Tag Archives: Reality checks

September 5, 2008 · 9:40 am

Too Much Noise

I’ll keep this brief.

My head hurts.  There’s too much noise.  It’s everywhere. Email, RSS, Tweats, Friendfeed, etc.  Political noise getting in the way of the real issues.  Facebook noise stopping real communication.  There’s even noise about noise – search the Twitter stream for “noise”  – lots of folks are overwhelmed.

Maybe it’s given us all technologically-induced ADD.  Who can focus for more than a minute?!?!  Try and unplug – it’s like quitting smoking or drinking or any bad habit.  Your skin crawls, your mind races.  Your breathing speeds up, as does your heart.  “What’s going on?  What am I missing?”

Thoreau suggested that our lives are frittered away by detail.  “Simplify, simplify.”

Which is why I don’t post more than once a day and not on weekends – let’s give it a rest once in a while.

I love technology.  I love what the web has done to improve lives and give people the opportunity to grow beyond the boundaries of their physical communities and learning resources.  But PLEASE!  Don’t you hate when people use their cell phones loudly on the train?  Don’t you hate it when the TV in the next room is up too loud and you can’t read?  Don’t you hate it when the kid next door is banging on his (drums, guitar, clarinet- whatever) and you can’t think?  YOU wouldn’t make that noise!

So don’t.

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August 11, 2008 · 10:52 am

Clarity

In the process of an all-day planning session with some clients on Friday, we visited one of their web sites and found, in the main box, a promotion for an event that had taken place a week earlier.  All of us, including the president of the company, were a little surprised that it was still up, particularly since it was in a prominent place.  The person who has been overseeing the sites (they have a bunch) said that he had asked that it be changed a few days back but apparently his request had gone unfulfilled.

As we discussed the situation, it was pretty obvious that there were multiple failures.  The first one was by the person who is in charge of the site in failing to keep the site up to date and relevant.  That shows a huge disrespect for your audience and yourself, in my opinion.  Most content management systems have some sort of start and end date for every piece of content – it’s not all that difficult to be sure that time-sensitive materials change at an appropriate time.  More importantly, why would you make yourself and the company you represent look stupid, insensitive, out of touch – you can pick any of a hundred words.

The second failure was by the person overseeing all of the sites.  He neglected to set standards and see that they were met.  He also neglected to step in to correct the situation as best he could (more about that in a second) by explaining to the site manager that out of date materials turn off readers and might cause them to go elsewhere for more timely information.  He also didn’t go to her direct management for help (she reports locally, he is a divisional person).  Lastly, he didn’t turn to his management and alert them to a problem.

The third failure was by the top management.  They never empowered the fellow overseeing the sites properly.  The gave him responsibility without authority, which I believe is a recipe for failure.  They also didn’t make his mission 100% clear to him either – he thought his role was more advisory than supervisory (hey – what are you – a consultant?!?!).

It’s good this happened before we make a major upgrade in their sites and do quite a bit to grow their traffic.  The lines of authority (and responsibility – equally as important) are clear now.  Materials will change on time and people understand the standards.  And we all had good weekends!

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July 22, 2008 · 10:25 pm

Keeping Current

When I was at the NHL, occasionally someone would ask me “what is the hardest part of your job?”  I think they were expecting I’d say something about the hours or balancing the demands of the 30 clubs and the various league departments, but that really wasn’t the hardest part.  Nope.  The most difficult thing then, and now, is staying current.  With all of the change that occurs on a daily basis in the world of digital media, I find that I spend, in 5-10 minute bursts, several hours a day doing nothing but reading newsletters, blogs, and web sites (not to mention several daily newspapers – you remember them) and trade magazines.

I’m sure many of you use an RSS reader of some sort to help get through the volume of things you read regularly.  I use Google Reader and I looked at the “trends” tab this evening.  Over the last 30 days, I’ve received around 14,250 items from my list of 66 subscribed sites.  Of those, I read 2,116, roughly 70 a day.  Of course, not many items come through on Saturday and Sunday so the total is really closer to 100 a day.  Those are the ones I read in depth – I had to look at every headline and decide if the in-depth look was warranted.  Obviously many of these items led to my reading other sites to which I don’t subscribe so they’re not in the previous numbers.

All that so when a client asks about trends or some new technology, I don’t stand there with my mouth agape.  Frankly, I feel like the more you do know, the more realize how much more there IS to know.  As I wrote before, it’s really OK not to know – uncertainty makes me want to chase down answers which is how I learn – but MAN!  The information deluge is overwhelming my mental levees sometimes.

Staying current is the most important thing one can do, whether a consultant, an executive, or just a citizen.  While I know folks who don’t like to let the facts get in the way of a good story, the reality is that most great decisions are made because someone gathered as much information as possible and did an excellent job of synthesizing it to draw a conclusion.  There are times when one doesn’t have much to go on and that’s when the value of experience really pays off.  But when it comes to information, particularly in rapidly changing times, the more the merrier!

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