Which is your least fave?

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I’m also presenting tomorrow on "Choosing A White Label Social Network", and will be blogging some of that content here later today.  The CoverItLive Widget below will have my updates over the next few days, so send me some comments or let me know if you have any questions. Hope to meet some of you in Chicago.

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SDL Tridion’s PR firm sent this to me last week and I couldn’t resist.
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Web sites that are attractive but have no real substance – the “bimbos” of the Web world – are the most frustrating on line experience according to research carried out by SDL Tridion.

The top 5 online frustrations, as revealed by the research are:

1. Pop up ads: Like acne or ex-boyfriends – always appear at the wrong time and difficult to get rid of, 78 percent of respondents voted this the most frustrating aspect of the web.

2. Long intros you can’t click out of: Too much irrelevant information that wastes time; 56 percent of respondents were irked the most by this.

3. Hitting ‘back’ and losing all your information: Too much like hard work – 53 percent of people were driven to distraction when they had to repeat inputting their details.

4. Downloading new applications: Web sites are too flashy sometimes. If all you want is information, having to spend minutes downloading the latest version of an application to watch a video or read a document bothers 50 percent of people.

5. Asking for personal details: Why do you need to fill in your life story to get an answer out of some companies? 49 percent of people found this nosy neighbor attitude annoying.

“A company’s Web site is often the first thing visible to people when doing an on line search. First impressions count and all “fluff” and no content drives Web site users mad,” commented Erik Aeyelts Averink, president at SDL Tridion. “Don’t push customers away and annoy them for no reason.”

Also infuriating people are moving graphics that are difficult to click on (40 percent), a site without the usual options like contact us or about us (48 percent) and irrelevant information on overcrowded homepages (39 percent).

“These elements aren’t just annoying; they make up the Web site from hell,” continued Erik Aeyelts Averink. “Companies need to ensure they aren’t alienating Web users.

The Internet is often the first port of call for research and a Web site deserves the same time and effort spent on other marketing materials. If companies continue in this way they will lose not only customers, but their reputation.”

Here, Here.

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“A key tool the team uses in-house to keep the content organized is Vignette 7.2 (specifically, Vignette Builder and Vignette Portal). Remember, the mission’s content is feeding to podcasts, NASA TV on the Web, Second Life, and elsewhere. We’re taking the same content and representing it in many different ways and by all means.”-Jeanne Holm, chief knowledge architect for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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You could think of it as a Facebook-like application with just the right amount of administrative flexibility to keep the IT guys happy.

A marquee client for BrightIdea.com is Cisco, which uses the platform to create custom portals that spark collaboration with customers, employees, or partners. According to Greeley, Cisco has seen impressive results using the platform, generating more than 700 ideas from almost 1,500 members in 100 countries. Try to do that with some Web-based surveys and polling widgets.

Greeley told me that many companies lack business focus when deploying a social computing strategy.

“Deploying generic social networks without a specific business objective is like putting up playgrounds at the office; it may be fun for a while, but don’t expect it to improve the bottom line,” said Greeley.

What I really like about Brightidea is how it has honed in on a particular business driver. By looking at how a company can manage innovation, Brightidea takes the best-of-breed approach instead of trying to be all things to all people. Greeley says once it perfects that piece, it can move on, driving deeper into the enterprise and affecting other more traditional areas of collaboration.

That focus should certainly give WebStorm 5.0 a leg up in the battles to provide social computing infrastructure to large corporations over the next few years.

Companies are finally realizing the more you can apply the fundamentals of Web 2.0 to specific business objectives, the better the chance at ROI.

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Hiring Resources Based On Price
Let’s take marketing, for example; it’s hard to show the clear ROI for a dollar invested. I’ve seen more companies that choose to hire a communications or marketing manager that’s inexperienced in the industry, but fairly cheap. This is the person controlling your content, your message to the outside world. If they don’t understand the dynamics of what it takes to manage a modern-day Web site, your brand will suffer. We can make a similar argument within the IT group — if the collaboration software is handled by a non-collaborator, you’re probably doomed to live out your collaborative existence in the meager confines of Outlook. The end result is the usually powerful combination of content and collaboration is deemed another shiny, new technology failure.

Choosing A Vendor Based On Personal Reasons, Not Technology
Similar to reason No. 1, choosing a vendor based on any reason not related to the ability to ensure you look like your own media company is unacceptable. In the past year, I’ve seen companies hand over their content strategies to the CEO’s brother-in-law, the founder’s nephew, the co-founder’s fraternity buddy, and more. I’m not saying some of those folks aren’t capable of providing value, it’s just that most of the time the expectations are unrealistic. Some of the results are actually really funny, in a sad, "how much did you pay them?" sort of way.

Using Technology That Dates From The Wrong Decade
So maybe your company has avoided the first two pitfalls; you picked a solid vendor that delivers good results, and you’ve got the right team in place. Don’t cripple them by refusing to invest in the right technology. Yes, the market moves fast and it might feel like just yesterday you spent a fortune updating your infrastructure. But the best jockey in the world won’t win the race on an old horse. Listen to the recommendations of your team; chances are they’ve already used other tools that might be complementary to what you’re trying to do.

And you know the routine: Send me your customer experiences and we’ll post them here periodically. Don’t worry, we won’t expose them or you unless you give us permission. All details will be removed to ensure everyone can return to their office without having to worry about the content management walk of shame.

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Here’s some ways content management is changing marketing:

3: Killing direct mail. I learned years ago that a successful direct mail marketing campaign has a 2% response rate. That would mean that 98% of the papers cluttering our mailboxes are meant to be unused. Whether we consider this a junk mail issue, a snail-mail spam issue, or a green issue, does anyone really need to incur the costs associated with stacks of unread fliers anymore? Deliver your content over a more targeted electronic medium, and maybe you’ll have the added benefit of also annoying fewer potential customers.

2: Improving measurement and analytics. People get Ph.D.s studying and trying to generate ROI models for marketing. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to tie back exact dollar amounts to individual marketing campaigns. That said, many of the newer ways to deliver content to target markets allow for immediate and measurable responses. If you have the right content analytics in place to track clickstreams and other behaviors, marketing programs can be tracked immediately, something that helps marketers re-tool strategies in almost real time.

1: Marrying IT and marketing. Marketing always has held the creative types, while technology holds the rest of us geeks. If this split is maintained now, though, the best marketing content won’t be delivered over the latest platforms, and entire market segments may be missed. Mobile applications, targeted e-mails that make it through spam filters, optimized Web sites, and ad widgets weren’t part of marketing history, but are taking over the present and the future. Internal company departments need to work together now more than ever. The marketing types don’t always need to understand exactly how to set up a blog or track feedback, but if no one on the team does, well, what a shame to waste good content.

And BTW, if you like stuff like this, you might want to subscribe my blog at InformationWeek.

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For this top 5 list I won’t name any names, but I encourage everyone to try to clean their own closets occasionally. Maybe these items will add up to survival in either a recession or peak market conditions. The top reasons a content management company will go out of business:

No. 5: You forgot to eat your own dog food. I’m amazed at the number of companies that offer content management options while their own Web content and marketing materials haven’t been updated since 1997. If you have the teams that can deliver for your customers, let them practice on your real estate first. Would you buy a suit from a man wearing rags? Maybe, but many people wouldn’t.

No. 4: Your customers hate you. The best technology in the world won’t save you if your own customers tell everyone that you’re a jerk. Please don’t ever tell your customers that it’s their fault if they can’t figure out how to use your products. Yes, content management is not rocket science, and yes, some people are amazingly nontechnical. That doesn’t excuse elitism, and if the words “The customer is just stupid” have ever come out of your mouth, you may deserve to go out of business. It sounds like I’m making this up. I’m not.

No. 3: You try to develop everything in-house. The market is moving fast, your R&D teams can’t always keep up. This isn’t necessarily a weakness — sometimes you need to pick your differentiators and source the other items. If you find that you’re missing release deadlines again and again on items readily available from other vendors or as open source, please evaluate your business model. You’re burning cash for fun, not profit.

No. 2: You disregard trends. I’ll say it again. The market moves fast and what’s on the horizon sometimes seems just plain silly at first. But we’ve all heard the famous miscalculation that the world only has need for about five computers — the smartest people have made mistakes. For those who have told me that “Green is just a fad” and “Blogs are overrated,” (both of those are direct, recent quotes) be careful of what you dismiss. Don’t fall behind your competitors because you personally drive a Hummer and wear polar bear fur earmuffs (that’s a green reference, people). Fads and trends have a way of catching on, becoming important, and filling real business needs. Be open to change, and maybe your revenue will grow.

No. 1: Your employees turn over faster than the toilet paper is changed in the corporate restroom. Whether the job market is tight or technology workers seem a dime a dozen, employees are the face of your company. If they’re leaving in droves, or you’re replacing them quarterly, it’s a morale killer and your customers sense it.

Send me your reasons for part two and we’ll post them next week.

Cross-posted on InformationWeek’s Content Management Blog.

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John Shinal at vator.tv interviewed Draper at the OnMedia Media conference recently about the changing new media landscape.

..it may be a little like a producing company and a little like a venture capital model..but somehow we’ll pull those two things together and end up with a new model for venture investing that none of us has quite envisioned before.

It just validates how the social web is redefining how content is controlled and monetized. If you’re a marketer and not positioning your company to operate more like a media company, you should beware of being replaced.

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