haul in advance.

A sense of urgency is not always a bad thing. It can be a great motivator that pulls a team together and puts them «in the same boat». «Good stressors» can encourage people to be more productive.

On the people side of things, acting in this type of environment can lead to unproductive stress and fear. Stress and fear are poor guides for smart choices and experiments are necessary to create better solutions. Attempts at thinking long-term and on aspects of sustainability may be hindered by the high sense of urgency and the need for quick fixes.

Another challenge on the human side is that people tend to start out tired and frustrated. After a project is rushed towards the launch date, all resources would have been mobilised and «all stops pulled». When the success of those efforts are not forthcoming, it adds to the perception that it was a «bad project».

Motivation is key to bringing people on board for necessary chaos control efforts in order to fight the perception that one is «throwing good money after bad».

It really is astonishing how, in some organisations, resources are suddenly freed after a big project went bad; how, like magic, they sometimes appear out of the blue once a crisis (for example, a disastrous Web site) goes «live». Resources are then re-assigned and allocated. Regrettably, this is also the time when people have lost faith in the project. This is unfortunate for the individuals involved, especially as few people ever set out to do a bad job.

This is precisely why I make potential clients (and myself) jump through hoops to find out whether their project is any good in advance. I don’t want to go on impossible missions that are doomed to fail from the start.

From outside our small community, it seems like content strategy is perceived as the last resort. That is, if all else failed, one can maybe look into content strategy as a means to «fix» a Web site or mend a poorly managed project.

From what I’ve seen, this type of thinking currently prevails on the client side. Maybe I’m in the wrong business communities, but I don’t think that’s the case.

Organisations and large technology companies are convinced by the virtues of content strategy. Small businesses and clients, however, still seem to think they can benefit from the digital space with online conversations and without so much as a solid messaging strategy.

Ex ante: disaster prevention

The high art of content strategy is disaster prevention. The holy grail, of course, is client and user happiness. This is currently where most of the professional and interdisciplinary debate is: Improving user experience, customer engagement and businesses by means of smart strategies, editorial processes and prioritisation.

Most content strategists will agree that early integration of content strategy in projects will help to prevent fatal project disasters. In addition, it helps to prepare for the inevitable; we are humans after all. Where humans work together, mistakes will happen. The question is not if errors will occur, but when and how the routines are setup to help people deal with them.

The disaster prevention mode of content strategy operates in a distinctive manner:

Content strategy takes action and control of your Web content and digital publishing routine as a whole. It assumes the basic attitude of health and safety or project management personnel:

Everybody is human. Humans make mistakes. How can we prevent the worst and help to foster resilience while still promoting a productive and efficient work environment?

Notice how this is a much more productive and empowering mind-set (not specific to content strategy). It works with realistic expectations.

Simply starting a venture and hoping for the best is not a healthy attitude to secure success. Planning in a realistic manner for the inevitable is a strategic choice that will pay off in the long-run because it increases the chances of a speedy recovery.

Taking content strategy and project management seriously gets you out of the fight-or-flight mentality. This helps to convey the bigger picture before something unexpected takes over your plans and sets priorities for you. It re-focuses your attention from the urgent pain points to make informed and well-considered decisions rather than fire-fighting the latest issue without a long-term perspective.

At the strategy and planning stage of a project, there is time and ample opportunity to brainstorm, bounce ideas, and test different approaches. This process of questioning traditional ways of doing things, trying out new workflows or testing opportunities to improve on customer experience are best included in the early stages of a project. This takes pressure off people as it establishes a framework of workflows and manages expectations while preventing «thrashing». (Thrashing, according to Seth Godin, is the practice of suddenly starting to change everything when a project comes closer to the finishing line.)

Trying to prevent mistakes and prepare for failure in advance prevents burnout in people because they have a chance to think about the situation before they are required to act.

Given the chance to go through the motions of emergency action in a save environment prior to performing the actions makes people more successful at executing these tasks. This means just by thinking and talking about the emergency scenario and how we would and should react prepares us, to some degree, for the real situation.

Preparedness is the main way to boost resilience. When content strategy is baked-in from the beginning, you are better prepared for when the inevitable happens and disaster strikes. As you are prepared to act, it has less of a negative effect and you’ll find your way back to productivity faster.

A planned approach frees up resources to do new and interesting things. Being prepared for the inevitable lets you allocate resources in the long-run. Preparing editorial routines, content workflows and organisational collaboration for the realities of life leaves you in a position of strength to approach other issues of change management. This allows you to bring other resources to the table to source innovation, creativity and try new things without playing off already overstretched teams and budgets.

Not having to operate under the burden of «getting out fast», you can choose the issues and find creative solutions for your organisational challenges. Those sustainable solutions will be better suited to your individual situation than any «damage control recipes» or advice a crisis manager will dispense when the incident is ongoing.

The lack of urgency (and desperation) allows for a more strategy-driven, business-minded approach to digital communication. You will have the time to have conversations with internal and external stakeholders in a non-defensive, non-accusatory environment.

Finally, content strategy practised as preparation for the good, the bad and the ugly is much more hopeful, pleasant and beneficial for business than the fire-fighting approach.

Conclusions

I feel that the current professional debate surrounding content strategy issues is more hopeful than the client side of the conversation.

I can’t quite shake the feeling that content strategy is not around long enough to be taken seriously by smaller organisations and businesses. They seem to have so much on their plates that we, as content strategy professionals, must work even harder to tend to their needs and communicate our value proposition appropriately.

We should take smaller businesses more seriously, address their situation quickly and find smart solutions for their experiences. Having worked with a number of smaller teams, I find that they are easier to work with in some regards. For instance, they are often more agile, faster to implement advice and easier to manage (as there are fewer stakeholders).

I think we, as the content strategy community, should embrace the small and micro-business community by communicating what properly implemented content strategy has to offer them. (Gabriel Smy did a fantastic job with his blog series on content strategy for small businesses: Small businesses need content strategy like a camel in the night.) The potential for growth, learning and development of our conversations are endless.

Notes from the Consumer Experience Talk by Ian Hughes

Amy — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:39:51 +0000

Language English

On September 13 Ian Hughes, CEO of Consumer Intelligence, gave a highly focused and very instructive presentation on consumer / customer experience. I took some notes and share them here.

In order to build my local network and meet business people in particular, I've been attending several networking events and groups in Wiltshire and Bristol. One of these groups is the Bristol & Bath Marketing Network organised once a month by Martin Wright Associates.

Apart from the networking opportunity, the event always features an expert speaker on an industry topic. This month the talk was on consumer experience, a topic close to my heart.

Consumer Experience talk by Ian Hughes

Event: Talk at the Bristol & Bath Marketing Network, 13. September 2011
Speaker: Ian Hughes of Consumer Intelligence
Slides: Customer Experience via 2011-09 – Customer Experience

Traditional Marketing

Knows 4 groups of people

➔ the ones to be marketing to:

stupid rich
stupid poor

➔ the ones never ever to market to:

smart rich
smart poor

Paradox of Choice

abundance & plethora of choices paralyse people, customers and consumers
people are confronted with a diversity of choices in terms of products / material goods, but: people want experiences

The Responsibility to Deliver Experiences

as business owners, product or service providers we have to take charge of the experience for our customers (accept your responsibility to create an experience for them ➔ accountability)
starting off point for consumer disappointment: (over) PROMISE which does not hold true

The Perfect Experience

Relies on a number of factors/ingredients which are under the control of the business owner / service provider / etc.:

overt benefit(s): Can be one thing that addresses the What’s in it for the customer? / «What’s in it for ME?» question
reason(s) to belief: persuasive and reality-check elements that are verifiable by the customer
- Guarantee: «If I / my service / my product don’t make a significant difference to your business, don’t pay my bill.»
- Logical / simple causation argument: «If you buy my service / my product, this positive thing will happen for you.»
- Pedigree: «We’ve been doing it for 15 years.» «Quality since 1900.»
- Testimonial: «Don’t take my word for it.…» «What other people / our clients / your competitors are saying about us…»
- Trial: let them try your service or product ➔ risk free / minimises the risk
- Be dramatically different! Don’t get into the «me too» business. Offer unique and distinctive experiences.

Concludes with: creating a great experience is supremely British ability ➔ it's what the Brits are great at & it's good for the economy, makes business sense & people happy.

Regus' Survey: Business Use of Social Networks – «A Social Recovery»

Amy — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 11:40:41 +0000

Language English

Two months ago Regus, provider of office space and meeting rooms around the world, published the results of a survey on business use of social media, titled A Social Recovery.

Methodology

For this survey «[o]ver 17,000 business respondents from the Regus global contacts database [were interviewed]». Regus’ worldwide contact database reaches «over 1 million business-people» and «is highly representative of senior managers and owners in businesses across the globe».

The survey participants were interviewed on their «use of business social networks, along with budget allocation to this activity and their performance in the previous year». The study was conducted by Marketing UK in February of this year (p. 16).

The purpose of the study was to shed some light on how businesses use online social networks to facilitate customer relationships, and brand interaction. In addition, Regus asked what resources are allocated to social media engagement and how business-people evaluate the role social media plays for their business.

This survey of over 17,000 senior managers and business owners in 80 countries aims to provide greater insight into the mainly anecdotal understanding of business social networking (p. 5).

☛ Nota bene: context

As with every study, the survey has a certain context in which to interpret the results: from the report itself, it is not evident how the participants were «interviewed». Was a simple questionnaire sent out via e-mail? Were the respondents interviewed by an interviewer in person, or on the phone?

The report also lacks information on how many of the contacts were invited to join the survey (as opposed to how many chose to participate). The report refers to «business social networks» rather than social media and does not specify which concrete platforms are implied. In contrast to personal social networks, the report states:

[B]usiness social networks allow professionals and companies to share with their clients and staff the latest news, initiatives, company results and history or individual CVs. Many networks offer the opportunity to join similar interest groups and post discussion. (p. 10)

The information in the report suggest the following online social networks are covered by the study:

Facebook
Twitter
Renren (a networking site in China)
Orkut (big in Brazil & India)
LinkedIn
Viadeo (based in France)
Ryze
Xing (a professional networking site in Germany)

As with all studies relying on reported data, one has to be aware of the fact that:

there is no fact-checking involved: reported data has to be taken at face value (i.e., there are no reported controls measuring the accuracy of these reports)
selection bias & attrition bias: the global contact database, which gave rise to the sample of survey participants, may very well be representative for the business-people and manager stated. The subsample of people, who decided to respond to the questions, however, may not be. As the respondents chose to participate in the survey (or not), one has to be aware of the self-selection bias in this sample.
For example, it is easy to imagine that the respondents who did submit their answers, were happy to report their «success stories» or «experience» using the latest technologies. By the same token, it’s easy to see people without such experience not responding to the survey invitation at all.

As always, this does not mean the presented results and conclusions are false! It merely means that one has to appreciate the limits of their validity.

Findings

The reports summarises a lot of findings and numbers. I picked a few highlights:

Trends

The online activities of businesses on social networking platforms generate new business:

«We successfully use social networks to find new customers»
	2010	2011
Global average	40%	47%
UK	33%	41%
USA	35%	43%
Germany	41%	52%

In some markets, this engagement is rewarded by substantial new business as a return on the investment:

«Experienced revenue increase in the past year (2010)»
	Companies NOT using social networks to acquire new business	Companies using social networks to acquire new business
Global average	48%	53%
UK	31%	48%
USA	39%	50%
Germany	64%	65%

«Experienced profit increase in the past year (2010)»
	Companies NOT using social networks to acquire new business	Companies using social networks to acquire new business
Global average	39%	44%
UK	25%	40%
USA	32%	43%
Germany	53%	66%

What is interesting to me is the difference in the national/cultural approach to social media: whilst Germany has more respondents reporting that they actively use social networks to acquire new business, the (perceived) benefits of this engagement seem to be much higher in the UK and the USA.

☛ Nota bene: it’s correlation, not causation

It is difficult to attribute general revenue and profit metrics to a single factor. Those bottom line figures are heavily reliant on other contexts. A simple comparison of users of social technologies and non-users, for instance, does not indicate that the more promising numbers are a direct result of social media activities.

For instance, it could simply be that the kind of company that reaches out to their customers on social channels, is also the kind of company that puts a greater value on customer happiness, therefore retaining more customers and generating greater revenues from those happy customers—online and off.

How do businesses use social networks?

The report suggests that long-term customer care and engagement are priority items for companies:

Our research supports anecdotal evidence that the most common use of social media is to keep customers up to date (52%)… (p. 10).

Putting the money where the mouth is

On the budgeting side of things, social media is now considered a full member of the marketing team, with real budgets to back it up:

Although globally 34% of companies devote no budget at all to social networking, 39% have set aside up to 20% of their marketing budget for this activity (p. 11).

«We successfully use social networks to find new customers»
	2010	2011
Global average	40%	47%
UK	33%	41%
USA	35%	43%
Germany	41%	52%

«Country highlights» (p. 15)
	Marketing must now use social networks, to be successful	Companies who only use social networking and online campaigns, and who ignore traditional media / techniques, will find that their campaigns do not work
Global average	74%	61%
UK	66%	61%
USA	69%	64%
Germany	72%	68%

However, this is region-specific as well: fewer than 30% of the UK allocate a growing part of the (marketing) budget for social networking purposes. Whilst considering these activities as important, 41% of the businesses in the UK report not to designate any portion of the marketing budget to cover social networking. In contrast, a third of the companies assign up to 20% of the marketing budget for social media outreach.

This indicates a segmentation of early adopters and half-hearted «us too» participants, afraid to fund the necessary activities in order to reach meaningful levels of maturity and engagement within social media campaigns.

Whilst three quarters of the businesses hold social media in high regard as to the future success of their business pursuits, 61% believe social media is a channel among other marketing instruments. The necessity to integrate social media outreach with other business and marketing activities is in line with a recent study by The New York Times Customer Insights Group, who found that «Getting content shared is just the beginning».

Surprisingly, only two-thirds of participants in the UK saw social networking activities as a crucial marketing tool for future success (the lowest number overall).

The study concludes:

Such is the speed of development that keeping a good blog is now no longer a pleasant addition but a core skill and savvy use of Twitter or Foursquare, for example, can be real differentiators for a business that is active in the social networking arena. While it is not a surprise to see social networking is becoming a more rooted business tool, its take-up is evidently affected by national customs and cultural sensibilities (p. 14).

The Regus blog has an infographic that summarises the main points of the report: 2nd Global Survey of Business Use of Social Media.

Conclusion

Between different countries and cultures, the business approach to leveraging social networking platforms varies to no small extend. However, social media and new ways of interacting with customers online are seen as necessary and beneficial for business. In part, companies back these efforts with funding and real budgets. Fully fledged and successful social media outreach appears to be the club of a minority of the companies who take online communities seriously, though.

I think the numbers show a more positive and open attitude of the business sector towards engaging with customers online. However, these activities do appear to be conducted under the impression of uncertainty and indecision. There seems to be a need for guidance as to how to approach social media in a strategic way that makes business sense.

This demand is a call to action for Web service professionals, who find themselves at the cross-roads to become agents of change for organisations who realise the need to be strategic not only about social media but about a new era of customer engagement: Web Governance: Becoming an Agent of Change

To actually improve user experience in a sustainable way—that is, while achieving business goals—we need to help organizations deal with the revolutionary changes that the web has created in their business models, operational structures, and customer relationships. […]

More specifically, we can’t change organizational culture on our own. That culture is being forced to change by outside forces, so our job as change agents is to help to change working practices so they start to match the organization’s reality. It’s about pointing out risks, shining a light on organizational denial, overcoming resistance, and facilitating constructive discussions about change.

— Jonathan Kahn, A List Apart

Cheat Sheet: Creating a CV with LaTeX & the CurVe Class

Amy — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 16:30:57 +0000

Language English

After writing a few tutorials on how to create a résumé using Didier Verna’s LaTeX document class CurVe, I’ve put together a cheat sheet that demonstrates its basic capabilities.

The cheat sheet shows the document structure and simple adjustments for the main elements that constitute a curriculum vitæ, such as custom bullet points for the lists and changing the standard typeface, in this case to Helvetica.

The cheat sheet does not contain elaborate explanations and goes straight to work. If you prefer a step-by-step tutorial, please have a look at the how-to article: Creating a curriculum vitæ with LaTeX & the CurVe document class.

Enjoy!

Download

Cheat sheet: From blank page to CV with CurVe & \LaTeX – Version 1

TeXt ex Machina Launched!

Amy — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:12:55 +0000

Language English

I shouldn’t write this blog post now, because I've already spent 15 hours with this Web site today. I know that having a Content Management System to serve up this gorgeous experience means that I can go in at any time and fix the content. But it’s not about the content today.

This is about the whole glorious package; it took us over six months to get here. The TeXt ex machina site has been over six months in the making. Every time we thought we had it all planned out, life happened, or business happened or something in-between happened and we didn’t make it to the drawing board or the draft copy or the template stuff.

This is how the smartest, best and most sought after people in the Web community end up with subpar or outdated Web sites for themselves, while building the most amazing Web apps and Web sites for other people. Not that I’m one of these Web heroes…

Meanwhile, life happens, business happens, the in-between stuff happens. You wake up one morning and it’s been a year or two since you’ve updated your portfolio site. It happens.

TeXt ex machina by design

Believe it or not, if you want to get a designer to whip you a little something up… you’d better know what you're asking for. It took me some time to realise what kind of audience I want to reach with this Web site, who the audience for my services is and all the good strategic stuff that I usually do with my clients.

My friend Maria designed this site. I honestly don’t know how she does it, but she’s a super smart designer / developer / mensch, gifted with the patience of a saint and an innate confidence that she’ll get there on any given project.

To be honest, I’m every designer’s worst nightmare: I know exactly what I want and how I want it. Until I don’t. Then I’m just indecisive. Because Maria is a good friend and knows my weakness when faced with uncertainties, I let her decide stuff for me. It was just faster that way. It’s hard for me to form an opinion on things when I don't have any data, or any research, or spontaneous «turquoise & orange are not colours in my world!» gut reaction.

Apart from knowing the kind of site I wanted and the kind of Web things I like, Maria had permission to run wild with Photoshop. This is the result. Spot on, I'd say.

The tour

We have a preliminary About page which includes information about the work I do. There are two very different contact forms: a simple one for sending feedback and contacting me and a more elaborate collaboration request form. This is the starting point for work enquiries, which makes it the «Hire Amy» section of this site.

The red «Contact Amy» panel on the About and the Contact page presents shortcuts to sending me an e-mail and to the TeXt ex machina Twitter account.

You’ll find that the footer as well as the header navigation stays with you across the whole site, including on the error pages. The only exception is the maintenance page you’ll see when the whole site is in maintenance mode.

The footer sidebars repeat the main points to navigate the site, summarise ways to get in touch and point you towards the search function and the RSS feed for the blog. In addition, the «Content» block shows frequently used tags for the blog posts and links to a table of contents which shows the latest entries and most used tags and lets you search the site.

If you click on a tag, you’ll get a page with all the articles that are labelled with this tag.

TeXt ex machina design anatomy

The premise of this site is that Maria and I both wanted to learn something from building it. Maria threw herself into responsive elements and Drupal 7 while I went on a journey of business discovery. We wanted to shoot for iteration and evolutionary design, which is why there are still a lot of features and content ~~missing~~ coming up. We will add to the site in small, incremental changes and revisions, not in a huge and sweeping redesign every six months.

There’s no Amy bio page at the moment, there are no pictures either, and we still have to implement an e-mail subscription option… we know. We’re working on these types of things.

Nevertheless, this is a beautiful, much more viable than minimal, Web site. It’s functional. Please let us know, if it’s not functional somewhere, we’ll go and fix it. Also, I encourage the typo police to find blunders in the copy. I’m German, so language hiccups will happen. That doesn’t mean they have to stay unfixed, though, so please report them.

Maria chose to do a responsive design, because that’s what the ~~cool~~ future-proof kids do these days. We invite you to visit, read and use this Web site on your mobile device. It should look splendid.

The staples of the site are HTML5, CSS3 and Modernizr. Drupal 7 works in the background to manage and deliver the experience.

The Designer-in-Chief chose two typefaces to go with the design:

Eben Sorkin's Merriweather Regular for the body text and
AW Conquerer for the headlines.

The background image «45 degree fabric» by Atle Mo comes from Subtle Patterns. The wonderful icons in the «Connect» footer sidebar and the bullet point arrow for unordered lists are courtesy of the lovely Your Neighbours’ Retro Icon Set.

I like to make informed decisions when considering a project: I clicked together the collaboration request form with the most helpful Webform module to manage project enquiries.

If there are any design details of interest which are not covered here, you can send Maria an e-mail.

Where do we go from here?

That’s pretty much it. :) We’ll collect bugs and glitches this week and will fix those.

Exciting things are on our task lists for the next few months: apart from e-mail subscription options, responsive picture support and a resource section, we want to integrate a few usability features for the longer articles.

The journey is its own reward.

Notes from the Insites Tour 2011 Bristol

Amy — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:02:31 +0000

Language English

Last Wednesday I finally got over myself and registered last-minute for the final leg of the Insites Tour 2011. This Bristol event featured three of my Web heros:

Mike Kus (@mikekus), whose playful and rich Web designs detest the fact that he discovered the Web as his new favourite medium just four years ago.

Elliot Jay Stocks (@elliotjaystocks), whose quirky illustrations capture the personality of a site and who just started a brave new print adventure for the typographically inclined.

Jon Tan (@jontangerine), a typophile and globe-trotter whose advances in Web typography and map-based storytelling make the Web a more beautiful place.

Since I always get lost in Bristol I was so happy to find the Watershed in time. This turned out to be a great venue, taking full advantage of the crazy weather sound effects that we experience last week. ;)

It took me some time to reconcile the fact that these accomplished guys are human beings after all. The realisation got me into productive mode and I started capturing some of the insights the speakers shared during the discussion and interviews. Here are a few of my sketchy notes and take aways from the evening:

Mike Kus

work begets more of the same work, because you build up a reputation in that specific thing
ergo: put stuff into your portfolio that you want to work in / produce more of
showcase your best work in your portfolio
things Mike considers when designing a Web site: (among others)
- personality of a site
- process has to be seamless (for the user)
- flow of use
- user journey
- no tech restrictions
- do something visually interesting with a sites
- visual vs functional aspects

Jon Tan

for any site of substance you have to work with other people
Collaboration is key
Mapalong.com is a personal mnemonic & storytelling service
quality (in Web design) ➔ a long term, close-up thing (multi-layered experience)
example: perception of ebook quality; poorly typeset ebooks ➔ bad experience is associated with the value of the content
familiarity & use over time influence the experience of a Web site
Amygdala (part of the limbic system, i.e. the old, reptile brain, which provides rapid, emotional reactions) understands design / music / … where there is no language
appeal on an emotional level ➔ visceral reaction ➔ one part of a relationship / design experience, the other, rational part is the multi-layered
on (design) manifestos: design is more than selling stuff, i.e. advertising (make design matter!); everybody should have/create their own manifesto about what is important to them (about design)
style = formal
tone = is the emotional side: designers set the tone through the design

Elliot Jay Stock

writing, speaking, embracing the community raise the profile
expressing an opinion raises the profile
getting the name out there through blogging & speaking
speak & blog for yourself
side projects are important
8Faces started out as a side project
giving back to the community is important & fun

The speakers talked about much more and the audience contributed to the conversation by asking further questions. These are just the titbits I managed to type into my phone in between chatting to people, eating pizza and listening to the speakers.

During the goodie give-away I was blessed with a Deploy account which, Insites co-host Keir Whitaker (@keirwhitaker) assured me, will change my life. (I will report on that in time…) As I am usually not lucky when it comes to winning stuff, I was super surprised and look forward to checking the service out. In addition to some delicious pizza & drinks the organisers bestowed gorgeous letterpressed coasters designed by Aaron Robbs (@aaronrobbs) upon the audience.

I met some lovely folks from the Bristol Web community and enjoyed the first instalment of the tour!

New York Times Study: «The Psychology of Sharing. Why Do People Share Online?»

Amy — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:03:55 +0000

Language English

The recently published results of a study conducted by The New York Times Customer Insight Group shed some light on the motivations and intentions to share online content: The Psychology of Sharing. Why Do People Share Online? Content marketeers, Web writers and copywriters are constantly trying to produce «shareable» and noteworthy content.

This is the first study I came across to report results on the motivations of sharing which are based on quantitative as well as qualitative research with a relatively mainstream audience.

Methodology

The NYT CIG set out to research why readers share content online. They conducted ethnographic interviews, user behaviour research and a survey of 2,500 active sharers of content online to uncover the motivation and intention. In addition, they discerned different sharing personas, i.e. different types of sharers.

Context: It’s evolution, not revolution.

Unsurprisingly, the report states that sharing noteworthy information is nothing new. Sharing noteworthy information is an innate aspect of the human condition. The key here: relevant information is shared with friends, family and people we know who might be interested in this particular piece of information.

Sharing online is, however, facilitated by technologies of the Information Age. Sharing Web content online is faster, more immediate, more visible, and disseminated in a more effective and efficient manner. Sharing information online is effortless compared to cutting out paper clippings from a newspaper and posting it to a friend via snail mail. Therefore, online content is more accessible to sharers and gets shared more frequently and in larger quantities.

☛ Nota Bene

It is always good to know the constraints or particular context of such research in order to put the results into perspective. This is not to say that the results are skewed or wrong. But with every scientific approach, one has to be fairly specific in order to get sound results for the scenario that is researched.

I want to stress that the New York Times Customer Insight Group was interested in why people choose to share content and what this means. Consequently, they looked into the behaviour and reasoning of exactly the user groups they were interested in, i.e. the «medium/heavy sharers».

On Web sites which allow user participation the audience will break into user groups with different levels of engagement. The Pareto principle («80/20 rule») and the 90–9–1 rule about participation inequality between audience, editors and creators will apply in those environments. The community around those Web sites is known to divide into Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers (Bradley Horowitz).

The findings will apply in some degree to the online audience at large. However, certain aspects may apply to different user groups in varying degrees. It would be interesting to find out whether the general audience also falls into the typology suggested by this study. It seems likely that there will be additional or different sharing personas amongst the general readership. Or, that there may be a different distribution of users amongst these categories. But this is for another study to find.

Findings

Sharing acts as «information management» & supports the processing and understanding of content.

As expected, sharing an article online often leads to an intensified engagement with the information. For instance, you might add a short description framing the content before you send the link as FYI to a friend or share it on Facebook. This step of reframing or contextualising the content makes you think harder about the presented information than you would by merely reading it (and immediately moving on by clicking on the next best headline).

Motivations for Sharing

It doesn’t come as a surprise either that sharing content online is, as with most social media, about people connecting to other people. There are humans behind the screens, clicks and Likes who are sharing information in order to build, strengthen and support relationships. The study reports five main objectives for sharing Web content:

to delight others with valuable & entertaining content,
to identify and present ourselves to others,
to foster relationships,
for self-fulfillment,
for spreading the word about issues, products & brands.

Bringing valuable & entertaining content to others

People like to share delight and value. Nearly half the surveyed participants (49%) report sharing enables them «to inform others of products they care about and potentially change opinions or encourage action». A large majority, i.e. 94%, state that they «carefully consider how the information they share will be useful to the recipient».

Defining ourselves to others

Sharing content online provides an opportunity to self-identify with issues and it is used to build a reputation and to influence how we are perceived online. In short, it is an outlet to present ourselves as the person we want to be (in the perception of others).

Growing and nourishing our relationships

Again, it's all about the social in media: we want to maintain our relationships with the people we care about. People share in order to (re-)connect with others over common interests. I was surprised by the number of people who report that sharing online content helps them to «stay connected to people they may not otherwise stay in touch with». About 78% of the people state this as a motivation.

This was news to me because I did not really consider information-sharing as an activity to maintain weak ties in a social network. However, thinking about it now, this obviously applies. Whenever experts or authorities start blogging, they often state connecting with their peers or their audiences, and this is one motivating factor. Blogging can be seen as sharing content online on a semi-regular basis, in a more structured environment than «mere sharing» via e-mail, Facebook etc. In this light, disseminating content via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter on a topic-specific basis, becomes the natural first step in sharing information.

Self-fulfillment

Receiving feedback on shared content and contributing to a discussion makes people feel engaged, «valuable» and «more involved in the world».

To get the word out about causes and brands

A staggering 84% of the study participants use sharing as a means «to support causes or issues they care about». This means the tools to share online content enable people to speak out about issues and products, and empower users to contribute to the public debate.

An infographic by Column Five for Get Satisfaction puts this information into a marketing perspective: What Makes People Want to Follow a Brand?

How many brands do they follow on Facebook?

12.01% follow 1 brand,

53.47% follow 2–5 brands,

21.2% follow 5–10 brands,

13.32% follow 10 brands or more.

Typology of online sharers

The study also identified six personae of sharers, i.e. different types of online sharers, based on their

Emotional motivations

Desired presentation of self

Role of sharing in life

Value of being the first to share

Marisa Peacock summarises the six types for CMSWire: The Psychology of Sharing Reveals Motivations, Personas

altruists — mostly female, attached to causes

careerists — focused on job-related information

hipsters — younger altruists and careerists

boomerangs — people who share simply to stir up controversy

connectors — related to careerists

selectives — related to altruists

What this means for your Web content.

The report provides seven concluding suggestions to influence content consumers to share online content:

Appeal to consumers’ motivation to connect with each other — not just with your brand.

Trust is the cost of entry for getting shared.

Keep it simple… and it will get shared… and it won’t get muddled.

Appeal to their sense of humor.

Embrace a sense of urgency.

Getting content shared is just the beginning.

E-mail is still the number one medium used to share online content.

It is evident that content sharing starts with being a trusted source. Becoming a trusted source of information and building a reputation online does not happen overnight. Building trust, a relationship with an audience and a reputation is a resource-intensive undertaking which needs strategic development.

Sharing is facilitated by allowing content to be shared easily (reduce the friction and steps between reading and sharing). This could be accomplished by providing convenient social media and e-mail sharing options with the content.

Finally, the report emphasises the need to take the online conversation seriously: sharing leads to a feedback loop which requires an open and responsive attitude toward your audience.

Conclusions

This substantial research into the «Psychology of Sharing» validates what Web professionals already tell their clients and confirms the underlying assumptions and mental models. However, it is always good to be able to refer to data when making the case for a certain approach.

The role of real human relationships influencing our behaviour online cannot be overstated. The crucial moment of providing relevant content is the cliffhanger for every click we, as the users of Web content, make.

As content producers we are in a position to encourage the audience to share our most valuable asset, i.e. the content we create. If we want people to share our content, we have to make the right thing the easy thing: make it easy to fit a headline in a tweet; provide short URLs and stable permalinks; facilitate proper attribution by clearly displaying the author(s) of a piece, provide context information such as the publishing date, revisions of and updates to an article.

Last but not least, take your audience seriously. If you solicit engagement through share buttons and comment forms, follow through. Read and listen. Respond to feedback and treat your audience as the vital contributor to your success it is.

Source:

The New York Times Customer Insight Group (2011) — The Psychology of Sharing. Why Do People Share Online?

Web Writers Make (or Break) Your Business

Amy — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:08:59 +0000

Language English

Yesterday, I was delighted by a few language-related articles which were featured on the BBC’s News site. One in particular should be music to the ears of Web service professionals everywhere: Spelling mistakes ‘cost millions’ in lost online sales.

The article reports data and deals with issues which we, as an industry, have come to dread: late and lacklustre online content, bad Web copy, and the lack of trust that comes from it.

Here is my take on the problem and why I think professional writers are a must for every business’ Web venture.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

There is a good reason for consulting with a professional Web writer or copyeditor before you go ahead and do something of which you know nothing in terms of expertise.

For instance, the fact that a lot of people are now able to set up a WordPress site does not mean we are suddenly all Designers or Publishers. It does mean, however, that as technologies have progressed, accessible services have become inexpensive and are now widely available. Online technologies are adopted to such an extent that the open-source community is now able to produce a five-minute-installer for an out-of-the-box system that is robust enough to be competently used by the masses.

Good copywriting is a craft.

A literate graduate of secondary or higher education programmes does not, necessarily, a professional writer make.

Writing great copy relies on a specific skill set. Writing quality content for the Web depends on another, very specific, skill set. The craft of writing captivating and logically flowing articles and stories that are error-free requires skills which must be honed through years of experience in order to reliably produce high quality Web content.

Writing quality Web content is a craft. The art of good copy is not a matter of indulging Web teams to spend ever growing budgets. The Web writer is a service professional and a creative solution finder who can tackle the challenges of creating quality Web copy in a reliable manner.

Publisher, and founder of Penguin Books, Sir Allen Lane, addressed similar issues with the words:

…good design is no more expensive than bad.

—Sir Allen Lane

A professional copywriter is able to support your business endeavours by

producing fresh, bespoke & distinguished copy,
crafting content according to your business objectives,
creating effective copy for the specific purpose,
catering to your timeline,
drafting copy in a consistent manner,
writing according to tone, voice & style guidelines, and
finding the right words for the task at hand.

Your second cousin’s neighbour’s video-game-prodigy daughter or the student intern off the street may have the expertise it takes to turn in good copy in a consistent and professional manner. But chances are they don’t. In short, creating good copy is a job for a professional.

So, do yourself a favour and find a good Web writer. It makes everybody happy:

Happy organisations because quality copy makes them look good and trustworthy. Which in turn supports organisational and business goals.
Happy users because they come to your site and find what they are looking for. Fast.
Happy designers because they get sample copy to help them think about a site’s character.
Happy developers because they get sample copy to build a site around.
Happy information architects because they have someone to discuss navigational elements and the taxonomy with.
Happy user experience designers because they have someone to help them design effective user instructions and microcopy.
Happy content strategists because they have content creation partly covered.
Happy marketers because their message is heard and more users want to engage with you.
Happy copywriters because they beautified another Web site.

Good copy is a service.

Apart from maintaining your credibility, a professional Web writer produces quality content with the user's needs in mind. It is a challenge that a copywriter cannot resist!

A professional Web writer knows how to frame content, how to instruct the visitor with the right bits of information at the time, how to help the user get things done and how to support those users accomplish tasks.

If an e-commerce site throws unusable error messages at me during the check-out process, I can try to muddle through until I reach the submit button. Or, I may just leave the site that makes me feel stupid. Nobody forces me to give them my hard earned money.

If I am a S.T.U.P.I.D. user, and I probably am, and if I failed to read your entire three page registration form, thus filling it out incorrectly,… well… if you don’t give me comprehensible feedback messages I can act upon… I have no opportunity to give you my money, however much I might like to.

If you'd asked me personally: I would not put up with that. Knowing I can get the same thing off Amazon or eBay, I’ll probably go there; and get it in one click or so.

Understand this: there are customers out there who want to give you money. Your Web site must not come between you and their money.

Users who come to your Web site looking for information or seeking to complete a specific task appreciate suitable content. They want to get stuff done. A professional Web writer can cater to those user needs. They may even find better words for your obscure menus. They can make your microcopy work harder so the user does not have to. They can evoke a whole brand personality by crafting a Thank you message.

Good copy makes business sense.

In closing, there's money in good copy. Isn't that why we produce it? So, if you want to glean more advertising revenue from increased traffic to your site, avail yourself of the services of a professional and profit from their expertise.

Help the users to trust you. Users want to trust you. It is when they see bad copy or poorly laid out Web sites that they start to question your authority, expertise and credibility. And then they won’t give you their precious payment details and everybody is bound to end up heartbroken and unhappy.

In this article, I use the terms Web content & copy, as well as copywriter & Web writer somewhat synonymously.

Content Strategy Likes Data

Amy — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:55:27 +0000

Language English

I like data. Statistics remedy the fact that bad feelings are sometimes just bad feelings without a real world corollary.
How often do you second-guess yourself in a business context?

«I wouldn’t pay for THAT!»

«I wouldn’t pay THAT!»

«Nobody will buy THIS!»

«There is just no money in the market for THIS!»

Luckily, analytics can help with these types of business questions. Within Web projects, content strategy can then make sure that the worst does not happen and put those bad feelings you have about your service, your product or your idea to rest. Before you set yourself up for failure, that is.

Analytics can help where gut feelings and the expert’s intuition aren’t enough to convince non-experts and decision-makers. Data are a form of insurance for business. And while I do not like to dwell on acronyms and make it all about ROIs, KPIs, CPC and what not… a stack of good data can be a valuable resource when making business decisions. Referring to empirical data is part of a) pursuing business objectives and b) part of the professionalisation of the Web industry.

There’s comfort in knowing that the ground on which we base our decision making process is somewhat tested, proved and, well, measurable. Being a Web site declutterer and content strategist, gathering data about Web sites in light of content strategy serves two main objectives:

It helps me to understand where we are at. What’s our credit? Our daily capacity? Where do people miss out, opt-out, fall-out?
Web statistics support a clear definition of goals and objectives to work toward.

Or, put differently: if we have no idea where we’re at, we won’t know where we’re going, whether it is a worthwhile pursuit and, finally, when we're succeeding.

So, it's not all about the numbers. But, numbers certainly help to paint the bigger picture, collecting all the relevant information about a Web site and putting qualitative research, such as user interviews, into context.

Finally, metrics help to keep an eye on a few clearly defined measurables which are the checks & balances to your digital strategies and hold you or the Web development team accountable. A few data points can provide controls on how your business and communication strategy is doing and gives you valuable feedback.

And, as a last goodie, it is my personal experience that tracking the right kind of data for your business or organisation lets you sleep better at night. ;)