We Have a New Site Design

Time to stir up the water and get a new blog design. Our previous design was very minimalist. We've decided too minimalist. We want you to be able to see the range of topics we care about, the various projects we are managing, and have room for things like Twitter and Comments too! Please tell us what you think. We splurged and bought this theme from a top Wordpress designer, Brian Gardner. (Internet oddball perhaps, but I like paying for quality services.)

One of the coolest things about blog software is how the design elements and the content are separated, kind of like how editorial and advertising once used to be. In theory, it's possible to swap out a new "theme" on the Wordpress blog, and the database of posts and comments simply gets wrapped in a new look.

In reality of course, it's not that easy because inevitably we want to tweak a little here, change a color there, add a widget, hide a widget, and make all new graphics too! It's so emblematic of the state of the web these days. On the one hand the glass is half-full: so many things are free and creativity abounds. OTOH, the glass is half-empty: it takes hours and hours to find stuff and make it work the way we want it to, a full spectrum of brain matter is useful when managing the wide and deep terrain that covers coding, design, and ultimately writing a coherent message!

I interviewed a marketing exec from IBM back in 2002. He said they had already survived 11 iterations of their web site over the past 6-7 years! Meanwhile, many small businesses are content to have one iteration every 10 or 11 years! (OK - so maybe I exagerrate a little.) Here's a list of things to think about to see if it is time to redo your website.

We want some of our clients to update their sites; "unfortunately," we built them with the most modern tools available at the time, so the sites are surviving, if not thriving. If it's not broken, don't fix it makes sense. But then there is the question: what opportunities are being missed that can only be gained with new technology?

One last thought. I used "we" a lot in this post. Really, it is Shane who gets the big kudos as he researched the WP themes, did all the extra programming, and even added some upgrades to the templates that he is sending back to Brian, the original developer. Mahalo nui Shane. You are no ka oi!

Clinton & Obama: A lesson of losing control of your brand

Many of my colleagues (Mitch Joel, Shel Holtz, Valeria Maltoni) and I frequently speak to members of PRSA, IABC, and advertising agencies explaining as best we can how consumers now own the brand. Good will increasingly cannot be bought and the political season is giving us striking examples of the mechanics of how "web 2.0" - "new media" - "social media" (choose your buzz) have changed the landscape of both business communication and brand marketing.

Frank Rich has this in today's New York Times editorial page:

The Hallmark show, enacted on an anachronistic studio set that looked like a deliberate throwback to the good old days of 1992, was equally desperate. If the point was to generate donations or excitement, the effect was the reverse. A campaign operative, speaking on MSNBC, claimed that 250,000 viewers had seen an online incarnation of the event in addition to "who knows how many" Hallmark channel viewers. Who knows, indeed? What we do know is that by then the Yes We Can Obama video fronted by the hip-hop vocalist will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas had been averaging roughly a million YouTube views a day. (Cost to the Obama campaign: zero.)

Ed. Note: Video inserted at the end of this post to save you a click-thru.

I have two points to make. First is to note the extreme shift in balance of power as to who controls your brand. Hillary is trying, some would say desperately, to control her brand and essentially trick people into voting for her. She (along with Bill presumably) are convinced they are the best for the country. The country, increasingly, is demonstrative otherwise. She can spend money and stage "staged" events with planted questioners, but we have learned as consumers of media as well as of products, when someone is "faking it up." (My favorite way to describe the traditional art of advertising's dark side.)

Second, one of the best measurements of how well your brand is being received, is the way that people play with it. Are they promoting you or are they disparaging you? It is not that hard to tell these days.

The great opportunity for business is that we can learn from the political season. We can observe how losing control can be tragic, comedic, and/or a fast trip from relative obscurity to leader of the pack.

Footnote Observations

1. It is still early on the date of publication of Frank Rich's editorial (cited above) and there are over 500 comments already posted. People have opinions and they want to share them.
2. My mom, a lifelong Republican, said she would consider voting for Obama before McCain because, "Obama has class." In this age of communication transparency, things like class definitely can shine through all the traditional mud-slinging.

Blog Recommendations from Bare Feet Clients

I've been having these fun interactions with our clients, in part to get them involved and excited about new media and fundamentally to have them pay atention to their invoices and pay us promptly!

This past month I offered Amazon.com gift cards to each client who responded by telling me at least one blog they read and why they love it. Most surprisingly, very few actually responded. Those who did though are over-achievers; many included more than one blog.

So here's some fun new linky love!

Knowledge is Bliss Marketing
I know it might sound self serving but I love creating my own blog because it makes me think about what kind of help my clients really, truly need.

Tim Ferris 4-Hour Work Week
I especially love tim ferris blog on the4 hr. work week. Oh don't I WISH!
- Alison Bliss

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Ask the VC
I read AsktheVC.com religiously because the posts come from real VC's, many VC's contribute (different perspectives) and it seems that the information is always relevant to our company and it is accurate.I have learned many things that I use regularly from AsktheVC.com.
- Andy Alsop, Packet Analytics and Network Security Blog

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Yarn Harlot
I read the knitting blog YarnHarlot.com every single day. I just love Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. She's the total Rock Star of the knitting world. She's funny and wry and I feel now like I know her personally.

Real Simple blog
I also read the Real Simple blog nearly every day, just bc I find it useful and the editor has a great "voice" that I feel is very accessible. Speaks to me as a working mom.

37 Signals
I also read the 37Signals product blog bc I'm obsessed with their products and the creative ways people use them. (Ed. note: we use the fabulous Basecamp software to manage all of our client projects.)

Bare Feet Studios
Oh, and I read, at least weekly, the Bare Feet blog. Those guys are pretty smart.
- Meredith Schwartz, Here Comes the Guide

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Dances with Wool
She calls it Dances with Wool, letters from the Arctic Circle. I love it because this woman makes the most beautiful knitted garments, something I aspire to. She posts pictures of her works, and of the gorgeous outdoors where she lives in Finland. She has a calm, quiet writing style, and I like reading her entries because it slows me down.
- Sharon Carl, Here Comes the Guide

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Scratchy Bottom Racing International
It's the diary of a Father-Daughter projectto buy and restore an old TR7 for entry in the upcoming "24 Hours of LeMons" race (dedicated to cars that would otherwise be on the scrap heap). The main blogger is a young lady who grew up with her car-obsessed father, and in the process learned more than her fair share of what's under the hood. She and her dad have great senses of humor, and a lighthearted appreciation of cars, car people, their dog, and of course each other. It's heartwarming in an atypical way. I can't wait to see how it all turns out!
- Jolene Rae Harrington, Here Comes the Guide

Reporting Standards Bloggers v Journalists

This is an ongoing discussion, and @astrout, one of the people I follow on Twitter, is putting together a summary of this debate. Please read his post (I'll update this one with a link after it's published next week) for the full monty! No links here as this is a Rox Opinion Piece.

While I understand that people really like to frame discussions in the "either-or" mode, I am almost always going to see them as "either-and." Here's the general perspective I have on journalists and bloggers.

Journalists

• Journalists have training that is relatively unique to them, and at the least, there are entire academic curricula defining the rules of engagement.
• They have access to key people and places that is cultivated over the years both by personal means and by being a member of certain clubs. (The journalists club, the employee of ___News Co club, the pool reporters club, etc.)
• Because of where they are published (an established, already vetted, news source) they have implied credibility of the mainstream and traditional kind.
• And this presumed authority also allows them to get away with using the term "anonymous sources" and still maintain a level of cred. Let's call this cred by association.
• This credibility is generally challenged remotely, in broad sweeping terms, by people who are promoting a different agenda aka a different news business entity. The battle of the corporate titans.
• They get paychecks, some of them "obscene" (as told to me directly by more than one leading TV news personalities).
• These paychecks are an incentive to get out a story, not necessarily find the most accurate or well-rounded story. Let's say "the man" is their ultimate master.

Bloggers

• Have more interest and passion in their topic than formal training in many cases.
• Have less access to people in power on average but more access to the opinions on the street precisely because they are having conversations there. And they hang out there.
• Because of where they are published (an independent media source online) they have to first build credibility by creating an audience, then sustain it.
• Most credible bloggers will cite their posts with numerous, verifiable sources. This is called link love and it bears so much influence and good will. (I am resisting the urge to go find links to support each of my points, but I am in a hurry to draft my next blog post and I am trusting Aaron Strout.)
• Their all-volunteer army err I mean audience either confirms the experience or disputes it. And it happens right there on the blog post, back and forth, in real time.
• Most bloggers do it for love not money.
• That independence gives them freedom to explore the farther reaches of the truth, and the audience becomes the ultimate master.

IMO the audience is not always right, so just as paid journalists are vulnerable to the man's paycheck, so are bloggers vulnerable to inflaming the story to whip up the passions of their fans. At the end of the day, each is contributing something of value the other doesn't have and the only thing that isn't happening that much yet is a mutual respect for the work each does.

As more and more people understand the power of word-of-mouth communication, I suspect we will see bloggers continue to rise as being sources of influence and information. IMO, neither bloggers nor journalists have a lock on the truth, as the truth is a very personal and complex thing.