Design To The Finish Line

In 1999 The Cluetrain Manifesto exploded on the internet with ninety-five theses nailed up on the Web.

Almost immediately, www.cluetrain.com ignited a global conversation challenging corporate assumptions about the nature of doing business in a digital world.

Even back then The Cluetrain Manifesto was a wake-up call telling business owners that business as usual was gone forever.

Even after all this time, businesses are still trying to adjust – with many still not “getting it”.

The Cluetrain Manifesto says,

“Networked markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed, smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations. A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.”

The 95 Theses (pay attention business owners: read it, own it)

1. Markets are conversations.

2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.

5. People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.

6. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.

8. In both internet worked markets and among intranet worked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way.

9. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.

10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

11. People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

13. What’s happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called “The Company” is the only thing standing between the two.

14. Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.

15. In just a few more years, the current homogenized “voice” of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.

16. Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone.

17. Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves.

18. Companies that don’t realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity.

19. Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.

20. Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.

21. Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.

22. Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine point of view.

23. Companies attempting to “position” themselves need to take a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about.

24. Bombastic boasts—”We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ”—do not constitute a position.

25. Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.

26. Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.

27. By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets at bay.

28. Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what’s really going on inside the company.

29. Elvis said it best: “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.”

30. Brand loyalty is the corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable—and coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to renegotiate relationships with blinding speed.

31. Networked markets can change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change employers over lunch. Your own “downsizing initiatives” taught us to ask the question: “Loyalty? What’s that?”

32. Smart markets will find suppliers who speak their own language.

33. Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can’t be “picked up” at some tony conference.

34. To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.

35. But first, they must belong to a community.

36. Companies must ask themselves where their corporate cultures end.

37. If their cultures end before the community begins, they will have no market.

38. Human communities are based on discourse—on human speech about human concerns.

39. The community of discourse is the market.

40. Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will die.

41. Companies make a religion of security, but this is largely a red herring. Most are protecting less against competitors than against their own market and workforce.

42. As with networked markets, people are also talking to each other directly inside the company—and not just about rules and regulations, boardroom directives, bottom lines.

43. Such conversations are taking place today on corporate intranets. But only when the conditions are right.

44. Companies typically install intranets top-down to distribute HR policies and other corporate information that workers are doing their best to ignore.

45. Intranets naturally tend to route around boredom. The best are built bottom-up by engaged individuals cooperating to construct something far more valuable: an intranetworked corporate conversation.

46. A healthy intranet organizes workers in many meanings of the word. Its effect is more radical than the agenda of any union.

47. While this scares companies witless, they also depend heavily on open intranets to generate and share critical knowledge. They need to resist the urge to “improve” or control these networked conversations.

48. When corporate intranets are not constrained by fear and legalistic rules, the type of conversation they encourage sounds remarkably like the conversation of the networked marketplace.

49. Org charts worked in an older economy where plans could be fully understood from atop steep management pyramids and detailed work orders could be handed down from on high.

50. Today, the org chart is hyper-linked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority.

51. Command-and-control management styles both derive from and reinforce bureaucracy, power tripping and an overall culture of paranoia.

52. Paranoia kills conversation. That’s its point. But lack of open conversation kills companies.

53. There are two conversations going on. One inside the company. One with the market.

54. In most cases, neither conversation is going very well. Almost invariably, the cause of failure can be traced to obsolete notions of command and control.

55. As policy, these notions are poisonous. As tools, they are broken. Command and control are met with hostility by intranet-worked knowledge workers and generate distrust in inter-networked markets.

56. These two conversations want to talk to each other. They are speaking the same language. They recognize each others voices.

57. Smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.

58. If willingness to get out of the way is taken as a measure of IQ, then very few companies have yet wised up.

59. However subliminally at the moment, millions of people now online perceive companies as little more than quaint legal fictions that are actively preventing these conversations from intersecting.

60. This is suicidal. Markets want to talk to companies.

61. Sadly, the part of the company a networked market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a smokescreen of hucksterism, of language that rings false—and often is.

62. Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall.

63. De-cloaking, getting personal: We are those markets. We want to talk to you.

64. We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, your genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance.

65. We’re also the workers who make your companies go. We want to talk to customers directly in our own voices, not in platitudes written into a script.

66. As markets, as workers, both of us are sick to death of getting our information by remote control. Why do we need faceless annual reports and third-hand market research studies to introduce us to each other?

67. As markets, as workers, we wonder why you’re not listening. You seem to be speaking a different language.

68. The inflated self-important jargon you sling around—in the press, at your conferences—what’s that got to do with us?

69. Maybe you’re impressing your investors. Maybe you’re impressing Wall Street. You’re not impressing us.

70. If you don’t impress us, your investors are going to take a bath. Don’t they understand this? If they did, they wouldn’t let you talk that way.

71. Your tired notions of “the market” make our eyes glaze over. We don’t recognize ourselves in your projections—perhaps because we know we’re already elsewhere.

72. We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.

73. You’re invited, but it’s our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel!

74. We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.

75. If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.

76. We’ve got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we’d be willing to pay for. Got a minute?

77. You’re too busy “doing business” to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we’ll come back later. Maybe.

78. You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.

79. We want you to drop your trip, come out of your neurotic self-involvement, join the party.

80. Don’t worry, you can still make money. That is, as long as it’s not the only thing on your mind.

81. Have you noticed that, in itself, money is kind of one-dimensional and boring? What else can we talk about?

82. Your product broke. Why? We’d like to ask the guy who made it. Your corporate strategy makes no sense. We’d like to have a chat with your CEO. What do you mean she’s not in?

83. We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from The Wall Street Journal.

84. We know some people from your company. They’re pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that you’re hiding? Can they come out and play?

85. When we have questions we turn to each other for answers. If you didn’t have such a tight rein on “your people” maybe they’d be among the people we’d turn to.

86. When we’re not busy being your “target market,” many of us are your people. We’d rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar web site. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing’s job.

87. We’d like it if you got what’s going on here. That’d be real nice. But it would be a big mistake to think we’re holding our breath.

88. We have better things to do than worry about whether you’ll change in time to get our business. Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think about it: who needs whom?

89. We have real power and we know it. If you don’t quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that’s more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with.

90. Even at its worst, our newfound conversation is more interesting than most trade shows, more entertaining than any TV sitcom, and certainly more true-to-life than the corporate web sites we’ve been seeing.

91. Our allegiance is to ourselves—our friends, our new allies and acquaintances, even our sparring partners. Companies that have no part in this world, also have no future.

92. Companies are spending billions of dollars on Y2K. Why can’t they hear this market timebomb ticking? The stakes are even higher.

93. We’re both inside companies and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today, but they’re really just an annoyance. We know they’re coming down. We’re going to work from both sides to take them down.

94. To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down.

95. We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

Business owners -  are you listening?

The read the complete book for free go to http://cluetrain.com/book/index.html

About Forward Motion Studios
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts. You can catch their Tweets at twitter/forwardmotion.

Contact us for a free estimate / consultation by calling 707-578-1390.

Your mother may have told you that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

This is also true online.

There are lots of things we help our clients with from the best way to announce product to which marketing solutions to use.

And when we see some of these do- it-yourself mistakes in setting up a business Twitter account, we feel we need to step in and and say, “Stop it – please.”

Here’s our list of the top 10 ways to screw-up your business Twitter presence -

10. Tiled image background.
This can make your Twitter presence appear like a home-made art project, and this type of background can distract from your business image. It can also look like whoever designed your Twitter background doesn’t know what they are doing.  Keep it simple and engaging.

9.  Immediate Self Promotion.
Immediately begin promoting your business. Don’t engage with your audience or ask questions. Doing this will insure that your Twitter account goes nowhere. Keep in mind that Twitter should be used to help build your brand, not drive direct sales. No one cares about what you are selling. Stop it.

8.  Auto Direct Messages (or DMs).
This is just another form of the automated phone telemarketing message. Stop it. Don’t do anything that creates more work for people you are connecting with online. Unless you have something you really need to say to someone – don’t DM them in Twitter, and don’t set up an auto thank you to people for connecting with you. If you can’t take the time to make an actual connection, then don’t bother.

7.  Posting Too Much.
When you over-post you icons monopolize your follower’s Twitter screens and prevent them from seeing anyone else. This is one of the quickest ways to get people to quit following what you have to say. Sorry, but most people aren’t interested in seeing you that much unless they are sleeping with you.

6.  Spamming With Re-Tweets.
Everyone hates seeing a steady stream of re-tweets – it’s just like posting too much (see above). Please do not re-tweet just for the sake of re-tweeting in hopes of getting noticed or getting people to follow you. It will backfire. It makes you look like the person at the party that only wants to talk about themselves and be the center of attention. What you re-tweet becomes part of your business brand, so re-tweet quality content.

5.  Posting Your Opinions on Politics or Religion.
Political and religious opinions create too much of a distraction so that people forget what your business is about. Do you want this? Besides, who says you’re right?  It’s best to stick to trying to help people trough your Twitter account like Media Temple at http://www.twitter.com/mediatemple. They do a terrific job of handling a business Twitter account.

4. Not Following back.
Don’t follow anyone back. Not a soul. OK, maybe like 50 people, but no more. Just let people follow you. Celebrities are famous for this and we feel it makes them look small and self-centered. Twitter is about connecting and engaging people while building a community. This includes following people back. Look like a business that cares. Thank you.

3.  Arguing A Point.
Nothing will make you look smaller than an ant in the middle of an elephant stampede faster than negatively engaging with customers (and potential customers) on Social Media. Do not engage in in an argument in any way. This is bad mojo and stays on the Internet forever. Learn to roll with any negativity and use a sense of humor. And remember that often when people are complaining, it is usually a sign that they want to stay with you. Help them.

2.  Posting Tweets Once In A While.
You should make a point of visiting your twitter account at least once a week. You should be posting something every business day. It’s only 140 characters – it’s not a marriage proposal. Irregular posting and ignoring your Twitter page makes it look like you do the same thing to your customers. Customers hate being ignored. Remember this.

1.  Abandoning your Twitter Account.
If you are in business, nothing looks worse than to open a Twitter account, begin Tweeting and then stop Tweeting for weeks and even months. It makes you look like you cannot commit, lack focus and will drop the ball with your clients. It isn’t difficult to throw up a Tweet with your morning coffee, at lunch or just before you go home for the day. Show you care enough about your brand and your customers to stay in the game.

What are you waiting for? Go tweet for your business today. If you aren’t sure where to begin, then let us help you by calling 707-578-1390 today. We can even create a custom Twitter Business background to drive your amazing brand.

About Forward Motion Studios
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts.  You can catch their Tweets at twitter/forwardmotion.

Contact us for a free estimate / consultation by calling 707-578-1390.

One of the common difficulties business owners have is understanding what they are paying for when they contract with a web design company to handle the design, or redesign of a website. The charges reflect what they have contracted, but more importantly, businesses are paying for -

• Time – We believe this concept is the most difficult for many business owners to understand. They look at a completed website for x amount of dollars and think they are paying for a website, when in actuality they are paying for the time it takes to create the website. Often the “small tweaks” business owners ask for, is actually a time consuming mini- project, and what they are charged for is the time it takes to do the so-called “small tweak.”

• Experience – Businesses should select a web design company who have been around for at least 5 years building and deploying web sites and Internet solutions. The web company should have experience managing web development from conception to delivery. The company should also employ search engine friendly techniques. This type of experience costs more money per hour (and per project), but will save your business money and headaches in the long run. You also want to make sure the company is going to be around to support your website in the future. Many companies like Forward Motion Studios have a monthly retainer plan which allows clients to request minor changes without having to go back through a quote and approval process.

• Styling – An expert design company has designers on staff who are up to date on the latest trends in design, and posses the ability to create designs that are unique to your vision of what your company brand says to the world. The more experienced the designer, the more you will pay for time spent in the design portion of your website. Again, your rate reflects the experience of the designer.

• Project management – An experienced web design company like Forward Motion Studios, has someone who manages the design projects to ensure continuous accountability and client oversight during the entire process. This can also part of the fee that you pay when you work with an experienced design company. You aren’t the only client a large design firm has, so it’s important to know someone is watching every step of your design process and making sure it is executed to your specifications.

It is not difficult to find web design companies who seem to be a good bargain, or people who work by themselves and offer design services as a one-person, low cost freelancer. But, in the web design world, always beware that you do get what you pay for. Make sure you are paying for experience. Make sure you are not paying for someone who is learning as they go. Also you need to consider what could happen if the person gets sick or has a family emergency. Who will be working on your web design project then?

Also, don’t be fooled by companies offering a low $500.00 start rate for a website and $25.00 – $50.00 a month under a two year contract. You are actually paying anywhere from $1,100.00 – $2,200.00 for your site, but it doesn’t look like it because of the $500.00 low fee upfront. And keep in mind that the monthly fee does not include any updates.

Hopefully this information helps you understand what you are paying for when you contract with a web design firm and understand what you are paying for when you hire an experienced web design company.

About Forward Motion Studios
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts.

Contact us for a free estimate / consultation by calling 707-578-1390.