by jbreazeale on February 25, 2010
Via loop_oh on flickr
Are you open for business?
Every day I walk past vacant restaurants and half-empty shops, “victims” of the recession, of tough economic times, of changing priorities and values. Well, to all of that I say “Hooey!”*
*Yes, apparently I’ve turned into a cranky octogenarian.
For every restaurant that has seen its customers dwindle away, there’s another one out there welcoming them in. Offering specials that are amazing to the palate and sensitive on the wallet. Getting out of the kitchen to talk with (and listen to) their customers. Taking advantage of opportunities to try something new or to partner with like-minded businesses. Yes, some of them are using technology (newsletters, Twitter, Facebook), but that’s only a piece of the puzzle.
Think about it. What do your customers want? Not what they need, what they want. I need to eat breakfast, I want to eat my favorite breakfast burrito from Udi’s.
How can you let them know that:
You have what they want.
Menus are helpful. Menus with detailed descriptions are more helpful. Menus with detailed descriptions, plus pictures, plus write-ups from you and your customers are the most helpful.
You will help them get what they want.
How many obstacles do you place in your customer’s path? Can they easily find out where you are? When you’re open? If you’re kid-friendly/vegan/gluten-free/etc… (Hint: Communicate, communicate, communicate.)
They will feel confident and successful during (and after) this process.
What? Is talking about your customers’ feelings too woo-woo* for you? Remember how you felt ordering the first time at Starbucks? (or insert your favorite coffee shop here.) After countless visits, you now feel comfortable and confident.
*Note to self: try “too woo-woo” phrase with 3 yr old daughter tomorrow. Take bets whether I get fits of toddler giggles or the scarily pre-teen eye roll.
Most people will continue to frequent those places where they’ve learned the routine and know what to expect because it’s more comfortable knowing your expectations will be met than taking a risk on something new that might be a disappointment. No one goes to the Red Lobster in Times Square because they want great seafood.
Although, I’d recommend starting with the first two steps, don’t underestimate the importance of this final element. If you’re customers are buying a product/service that they want and feel good about buying (not just the product, the whole experience), you’ve just put yourself miles ahead of your competition. Now “I want a hot dog.” becomes “I want to go to Steve’s Snappin’ Dogs” or “Let’s go out for brunch.” becomes “Let’s go to Satchel’s.”
So, let’s say our farewell to those businesses that have been “victims” of these “tough economic times” and a hearty hello to those who continue to give us what we want while putting a smile on our face.*
*You know what I meant. Get your mind out of the gutter.
What do you think? What are examples, good and bad, that you’ve seen lately?
by jbreazeale on February 15, 2010
Here’s some history and background before you get started.
I’m working with a non-profit to develop and implement a platform for their members that will make it easier for them to organize, coordinate, and communicate with each other. We’ve been testing a couple of wiki solutions, but have run into three basic scenarios:
- Hosted + good support + high cost ($6-10/mo/user). Hmm, 500+ members * $10/mo…. Yeah, not sustainable.
- Hosted + no support + no cost. Ok, it’s not really *no* support, it’s forum/community support which means that someone (typically me) has to dig around to find the answers. And, in this specific case, the company may be shutting down this product altogether to focus on their enterprise products (i.e., they want to get paid and make money. I understand.)
- Not hosted + no support + no cost. I’m the most technical person in the organization and getting one of these setup (not to mention maintaining it) makes my head hurt.
So, if we need a hosted, web-based, editable platform to help us organize, coordinate, and communicate, where does that leave us?
WordpressMU
WordpressMU is the multi-user version of Wordpress.org. It’s what Wordpress.com runs on. It does everything Wordpress does, plus scales to millions of pageviews, allows unlimited users and blogs, and allows different permissions on different blogs. All for free.
Ok. Not really free. You do have to host it somewhere, but the software itself *is* free.
Instead of wiki “pages”, we can have blog “posts” and web “pages”. The site remains editable, but with flexible permissioning and the ability to take the whole site private (by requiring visitors to be logged in). And, since a core function of blogging software is to publish/push content to its readers, we don’t have to find a kludge-y way (like we did with the wiki) to update the non-profit’s members. Once blogs and feeds are established, readers can subscribe to RSS or choose to receive email updates.
I’ve only been playing around with WPMU for a few days, but I love it already! Now if I can just get it working with BuddyPress (and possibly Thesis), I’ll be set…
What are your experiences with wikis? Have you considered (or ruled out) blogging software for your organization?
by jbreazeale on February 10, 2010
Anytime you’re trying to organize, coordinate, and communicate with more than two people over more than a few days, you’ll realize that relying on email (or Facebook, or ) to carry the burden will drive all of you crazy. Someone’s going to miss a message, the “right” people won’t be cc’d or (worse) everyone will be cc’d. On every message. Good times.
After a few of these “I can manage the whole thing via email” disasters, hopefully you’ll start to realize that a centralized “hub” for your team / project / organization might just save your sanity.
A Brief History of Hubs
Then came the “quality” movement and its efforts to quantify and codify the information available from the Wes’s of the world. “Sure, you could go talk to Wes, but we can’t all talk to Ted at the same time, so let’s just write down what Wes said and then we can go back to that the next time we have a question.”
Note: This would have been a great time to buy stock in three-ring binder companies. Especially the really, really big three-ring binders.
And, just as everyone was becoming comfortable with their bookshelf o’ binders, along came the internet and widespread use of personal computers. In the (ultimately futile) quest to become paperless offices, documents were scanned into “document management systems”, we created our “shared drives” and uploaded files to our corporate “intranets” and suddenly all workers had access to all the information they needed, right?
Not quite.
Now, not only had the information been separated from its human hub (which could interpret context and apply judgment), we’d added more layers of bureaucracy and abstraction. A two-minute call to Wes had been replaced by “where’s that #!@* procedure on the intranet? … No, not *that* version, the *new* version…. What do you mean I have to send it to X to get it approved so that Y can post it? … Never mind, I’ll just find that email that A sent me, I think that was the current version…”
Unicorn (via ffffound)
So, if bureaucracy was the problem, then the solution must be self-service, right? Enter the wiki. Now everyone can create their own content and make it available to others who can then edit and improve and contribute and then, in the magical land of unicorns and rainbows, we’ll have a dynamic and robust source of institutional knowledge and tribal wisdom and we’ll all live happily ever after….
Well, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen too many unicorns lately.
The great wiki experiment has had some notable successes (um, Wikipedia anyone?), but outside the realm of technologists and large organizations (who have lots of those technologists), I think the usefulness of wikis has peaked. If I want to share information with my friends, I use Twitter or Facebook. If I’m working collaboratively, I can use Google Docs (or perhaps Google Wave), or a variety of 37signals products. And, if I’m going to organize, coordinate, and communicate with a specific group of people, I’m going to use Wordpress.
Coming soon: From Wiki to Wordpress (why we’re making the switch)
by jbreazeale on January 27, 2010
As I talk with more people about my approach to building with or migrating their sites to a Wordpress+Thesis platform, I’m also trying to come up with a clear and concise definition of why I’ve chosen these tools and why they’re a great options for so many individuals, businesses, and organizations.
Here’s where I am so far…
Wordpress is a great platform because…
Even persons with relatively little technical skill can understand, create, and publish pages and posts. No coding experience required (although a little HTML/CSS/PHP wouldn’t hurt.)
It’s amazingly extensible with multiple plugins for almost any task you can think of. Of course, it’s also annoying searching through all of those plugins to find one that does what you want it to do (only then to discover that the developer hasn’t worked on it for over a year…)
And, there’s a large, active, and growing population of users and developers who are willing to share their Wordpress knowledge and experience with the rest of us. (Thanks!)
Using Thesis is worth the premium because…
The code is clean, scalable, flexible, and SEO optimized. None of those characteristics are guaranteed if you’re using one of the many free themes out there. Sure, newbies may complain about the cost, and ninjas may want to roll their own for ultimate control, but for the rest of us, it’s a no-brainer. Just buy Thesis.
It’s easy to customize. Most of the common options are available right there on the Wordpress dashboard. Want to show a certain page on your menu? Check a box. Want to add header or footer scripts? Just paste them into the header or footer box and save. Want to change a color? Pick one from the color box. You’re not *required* to write code or FTP files.
Oh, and did I mention that all of those customization options are stored all in one place? As Joe Kraynak points out:
I soon discovered the idea behind Thesis. In most WordPress Themes, you have to edit multiple files to control the look and layout of your blog. These files are packed with codes and settings. If you make a bunch of changes, tracking down those changes later can be nearly impossible. With Thesis, the core theme files remain unchanged. You make all changes to two files: custom.css (for style changes) and custom_functions.php…
And again, there’s another large, active, and growing population of users and developers who are willing to share their Thesis + Wordpress knowledge and experience with the rest of us. (Thanks, again!)
What do you think? Are these characteristics relevant to you or your business? Too technical, not technical enough?
by jbreazeale on January 25, 2010
Photo by: altemark / cc 2.0
Now that I’ve talked about staying productive and sane at work when you’re feeling overwhelmed, I want to spend some time focusing on the technology aspects of this problem. Specifically, how you can use technology to make your life easier (not harder!).
The blessing (and curse) of technology
Technology enables us to consume vaster and vaster quantities of information at an ever-increasing pace. We no longer rely on the local newspaper or the national networks to provide us with our news – now we can cobble together our own 24 hr news stream. We can reach beyond our neighborhood, our family, and our workplace to form communities with like-minded individuals all over the world. But when you’re feeling overwhelmed, the last thing you need is *more*.
You need less technology to make you feel more connected.
(Are you glimpsing a pattern here?)
Start by cleaning house
Do you notice yourself automatically archiving or deleting messages (email, newsletters, RSS feeds) from certain people/organizations? Here’s a novel idea… stop archiving or deleting and start unsubscribing. Trust me. Spend 30 minutes to an hour and really clean out your email(s) and feed reader, you’ll be glad you did.
Now, do the same thing for Facebook. And Twitter. And LinkedIn. And your address book.
(If you’re feeling anxious about this, then back up your information. Trust me, that Facebook fan page for your favorite breakfast cereal will still be there when you come back.)
Pare down your information stream so that everything you receive is something you want. Messages from your (real) friends. Discounts on stuff that you *want* to buy.
Use good tools.
Tools that are (often, but not always) single function, well designed, and easy to use. For me, this includes:
Sure, I can write an article in Microsoft Word, but why would I when I can generate the same content in a distraction free environment (DarkRoom) in a file that’s 1/10th the size and readable by any word processing tool (.txt)? I’ve switched my online bookmarking from Delicious to Pinboard because now I can bookmark a page with one click.
Spend the time learning the tools and creating your custom toolkit, then let the rest go.
Where will you start today? Which technology “room” will get the clean sweep? What tools will fall out of (or go into) your streamlined toolkit?
