Author Archives: David

Coding Like 1995

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From Gary LaBranche at Association Forum: 100 Million Served

There were less than 20,000 Web sites in the world in 1995, all with limited usability [Gary probably means functionality here. -dg]. In the spring of that year, I served on a team charged with developing a Web site for an association, and recall the debate about including a membership application. Half of the team argued that it was a waste of time and no one would ever apply for membership online. The other half argued, “What the heck, it can’t hurt.”

The joke was on us. Just five years later, online applications were the leading source of new members.

Everything looks pretty obvious in retrospect, doesn’t it? What bothers me today is not that people don’t recognize the potential of the Web (they do to a large extent) but that poor knowledge of usability and design impedes their ability to really take advantage of it. Given that it is feasible for almost any group to enable online payment for transactions, the competitive differentiator online now often comes down to how easy it is to complete the transaction (assuming roughly equal value of product, of course).

Existentialnet

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James Robertson asks:

The time is right for us to stop focusing inwards on the management of the “intranet as website”, and to ask: what are we going to deliver to the organisation in the next six months?

Good question. A better question: What does the organization need to deliver in the next six months and how can the intranet be aligned to support those efforts?

Intranets will always be viewed as a commodity (low value) when all they focus on is the processing of mundane tasks. There is huge opportunity for your intranet to help make a breakthrough in achieving your organizational goals. It will only happen when intranet managers, consultants and advisors focus on achieving the goals of the organization first and foremost.

I guarantee that you will get more resources and attention if your intranet makes tangible contributions to achieving your organization’s business goals. Policies and time sheet applications will not impress senior executives.

Quoted in the New York Times: Blogging the Hand That Feeds You

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Last week was media week for High Context Consulting! I was quoted last Wednesday in an article on blogging about work in the Times Circuits section: Blogging the Hand That Feeds You by Matt Villano.

Here is my bit from the end of the piece.

If it were up to corporate lawyers, the business world’s fascination with blogs would be short-lived. Daniel M. Klein, a partner at the Atlanta law firm Buckley & Klein, said that the “safest way to blog about work is not to do it,â€? adding that it’s “just a matter of timeâ€? before some of the biggest companies that endorse blogging lay off employees for going too far.

Others are less skeptical. C. David Gammel, the president of High Context Consulting, a Web strategy consulting firm in Silver Spring, Md., said that employee blogs were worth encouraging, as long as companies devised individual policies about blogging and incorporated them into the employee handbook.

“Human resources departments should simply add blogging to the list of activities in which employees should be careful about how they represent the company,â€? he said.

Quoted in The Washington Post: Access Denied

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In case you missed it, I was in the lead of an article on the first page of the business section in The Washington Post this past Saturday: Access Denied by Yuki Noguchi.

Between work and personal e-mail, multiple banking and retirement accounts, two association memberships, photo sites, Web communities, and retailers like Amazon.com and eBay.com, C. David Gammel maintains 130 online accounts, each requiring a user name and password.

Gammel tracks his sundry log-in information in a file on his computer, but on at least two occasions he’s confused or mistyped his password, and been locked out of his SunTrust bank accounts, forcing him to call the bank or look for an open branch to regain access.

“It’s frustrating — if understandable,” said Gammel, a consultant in Silver Spring. He has also been denied access on a news site when he couldn’t remember his log-in information, he said. “I bail on them if I’m having a difficult time,” he said.

I actually keep most 0f those logins stored in my browser and only those for non-sensitive sites. I provided some tips on better managing logins and balancing security with ease of use but that didn’t make it into the piece.

The article is a good lesson for site developers to keep in mind: the plethora of usernames and passwords that people have to manage these days is a real burden and a barrier to using sites in many cases. You have to balance your security measures with the sensitivity of the data you are storing and the value of your service to your customers. It is also critical to unify your own login system so that ONE username/password pair can be used to access all services related to your company.

Resource for ACCE Dialogue Participants

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I gave an online presentation today to over 50 ACCE members on how web site usability impacts membership recruitment and retention. There were many great questions from the paricipants which added a lot to the program. Thanks to you all!

One person asked for the source of a stat I cited on generational differences in using e-mail, IM and the Web. It was from a survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in late 2005. Here is the report: Generations Online.

Why Webmaster is Outdated as a Job Title

Posted on by David
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I posted several days ago that I thought that ‘Webmaster’ is an outdated job title. I didn’t explain why then but I’ll take a stab at it now.

Webmaster came about in the early days as an administrative contact for a web site. It would be the person who answers webmaster@yoursite.com and made sure the server was running, updated pages, added new ones, etc. One person did it all because the domain of knowledge to create all you needed on a site was not too huge back then. The potential return on investment for a good site was also much lower back then for most organizations.

As the Web matured, the roles needed for a successful site exploded: graphic design, markup, programming, content authoring and editing, information architecture, marketing and others. Each of those roles became more complex as more tools and techniques became available and users became more sophisticated in their use of the Web. The potential return for an excellent site exploded, justifying investment in more people with specialized skills and knowledge.

Except for the smallest of operations and the most exceptional of people, It is almost impossible to find someone who can do all these things competently at the same time. But organizations still try to create “do it all” jobs on the cheap. Here’s a tip: people who are competent in all those disciplines are highly valuable in today’s market and they are savvy to impossible jobs. You aren’t going to get them.

Running a web site today is a team effort, even if you have just a single person in house managing your site. They most likely work with outside talent and resources to design your site, keep it up and running, add features and other tasks. Given that, the title for a one person shop position should probably be something along the lines of Manager, Director or Producer.

Keep in mind the two purposes of a job title: attract qualified candidates when you are hiring and communicate internally to your organization what the person does. If you post a job with the title ‘Webmaster’ these days you are simply asking for amateurs to apply and seasoned professionals to ignore you.

Targeting Accessibility

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A new court ruling you should be aware of that sets a precedent for web site accessibility:

The court held: “the ‘ordinary meaning’ of the ADA’s prohibition against discrimination in the enjoyment of goods, services, facilities or privileges, is that whatever goods or services the place provides, it cannot discriminate on the basis of disability in providing enjoyment of those goods and services.” The court thus rejected Target’s argument that only its physical store locations were covered by the civil rights laws, ruling instead that all services provided by Target, including its Web site, must be accessible to persons with disabilities.

…

The plaintiffs charge that target.com fails to meet the minimum standard of web accessibility. It lacks compliant alt-text, an invisible code embedded beneath graphic images that allows screen readers to detect and vocalize a description of the image to a blind computer user. It also contains inaccessible image maps and other graphical features, preventing blind users
from navigating and making use of all of the functions of the website. And because the website requires the use of a mouse to complete a transaction, blind Target customers are unable to make purchases on target.com independently.

The irony here is that there is no good technical reason for not having a highly accessible web site these days. The limitations of Target’s site mentioned above are all old school design techniques that are quite simply out of date and unnecessary. Why they didn’t just update their site design instead of fighting a costly court battle is beyond me.

Professional Milestones

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I’ve had a couple of very nice professional milestones this month that I’d like to share.

One, I’ve been named to the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of Association Leadership. JAL is the only peer-reviewed journal for the association profession. I’m very excited to volunteer with ASAE & the Center in this capacity. I have also issued a press release on this with more detail.

The other is that the book I have been co-authoring with four other consultants is finally published! We Have Always Done It That Way: 101 Thing About Associations That We Must Change. We gave away a couple hundred copies at ASAE’s annual meeting and have had great feedback so far. It appears to have been the buzz of the conference!

Get Your IT Administrator Out of My Webmaster

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I’ve seen several position descriptions lately that meld both IT/Network Administrator and Webmaster* responsibilities into one impossible job. I just saw one come across a list I belong to that included:

  • authoring, posting and managing web content
  • upgrading web site software
  • managing an in-house CRM database
  • providing desktop support for staff
  • managing network backups
  • bringing peace to the Middle East

OK, I made up that last one but the whole thing is still completely unrealistic even without peacemaking. If they find someone willing to take this job, I guarantee that none of those tasks will be done well. Or only one or two will and the others will fall by the wayside completely.

While Nick Carr may be the crankiest guy on the web these days, I do agree that many day-to-day IT functions are commodities and can be effectively outsourced. In this situation, I’d recommend they focus the position on the most valuable activities for the organization and farm out the rest to support companies who specialize in those tasks. Even having CRM and web content in the same position would likely be too much and require very different competencies.

* (Webmaster is an outdated title and concept for web positions these days, but that’s another post.)