Category: Technology
User Experience Advantages in Sitecore Development
It’s important for software developers to know the products they work on, both inside and out — the code, the components, the user interface, everything. That way they understand the application both from the technical side as well as the user’s standpoint and can provide greater value to their team at all points in the product lifecycle. Unfortunately, sometimes project constraints are such that the development staff spends the majority of their time working on code and getting to know the product has to take a back seat. By only glancing at the UI here and there during testing, but never really using the product as an end user would, developers lack understanding of what customers feel is good or bad about the software being developed. These sorts of challenges are what make working with the CMS product Sitecore such an excellent experience and such a change from the norm.
Learning On the Go.
Couldn’t afford Yale? Can’t take time off work to take a cooking class? Just want to let your little inner autodidact run free? Thank heavens for the interweb.
If you’re a curious soul, you might want to grab your headphones and Mountain Dew and head over to iTunes U. For the price of a click, you can learn about hundreds of topics from hundreds of universities, museums and organizations across the globe.
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Fun with Google Street View.
In a peculiar and charming mashup of technology and performance art, two artists worked with Google to create unique street views of Pittsburgh’s Sampsonia Way.
On May 3rd 2008, artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley invited the Google Inc. Street View team and residents of Pittsburgh’s Northside to collaborate on a series of tableaux along Sampsonia Way. download film
Neighbors, and other participants from around the city, staged scenes ranging from a parade and a marathon, to a garage band practice, a seventeenth century sword fight, a heroic rescue and much more… download The Firm movie Nothing But Trouble release
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(via Brooklyn Museum)
The Origin of Retailing: The Natural Selection of Shopping Experience
If Charles Darwin were an economist today rather than a 19th Century naturalist, he may have discovered the same principles of evolution through the study of 21st century retailing as he did in the Galapagos Islands Dogma hd more than a century ago.
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Retailer evolution
For many years, small retailers have bemoaned the category-killing efforts of the Big Box stores. WalMart and Home Depot have been blamed for the quick death of many a local retailer. The new retail powerhouses are also blamed for driving the profit out of manufacturing and putting brands out of business. As a result, the weak and unprepared have died off. The retailers who banded together and dug their heels in to prevent Walmart from opening in their towns have quickly become extinct. Conversely, a new breed of specialty stores have been born — stores like Trader Joe’s and the Apple Store. These stores identified what the big box stores couldn’t offer — unique product choice and high-touch service — and did it better than anyone else.
Manufacturer evolution
The same is true on the manufacturing side. The behemoth retail chains continually shave off profits while manufacturers fight to hold onto market share of commodity product categories. They’ve been blamed for chloroforming many beloved brands. At the same time, some brands have emerged from the ashes and strengthened their position through this retail blood bath. Legendary and emerging brands alike have been able to minimize the discounting and commodification of their wares. Brands like Bose stereo products and Weber Grills
have been able to grow their revenues while protecting their pricing strategies and the perceived value of their brands.
What these successful manufacturers and retailers have in common is that they all learned to adapt to their environment and evolve their businesses accordingly. The winners have not been those who banded together to prevent the erosion of their way of doing business. The winners innovated and reinvented themselves in a way that brought the most obvious value to the customer.
Sales evolution
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Which brings me to the next major storm in retailing — direct e-commerce. I continually hear from independent retailers that manufacturers should be driving business to their stores. The SnowSports Retailers’ trade group recently sent a newsletter to members suggesting that they put their foot down and insist that manufacturers let them participate in online sales opportunities. The implication was that we, the retailers, helped build their brands. They owe us that.
On a recent visit to the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show in Salt Lake City, I had the chance to hear the story from the other side of the fence. In conversations with manufacturer after manufacturer, I heard them voice concerns that, with eroding margins at retail, their best opportunity for revenue and profit growth may be in taking control of their online sales. Many companies whose margins have been dramatically reduced by downward retail price pressure and rising overseas manufacturing costs are realizing that they can triple or quadruple their gross margin if they can fulfill the orders directly online. Add to that the long-term value of being able to build a relationship with their end users and, of course, provide an online experience that pleases their customers, and these manufacturers are really left with little choice.
In order to help this transition, software service providers like Shopatron and Reshare
have emerged. They offer the retailer the chance to gain some incremental sales while offering the manufacturer the chance to optimize selling opportunities on their brand sites. It remains to be seen whether these are truly sustainable business models or simply a stopgap while reality settles in.
Value and the survival of the species
In the long run, consumers enjoy the convenience of shopping from the comfort of their living rooms while most retailers don’t provide enough value to justify the effort of seeking them out. And, I suspect that programs like Reshare that reward retailers for online sales through brand manufacturers’ sites is grasping at straws.
Unearthed full I predict that, over the next few years, we will see a dramatic shift of product brands stepping up to provide customers with increased choices in how to do business with them. If the independent retailer is going to survive this transition it will be because they learn to focus on expanding their value-added services, not because they’ve banded together to force manufacturers to pay them their dues. Retailers need to build their brands. They need to step up to an entirely new level of improved service, expanded choices and shopping convenience. They need to demonstrate to customers that it’s worth seeking them out at the mall and online.
Product and retail brands that do this very well will coexist peacefully in the online world. Those who refuse to change will become part of the Intenet’s natural selection process.
The brightest and strongest will continue to evolve and flourish while the rest will simply fade into the digital wasteland like dinosaurs sinking into the tar pits.
I think Darwin would have loved the internet. What do you think?
(Image via
)
Do you tweet?
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Twitter is a truly unique channel which both mimics and complements existing communication media.
Twitter is:
• public and published — like a blog
• conversational and concise — like text messaging
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• available via a subscriber model — like RSS or Atom
• a social networking tool — like MySpace or Facebook.
In 140 characters or less, I regularly update my Twitter status via text message — which, in turn, automatically updates my Facebook status. This blog entry will be announced to those following ActiveMinds on Twitter, and simultaneously broadcast via our RSS feed.
Some call it “micro-blogging,” but this label is misunderstood. The Twitter FAQ (and certain Penny Arcade comic strips) give the impression of an extended Facebook status — where the egocentric can broadcast even the most mundane day-to-day occurrences. However, spend just a few minutes watching TwitterVision American Psycho download , and you’ll realize its true nature as a global conversation. As a user, I can be selective about what I’m “hearing,” and I can listen and respond to anyone in the room. More impressively, this conversation is growing rapidly. The Twitter user base has doubled since January The Last House on the Left move to 1 million users, with an impressive 20% daily usage rate.
Others have written about the multitude of marketing opportunities this new medium provides, and its growing popularity does nothing to hamper this. As an information broadcast tool, Twitter has no entry cost for your business and a simple subscription model for your audience. Even better, so long as you provide content that interests this audience, they are captive. Your contribution to the conversation appears as an alert in the desktop clients, iPhones and web browsers of those listening. Compare this to a banner ad or a headline alongside hundreds of other messages in an Inbox or RSS aggregator.
Like any technology, Twitter is no silver bullet. The primacy of content
does not change – it’s king, right? If anything, the terse nature of Twitter makes it easier to update, but it also makes it more critical to ensure your 140 characters are well spent.
So, if you’ve got it, why not tweet it?
Learning about the web from Maasai warriors.
A recent story out of the UK caught my eye earlier this month – six Maasai tribesmen flew into London to run in the London Marathon. They weren’t just doing it for fun – they were raising funds for clean water resources in their Tanzanian village.
The story itself was fascinating. Wearing their native garb, jewelry and shoes made from car tires, most finished the marathon in under five hours and the group raised over £60,000 (approx. $127,000 USD) for their village.
I was equally impressed, however, by how well the organizers used minimal technology for maximum effect.
The Maasai Marathon site is bare bones, allowing visitors to get more information about the cause, learn more about the runners and donate online to help the Maasai reach their goal. The organizers created an effective offline campaign to generate interest and drive traffic to the site. Without bells and whistles and excessive social media tools, the site is a tool for visitors to get the information they need to make an educated decision about supporting the Maasai’s effort.
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As a web designer, it’s always tempting to experiment with the newest and shiniest tools and technology to create a “wow” online experience. However, sometimes simplicity is far more effective than maximum interactivity. In this case, the simple online site a) was more in keeping with the tribesmen themselves (who don’t own computers) and b) kept the focus on the Maasai and what they hoped to accomplish.
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The Maasai campaign reminded me how more is not always better. It’s critical to define your goals clearly and choose your tools carefully to reach that goal. If the goal is simple, always consider a simple solution. Great editing skills are every bit as important as flashy solutions.
p.s. If you’re intrigued by the Maasai’s story, you might want to check out the chief’s diary of his week in the UK.
Semantic Web – what is it, and how did we get here?
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The modern website can do some amazing things for your business. It’s truly evolved from an online brochure into one of the major marketing engines and key drivers for growing your business.
To understand how we got from simple marketing sites to complex modern web applications, let’s take a quick walk down memory lane.
The web, in its 1.0 flavor, offered static content and little interactivity. A business would translate its traditional marketing collateral into a series of web pages (brochureware) that were rarely updated, and communication was generally one to many (broadcast). This technique was cumbersome and costly to maintain. It also didn’t scale well as sites grew.
To combat this problem the web evolved in the late ’90s into its 1.5 flavor. The introduction of web programming languages (such as Perl, ASP and PHP) and database connectivity allowed for dynamic content that was centralized and easily updated via a web administration system versus a developer. The underlying theme here is that content became easier to manage and publish more frequently. Databases allowed for the introduction of two-way communication on websites via message boards and self-help applications like FAQ’s and forms. The first generation of web software applications — such as content management systems (CMS) and Ecommerce — were introduced. Unfortunately, the cost of entry generally prohibited most small to medium companies from adopting them.
The next evolution (or should I say revolution?) on the web was Web 2.0. For the first time sites allowed users to interact with the website and contribute to its content. Search engine optimization (SEO) became a major factor in any redesign — site structures and content were highly optimized to gain higher organic rankings on search engines. Community features were introduced, including blogs, ratings, wikis, comments, threaded discussions and groups. Technologies such as web services, XML and RSS were added to allow content to be decentralized and syndicated. Sites also became a little smarter, offering different ways to navigate content by offering related or suggestive content and filtered navigation.
The Prince of Tides So, the question is, where are we now? What is the term being used to describe the next generation of web applications? And what technology separates this evolution from its predecessors? The term that the industry has settled on for the next generation website is the “Semantic Web”. Wikipedia has a great summary of this:
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The Semantic Web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content. It derives from W3C director Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the Web as a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange.
Google’s iGoogle
platform is a great example of this technology. It allows you to create your own, completely customizable web dashboard. You can add custom content tailored to your specific needs via RSS feeds, applications and widgets (from Google and 3rd parties). All of your settings are saved for repeat visits. At its heart the Semantic Web is the introduction of the “smart website.” Content is highly targeted to individual needs and desires and can be accessed via any number of media, including the traditional web browser, PDA or smart phones. It is the dawn of a new and exciting era online — one that empowers us with access to personalized information on demand, helping us keep up-to-date in the increasingly fast-paced lives we lead.
Reviews of popular Open Source CMS solutions
Last month fellow HD blogger, Gretchen, broached the topic of “What is the best CMS?
” which stirred up some good debate in the comments. The question of CMS selection and approach comes up all the time. Everyone has their two cents on whether your project requires you to buy, build or go the Open Source route. To add to the discussion I wanted to reference an article
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The article’s list of CMS solutions is, by no means, exhaustive or comprehensive — it only focuses on systems that run on Apache, MySQL and PHP architecture including: CMS Made Simple, Drupal, Joomla!, Wordpress and XOOPS. That being said, it is helpful and a nice quick way to compare and contrast some popular Open Source solutions. Enjoy!
Community – He who has the most friends wins
As I was thinking of a title for this blog I considered using the “… is King” analogy but it seems the CMS industry has beaten that term to death.
It’s clear with the major success of sites like MySpace
that community and social networking is big business. The marketing world is working hard to find ways to leverage this model for clients. It’s no doubt that when community and social networking tools are thought through and integrated successfully the investment can pay for itself rather quickly by connecting you directly with your customer to grow a relationship that allows you to gain amazing insights.
There are a lot of different concepts to consider when looking at social networking for brands. Instead of listing them all I’m going to borrow from (and summarize) the framework provided in Razorfish’s 2008 Digital Report
using their “The six “C’s of social influence marketing” model.
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- Content
Content can come in many forms: video, wallpapers, badges, avatars, widgets and information. Authenticity and transparency is critical. Allow your content to be de-centralized (Syndication via RSS or embed). - Customization
Include elements where users can define themselves. Allow users to generate and customize their own content (blogs, comments, threaded discussions, etc). Empower consumers to express themselves. - Community
Give users a reason to interact. Provide unique content, value or engagement. Leverage relational social networking content on brand sites. - Conversation
Build a network of advocates. Using advocates to build new relationships = sales. Accept negative feedback and conversation. Intervene in a problem before it escalates. - Commerce
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Must be soft sold. Consumers do not want a hard sell; any integration from your e-store must be subtle not blatant. Offer coupons, related content or links to store. - Commitment
It requires ongoing customer communication. Solicit feedback on products & services. Add more value to customers. Enhance brand reputation. Enable brand advocacy.
Before looking to embrace the benefits of community and social media you need to consider a solid strategy. A commitment to community requires an all or nothing approach. Provide your customer with a framework and tools that enable conversation and interaction. Don’t forget to invest in updating content that is rich and authentic and adding features that will keep your users coming back.
Which Is the Best CMS?
In the last 15 years or so, web content management systems (CMS) have essentially become the only way to build web sites. It makes perfect sense — from large corporate sites to one-page personal web sites, nobody wants to touch code every time they need to change an image or copy.
And the question I hear all the time is simply this: which one is the best one? I suppose it’s reasonable to assume that by now, one system has risen to the top. Sort of like Microsoft Word for word processing. But the truth is, there are literally hundreds of CMS packages out there, and they all do the same thing: update web content outside the site’s source code.
The real question you should be asking is “Which CMS is best for what I need?” Of course, that takes more planning work. Here are the top six things you should consider when selecting a CMS for your site:
1. How much do you want to spend?
You can spend nothing, or you can spend millions on a CMS solution. of course, if you take the nothing route, as in open source, you will spend much more time on in-house development. You will also have more control over what features you have, instead of working around somebody else’s code. At the other extreme: spend lots of money, and you’ll get lots of built-in features, good post-launch support and reliable feature upgrades.
2. Who will be updating your site?
If you’ve got lots of people in multiple locations needing to update content, you’ll need to consider workflow tools. Some CMS packages have good ones, some don’t. You’re going to need multiple user roles (contributor, editor, administrator, etc.) and specific approval steps content must go through before appearing on the site. On the other hand, if it’s just one person running the whole thing, you’re in luck. Don’t worry about workflow.
3. Do you need to publish in other languages?
Some CMS packages have translation tools built in. If you need to publish your content in a number of different languages, make sure you select a CMS that will assist in that process. The tools will not be perfect, and you will still need to have a human translator check for accuracy, but at least you won’t have to translate every word manually.
4. What does your CMS need to work with?
Do you sell product online? Are you using an e-commerce, payment gateway or a product information management system? Make sure you identify and consider outside systems before making any CMS decisions.
5. Consider your platform.
This one’s deceptively simple. If you have 25 .NET developers on staff, don’t select a CMS that only uses Python. If your developers will be learning a new language, try to do it outside a new web site deployment. You’ll be busy enough without having to worry about training.6. Think about the future.Don’t just select a CMS to replace your current site; think about what you might want to do in the next five years. Will you be hiring more content contributors? Reducing your development staff? Assigning more web administrators? Adding an online store? You will need to think all of these things through, or you might be going through the same selection process in a year.
Of course there are plenty of other things to consider when selecting a CMS: can your company support ongoing administration? How much training will you need to do? What are other members of your industry using?
In fact, if you’re in higher education, you’re in luck: UC-Davis did a really interesting survey on which CMS tools colleges are using. The comments alone are an interesting read.
So, if you’re in the market for a new CMS, be thoughtful about it. It might take a little longer up front, but you’ll be glad you did.