Most websites are loners like the characters in a romantic comedy who can’t connect with anyone in a meaningful way. There’s a lot of pressure on them to engage with users, and people (marketing dept. mainly) are always trying to
Variable fonts are changing typography on the web, not only in terms of more efficient font file delivery, but also the ability to animate and diversify your brand messaging capability. Over 90% of web browsers support variable fonts and many
Is it time to kiss and make-up with your web design firm on a project gone awry? Anyone in a successful personal relationship knows how critical this process is to growth and maturity. But how do I do this with
Breaking up with your website design firm is hard to do. I know. I’ve had to breakup with several clients. Both you and the web design firm have invested time, money, and energy into the project/relationship, but it just isn’t
You, the client, have the most power to reduce risk in a website project — not the web design firm. You are concerned the project: Will go over your original budget Take too long to complete Not meet your expectations
I’m a sucker for paradigm shifts that reveal your “X” is really a “Y” situation. Bob Lalasz at Science + Story wrote an excellent article recently about Your Research Project is Really a Communications Project. My favorite historical “x is
It is easy to get lost applying the abstract website strategy concepts I’ve shared: trading space for time, taking the high ground, and understanding space as a foundational website strategy. So, I thought seeing how these concepts work in a
Space is an important aspect of strategy. A central Soviet strategy in World War II was to trade space for time against the advancing and superior German forces. The Soviet Union needed more time to ramp up military production, gather
Operating in, occupying, and controlling physical space is a foundational strategy concept applied to everything from warfighting to business marketing to sports. Dominating the “high ground” — the most elevated terrain or plane — provides distinct advantages like vision, defensibly,
This is the first installment in a short series on the concept of space in strategy and how it applies to website strategy. Much of what I share I learned as an intelligence officer in the Air Force and student of military strategy.
In 1983, I bought my first computer (an original IBM PC) with the money I saved in junior high. I could see computer proficiency would give me a significant academic advantage in school over my peers, who were saving their
In the not so distant past, professional service organization’s thought of their public facing website as the be-all and end-all of their digital presence. As social media grew in general popularity, most organizations have sent digital “shoots” out to explore
Would you pay your digital agency $200 to swap out a PDF on your organization’s website? You might have to if your website is tied into their proprietary Content Management System (CMS). That’s the situation one leader I talked with
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War The relationship between website strategy and the tactics used to implement that strategy can be cloudy.
Your organization’s website is an island in a vast digital sea. Its job is to connect you to the outside world. Is your website a bridge or a pier? I’ve been writing about website strategy using the metaphor of building
If you don’t have a website strategy in place, then there is a good chance you are building a bridge to nowhere like this one in my wife’s hometown of Ketchikan, Alaska. And you would be hard pressed to build
Smarmy, inspirational business clichés are not my thing, and anything having to do with “bridges” likely falls into this category: https://bit.ly/2Z39f8z However… Josh Earl in his excellent email marketing newsletter mentioned “building bridges” to a list of potential dream clients
You can tell how serious a client is about a website project when they have a deadline. I once designed an entire pitch presentation and website mock-up in four days for an online vitamin startup seed funding round. They were
They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried. —Tim O’Brien, in The Things They Carried In O’Brien’s widely acclaimed book on the Vietnam War, he tells the
[This is Part 2 of Lessons You Wish Had Learned from the Pandemic About Your Organization’s Website. Read Part 1 here. Ask my 12-year-old son what can happen when you don’t have a flight plan. He recently lost his $100 drone on day two of
I help decision-makers in service-based organizations understand and create better website strategies to drive growth and engagement.