Rails is an open-source Web application framework that's notable for its highly structured approach to building Web applications — not only does it include a lot of the functionality that programmers usually have to build themselves when writing Web applications, but it also provides a structure for everything from how files are organized to how database tables are named. Rails rewards programmers for utilizing this structure by enabling them to get things done without writing much code.

A developer who knows Ruby on Rails will understand how just about any Rails application is structured right from the outset. When you outsource development of a Rails application, moving the application in house for ongoing maintenance is straightforward, as is adding a new developer to your team. At a source code level, Rails applications are all quite similar, even if the functionality is completely different. The structured approach taken by Rails greatly reduces the risk that a developer will wander off and build something that can't be understood, much less maintained.

Ruby on Rails is new — version 1.0 was released in December, 2005, 15 months after the first public release. Ruby, the scripting language used to build Rails, was originally released in 1995, around the same time as Java. The biggest reason that Rails has seen such rapid success is that it builds on the best parts of the Web application frameworks that preceded it. The creators of Ruby on Rails adopted the best practices of the Java and PHP communities and baked them into a new framework.

The Rails Philosophy

In building Web applications, two important factors are speed of development and maintainability after release. Ruby on Rails is strong in these areas because of its philosophical approach, which is based based on two principles: "Don't repeat yourself" and "Convention over configuration."

"Don't repeat yourself" is straightforward. Code in a Rails application is organized to make it easy for developers to build their application so that each piece of functionality only exists in one place, where it can be reused throughout the application. In an application that adheres to the Rails philosophy, you never need to trawl through dozens of pages changing the footer on every one, nor do you need to check in multiple places that you've made the zip code required when a user enters an address.

The idea behind "Convention over configuration" is that Rails makes many assumptions about how an application should be organized, what things should be named, and how databases should be laid out. Not coincidentally, coming up with these kinds of conventions is generally one of the toughest problems in application development. Most organizations have their own set of conventions, but Rails goes a step further and suggests a single convention that applies to all Rails applications. The primary advantage here is that developers are liberated from the configuration files that most frameworks require. As long as you adhere to the Rails conventions, many things that you would ordinarily have to write code for just work. Convention over configuration is responsible for most of the efficiency advantages Rails provides over other platforms.

The Components of Rails

The creators of Rails chose the Ruby programming language because it offered the very strong object-oriented capabilities of languages like Java with the flexibility of scripting languages like Perl and PHP. Developers have tried to emulate some of the best features of Rails in other languages, but many of the best features of Rails depend strongly on the capabilities that Ruby offers.

Ruby on Rails is a collection of libraries, including a templating library which enables you to mix code that will be executed on the server with regular HTML markup to make it easy to build dynamic Web applications. In the world of Ruby on Rails, the intent is that these templates will only be used to present dynamic data. The business logic resides elsewhere. For example, there's a layout feature that enables programmers to wrap the content on their pages in a header and footer (and possibly other common elements as well) without including any code at all in the individual views, thus eliminating even the common header and footer include statements that are repeated on every page in most applications.

Ruby on Rails provides a Model-View-Controller framework that splits up an application to provide structure, flexibility, and reuse. The controller accepts incoming requests from the browser and then routes them to the proper part of the application. After processing, the controller passes the results to the view layer for presentation. Business logic resides in the Model layer, which takes care of database interaction as well as processes like calculating shipping costs and sales tax, or finding search results, or validating user input. The View layer is used to present the results. Use of MVC frameworks in Web applications has been popular with Java developers since 1999.

The last component of Rails is a database persistence framework that provides a bridge between a relational database like MySQL, MS SQL, or Oracle and an application. It enables you to treat data stored in a relational database like regular objects within your application.

The Other Side of the Hype

Ruby on Rails has a lot going for it, but there are some things to look out for as well before taking the leap. First, because Rails is still new, the pool of Ruby on Rails experts is not very large, even though Ruby on Rails is not difficult to learn, Before making a big commitment to Ruby on Rails, make sure that you can find the experts you need, whether through staffing or outsourcing.

Deployment challenges are another mark of the relative immaturity of Ruby on Rails. Figuring out how and where to deploy your applications is not as easy as it is for other platforms. Finding a Web host where you can deploy your Rails application and getting everything up and running can be painful, especially when compared to platforms like PHP and ASP.NET. If you're deploying the application internally, chances are your systems administrator is going to have to do some research to get your Ruby on Rails application running on your own server. The deployment picture for Ruby on Rails continues to improve, but right now dealing with deployment can be a complex issue.

Because Ruby on Rails is still changing rapidly, it may be best for some organizations to delay adoption. The core Rails libraries are still being updated frequently, as are many of the supplemental libraries that many developers use. Keeping up with the state of the art in the Rails world is a big job, and not all development teams are suited to take on that job.

The Bottom Line

Should you consider adopting Ruby on Rails for your next Web application project? The ideal trial project for Ruby on Rails is a new application that won't be accessing a legacy database, hosted on a server running Linux or some other Unix variation. Ruby on Rails works fine on Windows, but is still better suited to Unix-based environments. Ideally the application will stand on its own rather than being a piece of a larger application. Ruby on Rails is most powerful in terms of streamlining database interactions, so an application where you are manipulating information in a database will enable you to reap the greatest rewards from Rails.

Rails enables developers to get more done in less time, but for each project you have to assess whether that argument is applicable. A lot depends on the project requirements, and the expertise and enthusiasm of the development team. If your developers are clamoring to try out Ruby on Rails, then it's probably worth a shot. Very few new platforms will be adopted successfully if they are imposed from the top down.

Even if Rails isn't the right fit for you right now, it very well may be in the next year or two, as the platform continues to mature.

Progressive Development – sounds like a building strategy to breathe life into a stagnant community, doesn't it? Only the neighborhood – the Web – differs from what you might have first imagined. Progressive Development is the deliberate and ongoing process of breathing new life into web sites to better serve the changing needs of site visitors. Buildings actually provide a good metaphor for understanding the concept of Progressive Development. To quote the unsuspecting hero of many user experience designers:

Age plus adaptivity is what makes a building come to be loved. The building learns from its occupants, and they learn from it…The house and its occupants mold to each other twenty-four hours a day, and the building accumulates the record of that intimacy.
— Stewart Brand, in How Buildings Learn

You've probably admired certain buildings that evolve gracefully – that gas station that is now an architect's office or that corner store that is now a modern home. Somehow, it simply keeps pace with trends without major reconstruction. Its inhabitants aren't inconvenienced by the changes; the space merely adapts to its inhabitants' needs and expectations.

Just what you'd like your web site to do, right? Before we talk too much about adapting web sites, though, we must first consider how they are built.

Progressive Enhancement — an important foundation

Initial construction techniques make a big difference in the adaptability of buildings and web sites. One technique, Progressive Enhancement¹, bears striking similarities to classic post and beam, as well as modern commercial steel frame, construction. This technique, first formally defined in the web community in 2003, is rapidly gaining momentum. AOL, Yahoo!, and Microsoft are recent and notable advocates. The larger and more competitive the site, the more critical adaptability becomes due to economies of scale. However, you don't have to be one of the “big guys” to benefit. In fact, you receive payback for your online investment every time you adapt the site to meet the needs of your organization or site visitors.

Like post and beam construction, Progressive Enhancement centers on two basic elements. Post and beam uses horizontal supports resting on vertical timbers. Progressive Enhancement also uses two key concepts – content contained within independent structural definitions². Most importantly, though, both construction methods are incredibly durable. And neither method is bound to any particular presentation style. A post and beam house lends itself either initially or through transformation to everything from rustic to traditional to sleek contemporary. With Progressive Enhancement, web sites demonstrate similarly amazing flexibility in presentation style, while also accommodating an enormous variety of browsers.

Must form and function follow major funding?

What does this approach really mean to the Web, though? Over the last decade, increasingly sophisticated web coding techniques, languages, and browsers emerged. Today, underneath the covers of most web pages, you find content interspersed with table-based layouts, embedded graphics, and a mix of languages. In fact, these routine and seemingly "standard" construction methods bear striking similarities to stick-built home construction. You simply fold in the latest stylistic trend wherever you need it. The possibilities are endless – until you want to make changes. Suddenly, the existing implementation is revealed to be incredibly complex, stifling, and difficult to change.

Overhauling a "stick-built" web site is labor-intensive and costly. No wonder budgets only allow major redesigns every 2-3 years. Unless planned for during the initial site design, those 2-3 years often mark a period of abstinence from really improving the site. Sure you write and edit copy. You add new pages. But substantive changes in architecture, look, or function mean completely rethinking the fundamental site and page design. The result? The "dynamic Web medium" is largely not living up to that claim. Sites are literally being resuscitated every few years, rather than evolving or breathing naturally like the communities they support. Not to mention that each major overhaul means a major budget and major timeline – and presents a major risk.

Progressive Enhancement — empowering Progressive Development

Having explored the advantages of the Progressive Enhancement construction technique, let's plunge into this new mindset called Progressive Development. Progressive Development is all about instant gratification. It's not that this ongoing evolution doesn't take effort, of course. Progressive Development requires a change in thought and action. Web sites, like those amazing buildings we've admired, can't simply be “maintained” until the next overhaul.

Progressive Development advocates smaller, iterative changes to the site. If you regularly use a particular web site, you know firsthand that small improvements are appreciated. On the other hand, massive ones can upset the apple cart and can waste your precious time in relearning, even if the changes are good. Your mindset must shift toward providing little puffs of fresh air that provide instant gratification for your site's users. With this approach, you give users no cause to roam to other competing sites. And you don't overwhelm your customer support staff with the high volume of questions and complaints that often result from major changes.

Even CFOs find the Progressive Development approach highly desirable. Studies demonstrating the savings associated with Progressive Enhancement and Progressive Development are just beginning to emerge, showing truly astounding results. The savings over the major overhaul approach are on the order of 30 percent. CFOs receive instant gratification, too, when they see incremental ongoing investments in the site, rather than huge ones that carry a much higher risk of failure – and the potential for unplanned additional expenditures. Given this, there's no need to postpone the joy of better serving your web community's needs and interests.

Spread the joy proactively!

By now, you're probably wondering what those regular little puffs of fresh air should be. The best approach is to evolve the site based on deliberate activities that identify the appropriate adaptations. Think about performing these activities regularly – perhaps quarterly or semi-annually. Consider placing a rotation of these activities into your plan, rather than performing all of them at once, so that changes to the site stay incremental. Good activities include:

• Usability testing
  No matter how good your initial usability test results might have been, user expectations usually change over time. This is particularly true of sites that manage to inspire people to frequently visit and participate. Usability testing can help ensure that you are meeting expectations of repeat users without compromising the needs of new visitors.
• Audience assessments
  New types of users, with different requirements, may emerge as your site becomes more visible and popular. Existing users' expectations often change, too. Some, but not all, of these expectations are prompted by evolution of the web medium itself.
• Evaluation of site statistics
  Site visitors leave little footprints that many organizations routinely collect and ignore. Ongoing analysis can help you understand cyclical or seasonal patterns, the burn-in rate for new functionality, the ease or difficulty of finding resources on your site, and most importantly, what portions of your site are most appreciated by the community you serve.
• Product, service, and process assessments
  What your organization offers its community, as well as your delivery process, will change over time. If you change either one, evaluate how to reflect that change in your online community. Even if your community isn't predominantly online, you may be able to streamline the process for both audiences using Internet technologies.

Progressive Development is the revolution of evolution. Instead of shocking changes, it provides constant, gradual changes that are better for users and for business. It builds on sound, standards-based construction techniques. And it saves money. Isn't it time you started thinking progressively?

¹ Steven Champeon, Progressive Enhancement and the Future of Web Design at www.webmonkey.com

² In Progressive Enhancement, document structure is styled by cascading style sheets (CSS) and in some cases, through the use of external scripts. Content is kept separate, with style-related markup intentionally kept to a bare minimum. Presentation characteristics, typically also specified by CSS, are generally isolated from both the semantically meaningful document structure and its contents.

It all started with the chicken and the egg, and when that could not be easily resolved, we moved onto is it butter or is it margarine?  And of course, let’s not forget the classic case of trying to decipher who put what into the chocolate and/or peanut butter? Let’s face it – we thrive on a good argument. And today, it’s about Linux and Windows.

As we all know, no matter how thin you make a pancake, it will always have two sides. And from the breakfast table to the data center, the statement still applies.  There are two [very passionate] schools of thought regarding Linux and Windows.  In one camp, the mantra is “To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up a Windows box, you just need to work on it.”  In the other, it is “Don’t let the penguin fool you, Windows is better.” So what’s the skinny? While comparing Microsoft to Linux might seem like comparing a cannon to a water pistol, it is clearly a case of David versus Goliath with Linux emerging as the poster child for the open-source movement.

Microsoft has frequently decried Linux as a threat to commercial software companies, but open source isn’t about destroying the rights of established companies to sell their intellectual property on the open market – it is about giving developers and enterprises the freedom to develop solutions that meet their business needs. 

Linux is known for its dependability, low cost of ownership, security, and freedom to modify source code.  Because it is based on an open source model, it isn’t crippled by software provider release dates, and can be upgraded at a pace that the development community and users dictate.  For all of these reasons, Linux has established a strong following as a server operating system – accounting for nearly 12 percent of new server operating system shipments.  But that alone does not settle the argument of Linux over Windows.  For that, read on…

• Security:  As an open source product that practices “security by transparency,” Linux tends to be secure by default.  This is because with open source, anyone can inspect and modify the underlying source code.  Therefore, security issues are quickly identified and corrected – often, before hackers have an opportunity to exploit them. On the other hand, closed systems that practice “security by obscurity,” such as Windows, cannot compete.
• Scalability:  As a true multi-user, multi-processing operating system, Linux can grow in tandem with an organization and its computing needs – and in some cases, without having to pay additional software licensing fees.  Not so with Windows – where each installation = an additional fee.
• Performance:  The efficient, compact Linux kernel is designed to maximize use of its hardware resources, delivering high performance with very little overhead.  To find proof, just take a look at Amazon.com and Google – both proponents of Linux. 
• Systems Management, Availability, Reliability:  Linux offers high levels of reliability, centralized management, and uptime.  It can run for months without a reboot and almost never needs to be reinstalled.  Its reliability and dependability stem from a solid design, based on the best Unix principles, and an open, community-based development process.
• Openness and Compatibility: Up-to-the-minute…a great way to describe Linux development. As an open source product, Linux  is a modern network operating system that the development community is building and enhancing in line with the latest Internet and international technical standards.  Unlike the proprietary shield enveloping Windows, Linux generally incorporates these standards as they are set out by the industry bodies that write them.  With Linux, there is no lock-in.
  
  In fact, Linux is distributed by several companies, allowing customers to pick and choose the flavor that best suits their needs.  Windows, on the other hand, is a proprietary product – with Microsoft forcing its users to accept what it offers.
• Cost of Ownership:  Linux provides a lower longer term cost of ownership and higher return on investment for the following reasons:
  • Less downtime:  The stability and reliability of Linux reduces business costs associated with downtime (e.g. support and lost  productivity).
  • Lower hardware costs:  Linux makes efficient use of hardware resources and can run on less powerful hardware while still delivering high performance.
  • Lower software upgrade costs:  With closed systems, an initial investment in software usually lasts for three years or less, after which upgrades must be purchased for bug fixes and new features.  With Linux, upgrades can be applied as the community develops them.  Further, Linux is covered by the General Public License, stating that it and all derivative works must be distributed with the source code – making it virtually impossible for anyone to monopolize the Linux sector.
• Rate of Evolution:  Microsoft’s closed development project will find it impossible to advance at the rate of Linux.  Factors that have been named as drivers of this progress are:  the number of active developers; the quantity and the quality of the feedback from the field; the short development cycle from development team to end user; the absence of corporate “meddling” in the design process; and the independently developed open source subsystems frequently incorporated into Linux, giving it quantum advances in a short period of time.
• Support:  Since the source code for open source software is freely available, most of the popular products are supported by thriving communities of developers, commercial-end users, and enthusiasts.  In fact, for those not familiar with the open source community, the quality of free technical support can be shocking.  Having access to the best and the brightest who are ready to assist you at no charge when you encounter problems that can’t be solved by reading your Linux documentation runs circles around Windows support, which is only free for a limited time and often lacks the ability to provide resolution.

While Linux is not the right answer for every user or every data center application, it has become a strong contender – posing a serious threat to Microsoft’s near monopoly.  With strength in numbers, Linux is a movement rather than a company or a technology.  It cannot be bought out; it cannot be crushed by lawsuits or legislations; and it cannot be out-marketed.  With Linux, ownership of key assets is avoided; the community works and shares in the results of its labor; and there is an avid and active dislike for Microsoft’s proprietary, school yard bully approach.  But beyond beliefs, Linux is proving over and over again to be a better value when compared to Windows.  Now, please pass the syrup.

Once upon a time, just having a Web site put a not-for-profit (NFP) at the forefront of technology. Back then pages were static, functionality was limited, and the user was an afterthought. But to quote Bob Dylan – "The times, they are a-changin'." Users have matured; technology has evolved; and functionality is required. Instead of being satisfied with just finding out a little bit about who you are and where you are located, users now expect the Web site of a NFP to be a "one-stop-shop" – they want to be able to update their contact information, buy a book, sign up for an event, make a donation, and participate in an online community.

That being said… it is time to ask yourself: "Has my organization adapted to give my users all the information and options they want?" And I'm not just talking about the technology - it is also about workflow. To truly offer a positive user experience, you need to make sure that tools work properly; that content is timely and appropriate; and that your site continues to evolve as your audience's needs change. This is not a "build it and they will come" endeavor – which has been discovered by many NFPs the hard way. To be successful, it is imperative that appropriate business resources are allocated once the technology has been installed to maintain the application so that it remains relevant and useful.

And a key part of keeping the application relevant and useful is to write, edit, and revise the content regularly so that your Web site doesn't get stale. Over the years, companies have proven over and over that print collateral just does not easily translate into the bite-sized content nibbles and page flows required for the Web. To be a Web-focused NFP, you must first recite the following mantra: "Content is king." Then you must be willing and open to dedicating the resources necessary to populate your Web site with relevant and appropriate content – which can mean rewriting everything from your marketing collateral to your product descriptions.

It's no secret – every page on your Web site requires at least some content. It may be directions on how to get to your office, a reprint of an article originally published in a publication, instructions on how to fill out a form, a description of a product, or summaries of programs and events. No matter what it is, your content needs to be easy to find, relevant, and up-to-date. And to accomplish this, consider the following:

• Include resources for producing, reviewing, and updating Web content in your business plans. Take it one step further and put it into appropriate staff job descriptions and objectives.
• Train staff so they feel comfortable working with the Web tools for managing content on your site.
• Set up a content review process. Be sure to designate a single point of responsibility for each area of your Web site.
• Communicate your Web goals to your entire organization, and make sure your staff and constituents understand their importance.

Not to stand alone, a king must always have a queen. And on the Web, commerce is queen (even in the world of the NFP). In fact, most NFPs already sell products or collect monetary donations, and with customers becoming more and more comfortable with online transactions, NFPs would like to move this commerce to the Web. By allowing customers to purchase physical products, download documents and media, and register for online courses and Web seminars, the NFP is becoming more effective and efficient in its outreach.

But that is not to say that there are not issues to consider when moving to online commerce.

For example, physical products require an infrastructure to fulfill orders and manage inventory. What happens if your book on the lives of tree frogs becomes a hot bestseller because it was showcased in a very popular blog? Will you be able to handle the hundreds, or even thousands of orders that come in overnight?

And downloadable products require Web systems that are robust enough to handle increased traffic due to an influx of users trying to simultaneously access a PDF document in response to an email promotion. You don't need to be offline when your tree frog book is getting so much attention!

Finally, online courses and Web seminars have multiple facets – they require a system for registering for the offering, and then another system for managing the course or seminar once it is purchased. Courses are often maintained in a Learning Management System (LMS) where users can come in and out of courses over a set period of time, and view their transcripts. Live Web seminars require a real-time multimedia interface as well as someone to coordinate the speaker and audience logistics.

Now, that I have covered some basics in becoming a Web-focused NFP – it is important to reiterate that this is not an "if you build it, they will come" endeavor. The content and commerce opportunities on your Web site are not going to get noticed unless you put some effort into marketing. The first thing to do is to make sure that your Web site URL is prominently placed in all your print material. Make sure it is on your employees' business cards and in their email signature lines. For different print promotions, set up short, unique URLs (e.g., www.mycompany.com/sale) so that you can use your Web statistics to determine how successful your print campaign is at driving customers to your Web site. And let's not forget the merits of email being used as a tool to direct users to all that wonderful content you have invested in for your site. For example, consider sending:

• Short, targeted messages, to a small group of highly qualified prospects from your constituent database, directing them to a specific page or area of your site (e.g., send a description of an event with a link to the home page for the event to those in your database who attended a previous similar event)
• Short, targeted messages, to a larger group of somewhat qualified prospects (e.g., send a description of a book with a link to the book's ecommerce page to those who have identified themselves as being in a specific demographic)
• Longer, e-newsletter format emails, which include lots of links to lots of different things on your Web site, to a large number of prospects from a wide demographic.

And new tools are coming out all the time. They allow you to send emails in both HTML and text format, track results, and offer users the option to subscribe and unsubscribe. While using them is becoming simple, coming up with new strategies and ideas for email campaigns takes both organizational commitment and resources.

After reading all of that, feeling a bit Web-unfocused? Ready to jump on board? Don't worry – it's possible… just establish a plan of action. Ask yourself. What obstacles are in the way and how do we overcome them? Does management lack information about how important the Web is to your constituents? Does your staff lack the skills or understanding to be able to manage content easily? Then think about ways to educate and enlighten your organization to the ways of the Web and its benefits to your NFP. Once you've got your bases covered, jump in with both feet. Not only will your organization appreciate it, but more importantly, your users will.

Just ten short years ago, project management was thought of by many as an “accidental profession” – a role within organizations created through happenstance and ad hoc training. Project managers were truly a neglected species – often novice managers given a project to complete with the directive to operate within a set of narrowly defined (and often unrealistic) constraints. No crystal ball was needed to predict the outcome – failed projects; managers battling entrenched bureaucracy and powerful factions; and money, market opportunities, and other resources forever lost. Fast forward to the year 2005, and nothing could be further from the truth. Today, individuals grow up with the dream of one day becoming project managers – ok, admittedly, once they’re past the desire to be doctors who moonlight as movie stars and astronauts on the weekends. The career path of the project manager is now well-defined and well-understood in most organizations – a scenario quite contrary to that of ten years ago. Nowadays, we are seeing books, courses, professors, and certifications designed specifically to educate and train the modern project manager.

Today’s project managers are a special breed. They are strong leaders who possess a variety of problem-solving, communication, motivational, visionary, and team-building skills. They are one part facilitator, one part salesperson, one part coach, one part cheerleader, and of course, one part cat herder. Their profession is truly a mix of art and science – a blend of business and management skills that can be taught and learned and personality traits that are inherited, but necessary to be successful in the human side of project management.

Managing projects is a challenge that requires a strategy and methodology all its own. But before we dive into the formalities of project management, we must first understand what a project is. By definition, a project is temporary in nature, which means it has a specific start and finish. A project consists of a well-defined collection of tasks and ordinarily culminates in the creation of an end product or deliverable. There is a preferred sequence of execution for the project’s tasks – which is known as the project schedule. But basically, a project is a unique, one-time undertaking; it will never be done again in exactly the same way, by the same people, and within the same environment – thereby, introducing uncertainty and consequently, risk into the endeavor.

Because projects are unique and temporary in nature, they pose a brand-new set of challenges. They include:

• Personnel: Because every project has different personnel needs, a new project team must be assembled at the beginning and disbanded at the end. Where do these people come from and where do they go when they are no longer needed?
• Estimating: Because every project is unique, estimates of costs and schedules may contain more assumptions than facts.
• Budgeting: Project budget cycles rarely tend to run the 12-month intervals that corporate budgets do. Even though a firm’s budgeting process may attempt to allocate money for upcoming projects, their funding requirements may be unclear before a formal planning process has begun.
• Authority: When projects cross organizational boundaries, it can become unclear who has authority for many decisions – thus, creating gridlock and political maneuvering that can block progress.
• Controls: Normal accounting practices produce reports on a quarterly or annual basis – but these timeframes are not sufficient to keep most projects on track. By the time the quarterly accounting reports are published and show a project over budget, it may too late to recover.
• Communication: Communication breakdowns are one of the most common reasons listed for failed projects. Messages that must go through a number of intermediaries and across organizational boundaries are not only time consuming, but also face the risk of being irretrievably lost.

Setting realistic expectations, fostering agreement among all parties, and then delivering the product can obviously be difficult, but don’t despair, there are project management techniques that have evolved to meet these challenges. From a high level, these techniques can be grouped into three project management functions:

• Project definition lays out the foundation for a project. From the project definition process, the project manager must understand and be able to communicate the following information to sponsors, customers, management, and prospective team members:

  • Problem Statement: Describe the problem to be addressed and resolved.
  • Project Name: Provide a concise and descriptive “Official Project Name.”
  • Project Description: Provide a brief narrative including project context and background.
  • Project Objectives: Describe what will be achieved and what will be delivered to the customer.
  • Scope: Provide a first draft of what will and will not be included in the project.
  • Customer: Delineate specifically who is the customer.

  Project definition usually evolves as the project moves through its life cycle.

  Deliverables include: Statement of work, Responsibility matrix, Communication plan, and Project charter.

• Project planning puts together the details of how to accomplish the project’s goals, given the constraints. During this phase, interim deliverables are identified, along with the strategy for producing them. Formulating this strategy begins with the definition of the project requirements (tasks) and the optimum sequence for executing them (the schedule). Time and cost estimates are also established. And risk management activities identify the areas of greatest uncertainty and create strategies to manage them. The question of feasibility and justification is addressed, as formal approval to proceed with the project is ordinarily sought before continuing.

  Deliverables include: Risk log, Schedule, Budget, and Resource plan.

• Project control includes all the activities that keep the project moving toward the goal - while minimizing the distance between where you end up and where you said you’d end up.

  • Progress measurement: Measuring progress early and often quickly identifies any problems and thus, makes them easier to solve.
  • Communication: According to some estimates, project managers can expect to spend more than 80% of their time communicating in some way. Thereby, making it no surprise that effective communication is critical in controlling a project.
  • Corrective action: Basically, these are measures taken to get a project back on track. It typically refers to the day-to-day responses to all the roadblocks that a project may encounter (schedule delay, cost overrun, performance issue).

In a nutshell, these functions sum up to the responsibilities of the project manager. And they are both sequential and repetitive: A project must begin with definition, then proceed to planning, and finally to control. But planning will inevitably lead to modifications in the definition, and controlling actions will require constant changes to the plan and, occasionally, changes to the definition. So a project manager may actually cycle through this process every day on an ongoing project…whew!

As you can imagine, project management is a vital tool in the future of global business. Increasingly technically complex products and processes, ever-shortening time-to-market windows, and the need for cross-functional expertise have guaranteed project managers to be important, indispensable, and powerful resources in the hands of organizations that understand and appreciate their skills. Now c’mon, who wants to be an astronaut?

So you’ve invested in a corporate web site, now what? Well, many companies treat their web sites like the OSHA posters that they are required to display…everyone has one so there’s ours. But that is a bad move. Web sites at the corporate level can be significant investments and should be treated as such. To get in the right mindset, organizations should think of their web sites in the same manner as physical expansions – web sites are essentially virtual expansions. And therefore, their performance should be evaluated to determine effectiveness, impact, and return on investment. “How?”…You ask. “Server Log Analysis.”…I reply.

Just like footprints in the sand, each of us leaves cybertracks when we surf the Web. With every click of the mouse and site visited, our virtual “footprints” reveal information that can be very useful to an organization. If you’re interested in knowing: “How many hits is my web site getting?” “How many visitors are going to my site?” “What pages are people looking at?” Where are my users coming from?” “Are any of my links broken?” “What browsers/platforms are being used?” “How do I go about measuring the usage traffic on my site?” and “What information can I get?”, then server log analysis is for you.

Server log files are basically records of web server activity. They provide details about file requests to a web server and the server response to those requests. Each line of the main file log (aka the access log) describes the source of a request, the file requested, the date and time of the request, the content type and length of the transferred file, and other data such as errors and the identity of referring pages.

As you can see, this can be an overwhelming amount of information (some useful and some not so useful), so it will be important to select tools that capture and summarize data in a format that is meaningful to your organization. Though data collected in log files can vary from one server to another, the ideal log file for web analytics contains the following:

• Who is visiting your site. You want unique visitor identification so that you know whether a visitor is new or returning.
• The path visitors take through your pages. With insight of each page a visitor viewed and the order of those pages visited, you can identify trends in how visitors navigate through your site. You also want to know what element (link, icon) a visitor clicked on to navigate between the pages of your site.
• How much time visitors spend on each page. A pattern of an extended period of time being spent on a single page may indicate that the page is either very interesting or very confusing.
• Where visitors are leaving your site. The exit page for a visitor’s session can be evaluated to determine whether it was a logical place to end the visit, or whether the visitor bailed out due to usability issues or a mere lack of interest.
• The success of users’ experiences at your site. Completed purchases, successful downloads, and viewed information are concrete indicators of tasks accomplished.

Basically, the goal of data collection is to have enough information to reconstruct the entire session of the user’s visit to your web site. Armed with such information, an organization is poised to leverage that insight to not only optimize its web site for increased customer loyalty and business benefits, but also to assist with the following:

• Planning Web infrastructure capacity to handle future growth;
• Understanding qualities of new and repeat visitors;
• Target marketing offers and campaigns to specific categories of visitors;
• Determining a budget that is appropriate for future web site improvements and online advertising campaigns;
• Identifying potential partnerships based on generated referral traffic and realized profits;
• Modifying investments in, altering the navigation to, or editing the content in web pages based on user patterns.

Now, the bad news: log files are not fun to look at – in fact, they’re ugly and overwhelming. But there is good news – these beasts can be tamed. There are some excellent software solutions out there that can summarize and present raw log data in a format that is useful for you – and even better news…some are free! These tools have many similarities, but can range in features and price. So before evaluating the options available, it is important to determine the type of data you wish to see. Log analysis programs can display everything from a list of IP addresses connected to the Web server to a pie chart detailing which files were accessed most often. Also, if your server produces any unusual file types or proprietary file formats, you’ll need to check and see if your desired software package can understand the flavor of log file you want to analyze.

Almost every log file analyzer runs locally on your computer, but some software companies have moved to an ASP model – where the log file report generators are hosted with the vendor. These options are “lightweight” yet powerful, and they can be accessed from any computer with Web access – regardless of whether or not it’s directly connected to your server. Though their functionality is limited and security issues are always a concern, a hosted solution is often less costly than purchasing a large software application.

If you are finding yourself ready to dive into web analytics, remember to work closely with your technical staff who have expertise in the software and configuration choices used in producing the log file. You may also want to seek advice or engage in your project with someone who has actually performed server log analysis. As in any dynamic technical field, spending a few hours with people who have pioneered the technique can radically reduce the low-productivity weeks you’d spend toiling on your own – and accelerate the useful results that are to come from your log file analysis. But to give you a head start, some of the more commonly deployed log analysis tools include:

• Webalizer – [Open Source, Free of Charge]: It is one of the most popular log analysis tools. Webalizer is a C-based analysis tool that has to be run from the command line. The graphics are not optimal, but the reports are sufficient for providing a quick glimpse of a few important data points; namely “What pages are being accessed?” and “How many hits are we getting?”
• Analog – [Open Source, Free of Charge]: It is a C-based analysis tool that can be run from a web page or the command line. Analog attempts to present everything, but it is an example of how to include too much information for normal human consumption. By default, everything is presented on the same Web page. A navigation bar at the top (Analog’s saving grace) allows users to click on a specific report, which drills down to another section of the page. Analog’s more interesting reports include listings of: how many hits come from each country, search engine queries that brought users to the site, and which browsers and operating systems visitors used.
• Summary – [Commercial, 30-day Trial Version Available]: It is a commercial log analysis tool that includes all possible information and lists options in a text web page for users to click on. With over sixty reports, you can find out more about your visitors, connection bandwidth, referrers, and all aspects of your website, than with any other tool. It offers many unique reports including: search words used to find your site in major search engines, periods when the server was down, most commonly used entry points into your site, visitors connection (modem) speed. Although the GUI can be a bit cumbersome, the cost of Summary is not prohibitive and the reports are decent.
• WebTrends – [Commercial]: Preface: WebTrends is not for companies with skinny wallets. WebTrends has been around for more than a decade and plays nicely with IIS. It is the industry leader for log file reporting applications on the enterprise and small-to-medium business level. The advantages of the tool are its ease-of-use and ability to generate just about any report you could possibly want. The disadvantages of WebTrends is that it only runs on Windows and its price. But the company’s claims of usability appear founded, and it has even included a way to access all of the information available from Web server logs.
• AWStats – [Open Source, Free of Charge]: It is a Perl-based log analysis tool that can be run from a web page or the command line. AWStats is by far the best looking of all of the Free Web log analysis tools. Its graphics are superb, and its information is effectively presented. At a glance, users can view all available reports and navigate seamlessly between them.

Having your own server log analysis statistics has distinct benefits. First and foremost, statistics about your web site are available on demand and in a format that is useful to you. Secondly, you can change the data you are gathering as needed. And finally, log analysis statistics provide a more complete record of how your web site is being used – also known as…invaluable insight. As we’ve all heard, knowledge is power – and by improving your understanding of your users through server log analysis, you will have a direct effect on your business success and customer loyalty.

With the economy not as strong as it has been, the not-for-profit (NFP) sector is facing an ever changing business landscape that includes: a volatile economy, changing demographics, shifts in governmental and private funding priorities, swings in the political climate, and influential world events. As a result, NFPs are being called upon more and more to adapt to change. Although other sectors have been relatively quick to incorporate tools that enable them to adapt to the shifting landscapes, the NFP sector’s response has not been quite as successful. Clearly, one of the most important tools in this adaptation has been technology.

For the NFP, the goal of technology is to be a tool that helps the organization serve more constituents, market its services, inspire action, engage its community, and support its staff. Unfortunately, twenty years after the advent of the personal computer, and almost a decade after the internet boom, most NFPs still have not been able to effectively introduce technology into their organizations. And if I were a betting woman, I’d say that most probably do not have a technology plan – and if they do, it is most likely a simple wish list of hardware, software, and internet services they’d like to have.

So what is a technology plan you ask? Well, a technology plan is the single most important ingredient to the effective use of technology in an organization. At its very core, it is a strategy document – helping an organization think through its needs and how to satisfy them with the resources available. The technology planning process can help an organization minimize technology-related crises, use staff time efficiently, and avoid wasting money on equipment that makes life miserable. It can also help an organization think through its priorities in order to use technology in a way that directly furthers its mission. It guides NFPs in budgeting for technology and making cost-effective purchases. And the plan itself can be used as a key tool to advocate for technology funding.

Technology plans can take either a comprehensive or tactical approach to the planning process. Comprehensive plans normally look ahead 3 to 5 years and cover all aspects of the entire organization’s technology needs – including: infrastructure, communication, programs, and outreach. A comprehensive plan is centered on an organization’s mission, the foundation upon which all decisions are made. On the flipside, a tactical plan addresses one specific need or project, and focuses mostly on the operation of technology systems.

Now, that we know what a technology plan is – the next logical question seems to be what’s involved? TechSoup, a San Francisco-based NFP that provides technology advice and assistance to other NFPs, outlines the following components as being critical to a technology plan for NFPs.

1. Establish leadership and support for your technology plan. By creating a technology team, and involving management and staff in establishing goals, you can unite the entire organization behind the technology plan.

   Strong leadership encourages enthusiasm about using technology to further an organization’s mission, contributes to staff buy-in, aides in credibility with potential funders, and can counter the negative responses of opposition within the organization.

   The technology team’s responsibilities include: assessing current technology, identifying technology needs and priorities, drafting a technology vision statement, preparing a budget and timeline, drafting the technology plan, monitoring the plan’s implementation, and ensuring stakeholder buy-in.

   Ideally, the technology team will include the executive director (or another manager), a project manager, administrative assistant, accountant, development director, system administrator or tech consultant, and a Board member.

2. Inventory and assess your current resources. Analyze your existing technology system for how well it is working, what you can save, and what you can build on.

   But more importantly, also look at your infrastructure and human capital – what does your staff know, and who knows it? What procedures are in place? Think about your staffing patterns, and how they may need to change. Find out the constraints of your funding sources, contracts, and any other legal regulations. Think about public perceptions – ranging from your board and other constituencies to the public at large.

3. Define your needs. At this stage, you should define the outcomes you expect. What needs are there? What functions would add real value? Set priorities. Clarify acceptable and non-acceptable tradeoffs. Clearly defining your needs will help you in developing an effective technology plan.

4. Explore solutions. It is time to draft a technology vision statement. Start by reviewing your organization’s mission statement – then consider the following key questions:

   1. How will technology help your organization fulfill its mission?
   2. How will it improve organizational effectiveness?

   Now that you’ve defined your needs and created your technology vision statement, what are your technology options?

5. Establish a budget. This step will definitely require some research. Create a realistic budget that takes into account the total cost of ownership. These costs include:

   1. Staff time to learn new software programs or attend training
   2. Additional technology support staff
   3. Backup hardware and software
   4. Creating and updating an operations manual
   5. Network connectivity costs
   6. Application service provider costs
   7. Ongoing maintenance and support costs

6. Create a timeline for implementation. The final step before writing the technology plan is to establish a timeline for implementation. As you develop your timeline, ask and answer the following:

   1. What are the first things you will need to do?
   2. How long do you estimate it will take to complete those tasks?
   3. Once those tasks are completed, what are the next steps?
   4. How long will it take to complete those tasks?
   5. What are the next steps, etc.?

   Timelines should be flexible enough to accommodate unforeseen events, but rigid enough to maintain momentum. You will most likely want to segment your timeline into phases of three to six months. Be sure to include the time that you will need to secure funding if you’re going to apply for grants or undertake other fundraising activities to raise the money you’ve budgeted to implement your plan.

7. Put your plan in writing. Your written plan should document your current resources, needs, solutions, and planned uses, as well as your budget. It should be a plan of action, concisely written and specifically tailored to your organization. The written plan should include at least these elements:

   1. An organizational profile
   2. A technology vision statement
   3. A description of the strategy for implementing the technology vision, which is where you identify your technology needs
   4. An inventory of current technology and/or staff skills
   5. A breakdown of benefits, tasks, and costs of implementation
   6. A timeline
   7. A budget

8. Develop a funding strategy. Your technology plan will guide you in determining how much money you will need to raise, and perhaps how to raise it. Since there are few foundations that specifically provide grants for technology, your best option may be to approach funders and donors who are already supporting your mission, and use your plan to demonstrate how technology is necessary to carry out your mission.

It is important to remember that due to the constant evolution in information technology, it would be insufficient for an organization to take part in the technology planning process just once…in fact, if that were the case, we would be calling it the technology planning “project” instead of “process.” A technology plan and its outcomes must be periodically reviewed – with an annual review being most common. The review allows the technology vision to be viewed in light of both newly available technologies and recent developments within the organization – opening up an opportunity to adjust the vision and/or plan as needed. The review also serves as a forum for the technology committee to discuss mistakes made or knowledge gained during the process. This information exchange encourages the adoption of best practices and fosters greater efficiency in the future. It’s no secret that technology costs money – but proper technology planning allows you to create an organizational roadmap for getting from here to there without leading you to spend more than you should.

Your corporate Web site…to you - an investment – and being such, you didn’t let the CEO’s nephew design it. You issued an RFP; you went through a formal vendor selection process; and then you hired a professional firm to ensure that your corporate site (often the first impression of your business) was both useful and usable, separating form and function from presentation and style. A real A+ job. And now that you’ve built it, they will come. Right? Wrong.

The universe of Web content is enormous, and continues to expand every day, hour, minute, and second. Between 1995 and 2005, the Web went from a field of dreams to a crowded, competitive clearinghouse of information, products, and services. As a result, individuals are turning to search engines to cull the herd. In fact, search activities are the second-most common activity on the Internet, after email. Each time an individual launches Google, it searches more than eight billion Web pages, and according to Jupiter Media Matrix, 93 percent of users do not look past the first two pages of any search engine’s set of results. Considering that 55 percent of all online purchases begin with a search engine and that between 6 and 10 billion searches in the United States each year are performed with the specific intent to purchase an item or service, a business should not find itself in the position of saying: “We built it. Where is everyone?”

So what is your business doing to make sure potential customers find you in that ocean of information? If you respond with “nothing,” please go bang your head on the nearest wall, and then let’s talk about search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO refers to the process of attracting potential members, customers, or stakeholders to a Web site by improving the site’s rankings in Internet search engines. It is probably the least understood aspect of Web design and marketing – and truthfully, a bit of a black art. That’s because Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other “crawler-based” search engines rank Web pages once a month based on secret mathematical algorithms.

But let’s shed a little light on this black art. While the algorithms that search engines use to find and rank Web pages are closely guarded secrets, general information is available regarding how search engines index – making it possible to optimize your site to improve ranking placement. For example, Yahoo!, a human-powered directory, depends on people for finding and organizing their listings, so companies should write a short, 25-word or less, core description of the entire Web site using one or two of the keywords users may search for. Google places tremendous value in link structures and a page’s content. Knowing such constants, tailoring your site and its content to comply with the way search engines index the Web will significantly improve your search status.

In order to maximize search engine optimization, there are certain things you must do. Presented below in no particular order of importance are proven methods for enhancing any search engine optimization initiative:

Do…

• Pick your keywords carefully and wisely. A high keyword density ratio within your content is one of the best ways to increase your search engine ranking potential. Develop your keyword strategy by researching the most relevant and most searched for keywords or keyword phrases.
• Create a useful and thoughtful Web site. The content of your Web site ultimately determines its utility to visitors. Quality is key. The writing should be clear and concise, using words that describe your company and what it does. Your site should be quick to load, clean, appealing, and easy to navigate. Determine what the purpose of the Web site is, and ensure that purpose is fulfilled. And remember to refresh your content – do what you can to change your content and keep users returning for more.
• Make a complete sitemap of your site, which will help both your users and the search engines at the same time. Having a well-designed sitemap will ensure that each page of your site gets properly indexed by search engines. It is important to call that file sitemap.html and not site-map.html or other variations. Additionally, make sure that your sitemap.html file is directly accessible from your homepage and that it uses link text. Link text is always a lot better than a picture or graphic, since search engines won’t be able to read them.
• Implement a link popularity strategy on your Web site. Adding links to strategic partners and related Web sites is another way to improve your rankings, because a large part of how search engines judge your site relates to who links to it. Quality links are one indicator of a valid site. An additional benefit is that incoming visitors may view your site in a better light if they find it through a recommendation on another site that they respect.
• Make sure you write a short descriptive title tag (including keywords) of what each page of your site is all about, and make sure they are all different. Search engines use the information contained in that title tag, compare them to the text on that page and rank it accordingly. The short description in your title tags will also help your users. The idea here is to keep it as short and descriptive as possible. Avoid the temptation of creating title tags that are longer than 30 characters maximum, since they might have a dilution effect in your rankings of certain search engines.
• Incorporate a relevant metatag. Metatags are groupings of keywords that are built into a Web page’s source code and are intended to provide a sort of summary of what the site is meant to accomplish. Historically, major search engines placed more relevance on the metatag, until some sites became wise to this and created massive metatags that were irrelevant to the actual site. Today’s view is that a properly worded metatag can’t hurt.
• Review site design and publishing technology to prevent barriers to page indexing. Search engines cannot easily index sites that have extensive graphics or animations and little text. While a site may look attractive or compelling, search engines may find little upon which to base a strong page rank.
• Register site with search engines. Refreshing and resubmitting your site won’t kick it to the top of the charts, but it reminds the search engine that your site exists, so you should refresh and submit it every month or so. Be warned that caution should be exercised here – submitting your site more than once a month is considered a spamming tactic and could get you in trouble with a search engine.
• Have patience. After search engine optimization and submission of your Web site, you will see your listing on most search engines in just three days. But, bear in mind, it may take anywhere from 30 to 60 days to achieve a high ranking due to the time it takes for search engine spiders to properly index your site. Ranking takes time and is unfortunately a measure beyond any search engine optimization and submission company’s control.

Search engine optimization can help companies promote themselves and their products and services in an efficient way by ensuring that information seekers are a single click and mere seconds away from what they have to offer. And in an age of information overload, an optimized Web site may present the best chance a company has to expand its reach.

When purchased, implemented, and used appropriately, a content management system (CMS) is a beautiful thing. Though not rocket science - more often than not, companies are finding that the technology solutions they have selected equate to the likes of taking a sledgehammer to a housefly or worse a feather duster to a sandstorm.  We understand that many organizations are facing the ongoing battle of keeping their Web sites up-to-date, relevant, and compelling.  That creating, publishing, and updating Web site information, or “content,” requires infinitely more attention to detail than any casual observer might assume.  And there’s absolutely no question that, left to haphazard process, such activity can negatively impact a company’s bottom line.  So before you disburse those funds, read on to minimize your chance of joining the ranks of those who are unhappy with their CMS.

Let’s start with the basics…what is a CMS? According to Webopedia.com, “content management system” is defined as “software that enables one to add and/or manipulate content on a Web site.”  More specifically, a CMS can:

• Provide Web access to Web site content owners directly
• Allow for faster updates of Web sites
• Provide an easy-to-use interface where content owners do not need to know HTML
• Create accountability, as most content managers can track logins and changes to various pages within the site
• Uphold standardization rules

In summary, the primary goal of a CMS is to create a controlled environment that allows all groups involved in the creation, maintenance, and updating of a Web site to easily work together without significant overhead, duplicated work, or unnecessary delays.  The idea is to allow both technical and non-technical employees to own their work like never before, because the payoffs can be tremendous – including such benefits as lower operating costs, shorter publishing deadlines, greater efficiency, and a wider range of features for your Web site.

Choosing a CMS is challenging.  The tools range from high-end corporate solutions that do all you could ask for a hefty price tag down to inexpensive and free tools that you implement and maintain yourself.  But how do you decide what you need?

First, be honest about your goals and objectives – why does your company want a CMS?  What is driving your decision?  Are you frustrated with delays in getting new content out on your Web site?  Have you begun to see a bottleneck in your current process that’s creating inefficiencies and a loss in productivity?  Basically, make sure you actually need a CMS, because not everyone does.  Some companies do not generate enough content to justify the time and investment involved in using a full-blown CMS.  Organizations that just need to post infrequent news updates may be able to get by with a simple blogging system.  It is imperative that you spend some time up front determining what the real needs of your organization are.

Become familiar with your content and the processes surrounding it.  Obviously, with a name like content management system, content is key.  Start by asking the “Ws”:  What content will be managed?  Who is the audience for this content?  Where does the content live?  Who owns it?  How frequently does it change?  What is the production process?  What is the content’s lifespan?  For larger organizations, these questions can be difficult to answer.  In fact, there may be no single person in your organization who has a complete understanding of all of your organization’s content needs.  But you will still need to make an effort to answer these questions before you can determine what your true requirements are.  Do not even think about selecting a system until you’re comfortable that you know all there is to know about your content and the process used to create and manage it.

Understand that when it comes to a CMS, one size never fits all.  There are hundreds of CMS’s targeted at different markets.  These systems have huge variations in cost, technology, and complexity.  The goal of your organization is to find a system that meets your specific content and organizational needs.  The last thing you need is a sledgehammer for a housefly – basically, an overly complex system that offers cutting edge features that your company has no use for.  Likewise, there will almost certainly be a variety of must-have features that you cannot live without.  In addition to getting to know your content, you’ll want to consider the following:  How many contributors do you have?  Are your contributors centralized in a few departments, or do you have a deeper organizational hierarchy?  What are your workflow, authorization, and publishing requirements?  Do you need the ability to maintain a multi-lingual site?  Do you need personalization?  Do you have transactional requirements?  Scheduling and content rotation?  Version control?  Since the chances are that you’ve never developed a CMS requirements document before, you might consider seeking professional assistance before you begin evaluating CMS vendors and applications.

Have and know your budget.  Understanding the total cost of ownership of a CMS is essential during the decision making process.  Prepare yourself for sticker shock, because depending upon the type of system you’re considering, prices could vary from a few hundred dollars into the millions!  The reasons for this are that CMS solutions are broadly defined and range from simple Web editors suitable for individuals to highly complex enterprise content management systems (ECM) scaled for large corporations.  When planning your budget, software license fees are typically only one component of pricing for CMS – there are also implementation, training, and recurring fees such as maintenance, support, and subscription fees to consider.  It has been stated that you can expect to spend three- to five-times the cost of the license during the implementation phase.  Not surprisingly, with such an investment, you should ask your core team their opinions of proposed solutions as you evaluate alternatives.  Are the solutions straightforward and intuitive?  Can they see the value in using this tool?  This will help you identify the best fit for your organization and avoid unnecessary complexity and unforeseen costs.  Then calculate total cost of ownership over 3-5 years, invest in an affordable solution that delivers what your company needs and avoid overspending on unwarranted bells and whistles.

Examine your choices.  Find as many CMS tools as you can to evaluate – include vendor Web sites, CMS documentation, and forums and support boards in your research.  Narrow your choices down to a small number that your organization can afford – then request a demo of the product – be it online, onsite, vendor-guided, self-guided, interactive, or non-interactive. Decide which CMS best fits your organization, and then work only with an established vendor.  Be sure to consider the following during your vendor evaluation:  Have you heard of the company or used any of its products before?  Is their sales process organized?  Did you receive an appropriate level of pre-sales support and have confidence in their ability to support you post-sale?  The vendor you select should be willing to spend time with you in order to understand your specific situation and help guide you in an appropriate direction.

And now that you’re prepared - make your selection with confidence.   Remember that your company has unique needs, and the CMS industry provides a litany of solutions to choose from, which is both good news and bad news for your organization.  During the selection process, stay focused on three criteria:  your organization’s specific needs; your organization’s capabilities; and the stability of your CMS partner.  Making the right choice can add tremendous value to your organization, while making the wrong one can be disastrous.

Management guru, Tom Peters, nailed it when he said…“Do what you do best and outsource the rest.” Outsourcing is being used by executives around the world to lower costs and improve quality. But the benefits do not stop there, outsourcing is also allowing organizations to transform their business operations, generate better customer solutions, and create greater shareholder returns. And let’s not discount the boost to corporate momentum it provides by raising the bar of operational reliability, improving an organization’s ability to plan, and more rapidly implementing new strategies and initiatives. The bottom-line - in today’s business environment, it’s difficult to imagine how any company could be successful relying solely on its own resources.

And the trend appears to be long-lasting. According to an Accenture survey of more than 800 executives in the United States and Europe, more than 80% expressed commitment to permanent outsourcing of at least one key business function – with IT services continuing to be the leading outsourced function. And why not? It is no secret to small and mid-size businesses that good tech help is not only hard to find these days, but potentially, hard to afford on a full-time basis. Known for creative solutions, these organizations have decided to rent rather than buy Chief Information Officers (CIOs).

According to Aberdeen Group senior analyst Stephen Lane, “The idea behind CIO outsourcing is that you’re renting an officer of the company. Ideally, that’s someone who has the experience to get your company started with IT while you’re building your own organization.” This movement goes beyond standard project-based outsourcing – an outsourced CIO becomes a member of the senior management team. Rest assured – while the role of CIO is relatively new, executive outsourcing is not a new endeavor…CEOs and CFOs have been outsourced successfully for years.

With seasoned executives requiring hefty salaries, bonuses, and stock options, outsourcing the CIO allows businesses to gain all the advantages of “faster, better, cheaper” without giving away the farm before they’ve even bought the seed. Today, most small and mid-size businesses are only able to do the basics when it comes to IT strategy and implementation – which is usually then followed by a marginal support effort and a complete disregard for measurement of returns and effectiveness. As a result, IT is neither a productivity tool nor is it a driver of innovation as it is in large operations, where resources can be dedicated to support a full-time CIO and IT staff. This is where executive outsourcing shines. Outsourcing provides smaller companies a team of experts to call on for specific projects or strategic challenges. And with the average tenure of a CIO being around 24 months, maintaining a relationship with a virtual CIO firm can create a repository of knowledge and provide a continuity not otherwise possible for a small or mid-size company. Other benefits gained by using an outsourced CIO include:

• Saving your organization financial, personnel, and time resources
• Allowing you to focus on your core competencies
• Providing outside, unbiased expertise to include assessment of IT infrastructure, evaluation of your organization’s IT policies and guidelines, examination of IT workflows, review of budget and spending, and assistance in driving new strategy
• Access to immediate market know-how and better vendor selection (resulting in better prices and higher quality)
• Assisting in defining and implementing IT strategy

In addition to the direct benefits received from the expertise and experience of an outsourced CIO, an executive who participates in outsourcing also experiences improvement in his ability to add value to his organization by allying with companies dedicated to managing people, processes and technologies toward well-defined, committed deliverables for their customers. In this relationship, the service provider takes on the responsibilities and risks for meeting its customer’s requirements. Best stated by an experienced executive, “Managing contracts is much more efficient and effective than managing employees; contracts are performance-based.” The interdependent nature of this new relationship allows executives to move sharply upward, toward their desired strategic roles – shifting their focus from hygiene to really working on the business.

So where do you sign? Remember - this outsourced CIO is going to be a member of your senior management team. The added value of the CIO should include:

• Obsessive and continuous focus on business imperatives
• Interpretation of external IT success stories
• Establishment and maintenance of IT executive relationships
• Establishment and communication of the IT performance record
• Concentration of the IT development effort
• Achievement of a shared and challenging vision of the role of IT in relation to the overall objectives of the business

With such hefty responsibilities for both the service provider and the virtual CIO, one should consider the purposeful, “go slow, but go steady” strategy for the best results. Build a relationship with your service provider on a steady, results-based basis – with the desired endpoint being a comprehensive relationship with a trusted partner. This approach provides an effective vehicle for controlled change. This approach also manages and reduces risks. If there is a need for the customer to reassert control, they are easily able to do so. Of course, there are times when outsourcing can and should be implemented much more aggressively – in fact, the service provider’s capabilities and resources can be of tremendous value in achieving the goals quickly, especially when a trusted relationship already exists between the companies. This long-term relationship, the value-added nature of the specialized partner, and continuous improvement create true business value. The era of the strategic CIO has clearly arrived, and for many small and mid-size companies, outsourcing will play a key role - empowering executives to create more value for their organizations. And that folks is what we call smartsourcing.

Implementing a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can easily be compared to a really scary roller coaster ride — complete with ups and downs, unexpected curves, hairpin turns, and loop-de-loops.  

It is an exhausting process, but one done with the intention of improving the customer experience while simultaneously increasing organizational efficiency and collaboration.  But once everything is in place, the one thing that the software can't do is make users use it.

It is not a secret that technology will support change, but it cannot create it.  In fact, resistance to change is by far the biggest impediment to the widespread adoption of any software.  People are simply not eager to have their comfort levels challenged.  And if technology is not used to its full potential, it can have a powerful negative impact on the cost/benefit of the software.

So how do we get users to embrace the change?  Experts say the best way to overcome user objections is to prevent them in the first place.  This can be accomplished by surveying all potential user groups and incorporating their informational, technical, and operational requirements into the software selection process.

Keep Users in Mind

After the decision to purchase the CRM has been made, it is time to focus on implementation.  This is where it becomes imperative to show the users the benefits of the new system.  This does not mean send out a corporate memo stating how great the new system will be and here's the expected launch date.  It means introducing the challenges currently being faced by the organization and its user base and presenting the software to them as a possible solution.  After allowing users to learn more about it, they should be encouraged to provide feedback.  

When a technology's benefits are clearly demonstrated to users, they are more likely to embrace the new system.  And remember — delighted users are better customers.

So how do we make sure our users are delighted?  We offer a usable, useful site where users achieve their goals and leave the site feeling good about your organization.  Basically, a satisfying user experience communicates:  "We value your attention and respect your time."  And it is in the spirit of that statement that we should implement any new technology.

User-centered design (UCD) activities should span the entire CRM effort — from the requirements and analysis phase of analyzing users and their tasks to the design and development phase where the design is iteratively refined based on user feedback to the evaluation phase of usability testing and continued refinement.  At its most basic level, superior user experiences are where common sense and design for the least common denominator of your target user group converge.  More specifically, a good user experience:

• Anticipates needs before customers have to ask for something
• Demonstrates ease with which customers can accurately perform useful tasks
• Allows access to relevant information
• Is interactive and content-rich
• Provides a consistent look and feel that effectively communicates value propositions and differentiation

Step by Step

To accomplish this, the following UCD activities should be continuously employed — remember, a CRM is a "living" technology that will require ongoing improvement:

• Audience Definition:  It is performed to understand specific user attributes that may need to be accommodated in the User Interface (UI) design; to determine how these attributes may differ across user roles; and to select participants for usability evaluations.
• Task Analysis:  It is performed to understand how users will use the system to accomplish their task goals, and to determine how these tasks may differ across user roles.
• Use Case Models:  It is performed to understand for each task the step-by-step interaction between user's intentions and system responsibilities to accomplish the task goal, and to understand the relationships among the task-specific use cases.
• Design Specification:  It is performed to provide detailed descriptions of all aspects of the UI, from navigational behavior and screen layout, down to the level of UI object attributes.
• Iterative Design:  It is performed to elicit user feedback based on simulated task performance using a series of prototypes, in order to optimize the usability of the UI design.
• Usability Testing:  It is performed to determine the usability of the system, to validate against usability goals, and to set benchmarks against which to measure the usability of future releases.
• Heuristic Review:  It is performed to determine areas of the predecessor UI needing usability improvements; to evaluate competitors' strengths and weaknesses; to establish usability goals for the future system.

At the end of the day, having more users on the new CRM makes it richer.  The key to getting them to embrace the new system and use it well is to implement a system that has been designed based on the needs and characteristics of the user audience — resulting in a usable tool — and on enabling efficient performance of their tasks — resulting in a tool that is useful as well.  

In other words, the overall design of your CRM should proceed from the outside in — from the perspective of the users and their tasks — rather than inside out — from the perspective of the code and architecture.  Because of the nature of the captured audience of the organization, the CRM does offer the opportunity of "if you build it, they will come" — but only if you first listen and respond to their needs by providing a usable, useful tool.

Little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous.

Once upon a time, a man of mystery and magic fired the imaginations of the masses (young adults and jaded financiers alike). His playful but energetic take on his chosen profession fueled great speculation and controversy. No, I'm not talking about Louis Rosetto, the founder and erstwhile editor of Wired magazine. I'm talking about Willy Wonka, fictional candy man.

Thirty years before the bubble burst in late 2000, filmmaker David Wolper adapted Roald Dahl's fanciful children's book for the screen. What some doubtlessly still think of as a simple morality tale for pre-schoolers ("be nice, don't chew gum, don't be greedy, don't watch too much television") hides a deeper and far more chilling message.

Had we all paid a lot more attention, we might have noticed it was an utterly prescient foretelling of the heady, exuberant days when the internet and the web ran full steam (if you Victorian cyberpunk fans will pardon the phrase) into the public consciousness, and, like an Oompa-Loompa into the swollen Violet Beauregard, bounced off.

It's even more amazing to think that Dahl's original book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was published in 1964, the same year Paul Baran published his ground-breaking paper on distributed communications and packet switched networking that inspired the creation of the ARPANET and finally the internet. Perhaps Dahl had access to the early RAND studies published between 1960 and 1962. Or maybe he was gifted with the second sight we all wish we had possessed back when fortunes were being made and the world changed, before the war on terror and a nuclear North Korea, when a child's movie showed us a way to enjoy our dreams and give free reign to our imaginations.

Willy Wonka could form the soundtrack to any retelling of the early dot-com days with telling lyrics, "who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream/separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream" and "the world tastes good 'cause the candy man thinks it should." In the opening scene, children run from school into the candy store and the Pied Piper candy store man serenades the kids as they run rampage, eating candy by the pound.

Charlie Bucket, potentially the first victim of the digital divide, peers in the window as the song ends, before he heads off to work delivering newspapers, on foot no less. This is clearly a boy who will suffer in classic Horatio Alger style, working his way up from the bottom. And yet we identify with Charlie, whose indomitable spirit and complete lack of cash or marketable skills reminds underemployed liberal arts graduates of their own post-graduation days. Or maybe that's just me. I was blond as a young boy, too, and had just as bad a haircut.

As he looks at the factory through the iron gate, he is menaced by a tinker, a frightening man who obviously sharpens knives for a living, who warns him "nobody ever goes in, nobody ever comes out," as if to tell Charlie he'll never achieve his dream. Little did either of them suspect that in a few days, Charlie would visit and later own the factory itself -- analogous to the creation from whole cloth of entire industries thanks to the internet and the web.

Grampa Joe then tells Charlie why nobody is allowed into the factory: Wonka's fear of intellectual property theft and industrial espionage, especially by representative or agents of Slugworth, his competitor and former partner. (An oblique reference to Apple?)

We later find out Wonka has replaced all his workers with Oompa-Loompas, the original H1-B visa holders, without whom the factory couldn't survive. To fend off domestic competition, Wonka sees to it that the Oompa-Loompas never leave the factory so they can't possibly take any secrets with them. Indeed, without them, very little would get done at all.

Charlie's education, as well as the reaction of mainstream media and traditional brick-and-mortar businesses towards the early web consulting firms, can be summed up with the quote from Mr. Turkentine:

If you knew and I didn't know, then you'd be teaching me instead of me teaching you — and for a student to be teaching his teacher is presumptuous and rude.

Fortunately, the explosive chemistry experiment (and wart remover) is interrupted by news that Wonka intends to open his factory, hidden lo these many years: call it an "initial public opening." Charlie is spared any further exposure to science as the class and teacher rush off to buy Wonka bars, in hopes of being the five to find a golden ticket. The lucky five will therefore be allowed into the factory, as well as being given a lifetime supply of chocolate. Surely an initial public offering could not have been given a more fitting metaphor, nor could Charlie's being left out of the initial furor because of his abject poverty.

In the furor surrounding the Wonka IPO, the pace picks up, the tone like something out of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Despite the best efforts of the Establishment (as symbolized by the psychiatrist) to keep the madness in check, no sooner does the shrink say "To believe in one's dreams is a manifestation of insanity, and the sooner you accept this, the sooner you'll get well," than his patient, Henry Blodgett-like, suggests that he knows where to find a golden ticket. (Never mind that it was a dream, the messenger was an archangel, and the patient is obviously deranged; the shrink angrily demands to be told the details, much as so many practitioners of insider trading surely did during the boom.)

The first to win a ticket, Augustus Gloop, the son of a butcher, is sorry for Wonka: "it's going to cost him a fortune in fudge." Augustus is plainly destined to become a Unix systems administrator, though he is of course too young to grow a beard. And here we see the first appearance of the mysterious stranger, tempting the children with who knows what. Perhaps he's the son of Miriam Abacha, and has lots of cash stashed away in an undisclosed location, and he's offering them some of it if they only tell him their bank account number.

Veruca Salt, the peanut magnate's spoiled daughter, raises the odds of finding a ticket by gaming the system — her father buys millions of bars and has his staff sift through them in search of the ticket. Like those involved in the various attempts to crack RC5 or DES, or even the SETI@Home experiment via massive, distributed computing, Veruca knows that to find the key you must sweep as much of the keyspace as you can.

Her pity for the overworked staff is evident as she hollers, "make 'em work nights!" Surely nobody ever worked long hours during the boom for the reward of knowing that their employer's family would enjoy the spoils. Fortunately, the dad offers a 1-pound bonus to whoever finds the ticket, so all is not lost. As soon as it's found, the mysterious man reappears, whispering in Veruca's ear. This time, he's probably warning her that her bank account may have been compromised, and is asking her to verify her login and password.

The next scene features a demo (on a Siemens System 4004, no less, the size of a Fedex/Kinko's copier, and perhaps the first fully transistorized digital computer) before a group of dour "investors," in which the computer refuses to reveal the location of the last three tickets ("that would be cheating"). The programmer, who is apparently typing at random into the four-button user interface and drawing punch- card answers out of what looks like the coin slot for a Laundromat washing machine, offers to share the reward. In response, the computer asks, "What would a computer do with a lifetime supply of chocolate?" But I'm sure we've all experienced, or given, demos that went like that.

The opportunistic Violet Beauregard, who gave up chronic, record-breaking gum chewing until she found the third ticket (at which point, she switched back to gum), is also approached by the mysterious whispering stranger as her father tries to use the resulting media circus to sell used cars. I don't think anyone has any doubt what ol' Dad would be selling or how he'd be selling it today: "medications" to enhance your anatomy, probably made from pine straw and used motor oil. Dad and the mysterious stranger get along like old friends.

Charlie's mom, the washerwoman, offers what is perhaps the best, if maybe also the most cynical, advice for anyone in these post-bubble days: "After this contest is over, you'll be no different from the billions of others who didn't find (a ticket)." And then she proceeds to wash 5,000 shirts, while singing and dancing.

Mike Teevee, slave to the tube, is so excited about the ticket he finds that he's unwilling to turn away from the set until the commercial break. Once again, the mysterious stranger appears, offering free prescription medication. It's clear that Mike is not going to prosper in the dot-com era; he's far too fond of television. Now we understand why "reality TV" became so popular in America during this era. Because of people like Mike.

The auction of the last case of Wonka bars in the U.K. proceeds like the Netscape IPO, but the Queen steps in with the winning bid. A woman's husband's kidnappers offer to trade him for her case of Wonka bars, and she asks "How much time will they give me to think it over?" Obviously, Wonka bars are NSCP stock options or Google stock. Charlie would have felt right at home talking to someone whose company's stock was below their option strike price.

The gambler who found the fifth ticket turns out to be a fraud, like, say, the much-made-over but ultimately unsatisfying Pets.com: "Can you imagine the nerve of that guy? Trying to fool the whole world?"

The contest is on again, right after Charlie finds a coin in the gutter and spends it on still more chocolate — and one Wonka bar, supposedly for his Grampa Joe. Never mind that Charlie opens the bar and finds the last ticket himself. I'm sure he meant to give it to his bedridden grandfather to ease the tedium of cabbage water soup. Charlie bleeds money like his wallet has Ebola, never mind that his entire family lives in poverty. It's a good thing he lucked into that ticket — now his family will be able to eat chocolate bars with their gruel. But hey, he sure is good natured, and that counts for something, right?

On his way home, Charlie is accosted by the now-familiar stranger, who turns out to be the Nazi-like Arthur Slugworth, Wonka's chief competitor. Slugworth wants Charlie to steal the everlasting gobstopper, a product still in R&D. Charlie's 30 pieces of silver? Why, stock options, of course: "I'm going to make you very rich, indeed.… (Enough to buy) a new house for (the) family, good food and comfort for the rest of their lives." Or maybe he's actually offering to sell Charlie a list of 500 million guaranteed opt-in email addresses, sorted by astrological sign.

Makes you wonder about Slugworth, though. How does he always know where the next ticket will be found? RFID tags?

Charlie's Grampa Joe, supposedly bedridden with the other grandparents for these past 20 years, like a horrible foursome of Tithonuses starring in a revival of Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, accompanies Charlie to the factory after a long song and dance (!) about how "they" have a golden ticket. Apparently, universal health care could be replaced by some candy bars and gold foil. OK, and hope.

Mrs. Teevee: I assume there's an accident indemnity clause?
Willy Wonka: Never between friends.

The "contract" at the beginning would make any venture capitalist proud, as Sam well knows: "Don't talk to me about contracts, Wonka, I use 'em myself. They're strictly for suckers."

Sadly, the kids want in, and before the lawyers can be summoned, they've all signed up. Only Charlie's Grampa Joe realizes they have "nothing to lose" and so does not worry at all. And Wonka fires off yet another excellent series of aphorisms worthy of a 1994 Wired magazine article.

You should never, ever, doubt what nobody is sure about.

In this room, all of my dreams become realities, and some of my realities become dreams. And everything inside is eatable, I mean edible, I mean you can eat everything.

Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of pure imagination!

The sound of Wonka's cane whipping through the air is the sound they used for the iChat "Buddy becomes available" alert sound. Really. Trust me.

If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it. Want to change the world? There's nothing to it!

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you'll be free if you truly wish to be.

In a song eerily reminiscent of the Cyberlibertarians of the middle '90s who so bothered Paulina Borsook, Wonka sums up in a few stanzas what so many believed: You don't even need to build it, you just have to believe, and you'll be free.

Now is when the Oompa-Loompas enter the picture, giving the lie to the idea that all proceeds from the pure imagination. Cloaking himself in the aura of savior to the poor little edible Oompa-Loompas, Wonka compares his enterprise with the dangerous environment of Loompaland, packed with Vermicious Knids and Snozzwangers. These little net slaves toil to please the sweet tooth of humanity, while the capitalist Wonka reaps the benefits.

Augustus drinks from the chocolate river, falls in when Wonka freaks out about it, and it's soon clear that Wonka could care less: "The suspense is terrible -- I hope it will last!" Fortunately, Augustus got what he wanted, to spend his time in the factory drowning in fudge. The Oompa-Loompas take advantage of the moment to sing a rather odd and preachy song about the dangers of sweets (I suppose of anybody, they would know) that ends with "if you're not greedy you will go far." Perhaps Augustus became a spammer after the crash, drowning others in fudge of a different sort.

The adventurers get into a boat that heads into a dark tunnel. "Round the world and home again, that's the sailor's way." Faster and faster, into the tunnel. A metaphor for the rapid rise of the dot-com stocks?

Mr. Salt: You can't possibly see where you're going!
Wonka: You're right, I can't.

The resulting freak-out is straight out of a dot-com company quarterly report. Then we visit the R&D area, where the future is being born. Wonka says, "Invention, my dear friends, is 93 percent perspiration, 6 percent electricity, 4 percent evaporation, and 2 percent butterscotch ripple." The problem is clear. He can't even do basic math.

The scene with Violet should be familiar to all of us by now, especially those who've been on the net since the early '90s. Wonka announces to the guests, "This piece of gum is a three-course meal." Violet, told not to eat it, of course immediately indulges, and succumbs to a bug, after which she "harmlessly" swells into the size of an Airstream trailer and turns purple.

She has to be squeezed immediately before she explodes. It's a relatively simple operation.

In a nutshell, beta software.

Yet another mention of bubbles is made in the Fizzy Lifting Drinks room, where Charlie and Grampa indulge a bit.

Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere, but not a drop to drink. Yet.

Oddly, Grampa Joe and Charlie are the only ones to secretly, or at least discreetly, disobey Wonka by drinking the fizzy lifting drinks and cheerfully floating around in the bubbles. Soon, they are soaring upward into the silo and drifting dangerously near a giant fan that is making a corresponding Giant Sucking Sound.

Charlie: I'm going too high!
Joe: We're in trouble, Charlie!

This is all obviously a metaphor for irrational exuberance, with Joe playing the part of U. S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan. Apparently, the only way to deflate a dangerous stock market bubble is to scare it into belching. Lessons for the future! We see bubbles again in the Wonkamobile scene, where the remaining kids and their escorts are nearly inundated by foamy bubbles, which leak from the engine of the vehicle, itself fueled by bottle after bottle of soda pop. Fortunately, a magic car wash (also known as "restating earnings") can wipe away all traces of the foam, and our intrepid adventurers plow on.

In the next room, quadruple-sized geese work overtime for Easter laying giant golden eggs. Mike Teavee yells, "Easter's over!" and Wonka attacks him, puts his hand over his mouth and explains that the geese don't know that. They're trying to get ahead for next year. Typical. On second thought, Teavee should have been a stock analyst.

Veruca must have a golden goose. Dad tries to buy one, but they're not for sale. She goes on a rant.

I want the world, I want the whole world, I want to lock it all up in my pocket! I want today, I want tomorrow! I don't want to share! If I don't get the things I am after, I'm going to scream!

Without a doubt, this is a story of open-source, free software versus proprietary, copyright and patent law, and so forth. Equally likely though, it's a metaphor for the birth of the internet from the endless deep coffers of Cold War defense spending, suddenly patented by corporate interests. Veruca could be the CEO of any number of large corporations, but if she had to aim lower, she'd probably be just as happy as a lawyer for SCO.

If the good Lord had intended us to walk, he wouldn't have invented roller skates.

The above quote could be a motto for the era, or for Segway.

With a demonstration of Wonkavision, the old wizard is seen transmitting solid objects (Wonka Bars) via television. If Pets.com had this technology, they'd still be around today. Or maybe they did, and they used it to turn their early venture rounds (like huge bars of chocolate) into smaller and smaller piles of cash. "A million pieces take a long time to put together," we're told. Mike's been miniaturized. And Mom carries him away in her purse, sealing the "cash" metaphor. That he's dressed in an Intel "bunny suit" just strengthens the visual metaphor and ties everything back to information technology.

The Oompa-Loompas recommend reading a book instead of watching TV. "You'll get no commercials!" Too bad you can't read the web without them nowadays, like you could back in the early days.

Charlie Bucket: Mr. Wonka, what's gonna happen to the other kids? Augustus, Veruca?

Willy Wonka: My dear boy, I promise you they'll be quite all right. When they leave here, they'll be completely restored to their normal, terrible old selves. But maybe they'll be a little bit wiser for the wear. Anyway, don't worry about them.

Yeah, they'll find jobs in the textile industry or in a call center in India or China. Or they'll work for "outsourcing" companies, only they will be called "micro-entrepreneurial offshoring insourcers" or something.

Charlie doesn't get the lifetime supply of chocolate because he broke the rules. Rules? All of a sudden there are rules? Ah, but they were there all along, expressed in contracts composed almost entirely of tiny type and signed in haste, to be regretted at leisure.

Joe: How can you do a thing like this? Build up a little boy's hopes and smash all his dreams to pieces? You're an inhuman monster!

Wonka: I said, good day!

When Charlie gives up the gobstopper, he passes the test. By refusing to be driven by greed, bad manners and the like, but still honoring his onerous contracts, he wins the big prize: the entire factory, itself a metaphor for the entire dream-driven tech industry.

Slugworth, it is revealed, has been working for Wonka all along, debunking the rumors about hearty competition between the men, perhaps suggesting the tactics displayed by Microsoft in order to avoid being labeled a monopoly. It's noteworthy that Slugworth is the only other human in the factory.

The three go off to tour the rest of the factory once again, in an elevator called the Wonkavator. The Wonkavator can go in any direction. Just press a button. Clearly, it's a web browser. The faster it goes, the better — like bandwidth. Pressing the big red button takes them "home," or at least into flight over their city.

Why is it Charlie who inherits the factory? "A grownup would want to do everything his own way, not mine…. Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted. What happened? He lived happily ever after."

For many underemployed liberal arts graduates like myself (at the time, anyway), the brand new world wide web was a rare chance to learn on the wing, to join a nascent "industry" before it became specialized, solidified, and grew (perhaps sensibly) cautious, encrusted with management and process and risk-aversion, and required certifications and degrees and all manner of other guarantees of competence and accountability.

Like Charlie Bucket with his golden ticket, many bought their way in with a copy of Teach Yourself HTML in a Week only to find a rewarding career and the promise of a prosperous life. Still others, slightly distracted from their MBA by a year at Sapient or Razorfish or CKS or one of the other web consultancies, went back to whatever they were doing before, like Violet to her gum. Some folks only saw money, like Augustus and his hunger for fudge. Others, like Mike Teavee, barely looked away from their obsessions long enough to make anything out of their experience with the web. And some, like Charlie, lived happily ever after.

Where is fancy bred, in the heart or in the head?

Once upon a time in a user experience community far, far away, user experience professionals spent their days obsessing over the need to define all the different fields that made up user experience design – which include interaction design, information design, information architecture, visual design, and user interface design. Today, something interesting is happening in that community: we’re evolving past the need to define the damned thing. This is partly because we now have some pretty good working definitions in place, but also because so many user experience professionals are seeing more value in taking the time to discuss the work rather than fixate on the definitions.

Granted, abandoning the “who we are” debate is difficult, but we have been asking these questions for several years, and while we’ve made some headway on the discussion, we’re still quibbling over the details. Many of us (if not most or even all) like things well defined - especially when such an integral part of user experience design is presenting things such that others can easily understand them. But sometimes – as in the case of the user experience community - we have to let the definitions take care of themselves.

There is no defense for the preceding sounding a bit, well, chaotic and somewhat antithetical to who we are. But we are learning that if we stop debating the differences between our disciplines, which is what occurs when we try to define user experience design, then we can create a powerful community. This community is taking form as the User Experience Network, or UXnet.

Formed in 2004, the User Experience Network is an international organization that focuses on building relationships between the practitioners and organizations of the various user experience disciplines. Not trying to replace existing organizations – in fact, many, including AIGA, IxDG, IAI, STC, ASIS&T, STC, and UPA, have signed on – UXnet’s goal is to serve as an umbrella for the many disciplines of user experience design. And the support of these established organizations is evidence that they see the same value that we see: In coming together as a community of user experience professionals, we have better opportunities to learn and grow from the unique insight and experience each discipline brings to the table.

And don’t underestimate the power of this think tank. If there’s anything I know about user experience professionals, it’s this: we’re a passionate lot. Our jobs are more than jobs; we believe in the power of what we do. In a way, we are an unofficial consumer advocate group that has the power to show businesses how to achieve positive returns by ensuring that they are presenting useful information, products, and services in a usable format. Further, by working together, we have the greatest chance to educate and evangelize the benefits of user experience design to businesses - something that is becoming more and more important as organizations struggle to grow with diminishing resources.

This kind of group momentum is not an accident. UXnet was created and continues to grow, because its members are committed to improving the design of anything people experience - Think of the magnitude! In fact, UXnet is primarily a grassroots effort, driven by Local Ambassadors—volunteers who work to bring together local user experience professionals and the local user experience organizations.

And it’s obviously working! Not only are we seeing tremendous success in many communities, but there has also been a major influx of people volunteering to be their community’s Local Ambassador. We have nearly doubled the number of Local Ambassadors in the past two months, and currently, have almost 40 Local Ambassadors spread across the world. For an organization that has yet to hit its first anniversary and that relies completely on volunteers, this is amazing growth.

The Triangle is one of these recent additions. I’ve been the Local Ambassador for the Triangle for a few weeks now, and though I just started in this position, I’ve already met a lot of folks through my work with the Information Architecture (IA) Cocktail Hour, but I know there are hundreds—if not thousands—more user experience professionals out there. And I want to hear from you: What pains are you having in the workplace? How are you continuing your education? What do you think the Triangle user experience community needs? What kind of meetings/gatherings would you be interested in attending? Seminars? Workshops? A conference?

At the end of the day, UXnet will succeed because we’re singularly focused on creating a powerful user experience community by uniting the knowledge and experiences of practitioners and organizations from the many disciplines that make up user experience design. And all done at the local level.

In business, cash is king – and the ability to generate it while you sleep is golden. As professionals, we should always be open to innovation and on the lookout for new (and of course, appropriate) revenue streams. Thinking along those lines, my company, hesketh.com, has been investigating the merits of the Google AdSense program.

Google AdSense is a program that enables website publishers to serve ads precisely targeted to the specific content of their individual web pages. Essentially, publishers serve text-based Google AdWords ads on their sites; advertisers then pay Google for every “click-through” to their sites; and Google pays the publishers a “commission” for clicks on those ads. But wait – First, what are Google AdWords you ask? Google AdWords, predecessor to Google AdSense, is a self-serve program that allows advertisers to create their own ads and select keywords and phrases to bid on – basically, it’s a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) setup. Advertisers can specify if they want to appear in Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s) and/or on participating publisher sites.

Initially, the Google AdWords program worked very well, but Google saw a problem on the horizon. With the rising demand for the ads increasing, they realized that soon they would not be able to display enough ads to maximize the full potential of the Google AdWords program. It became quickly apparent that if they relied only on the pages of Google to display the ads, the total number of ads they could serve would be limited by the number of search results page views. So Google took the next logical step and began to seek partners to syndicate the ads – and hence, the Google AdSense program was born. Using AdSense, Google was now able to distribute their AdWords across an incredibly wide assortment of sites, sealing the program’s ability to continue to grow and earn revenue.

The premise behind the Google AdSense program is that users will benefit from more relevant ads and publishers can maximize the revenue potential of their websites. According to Sergey Brin, co-founder and President of Technology at Google, “Google AdSense improves the overall web user experience by bringing relevant, unobtrusive, text ads to web pages rather than disruptive, unrelated ads such as pop-ups and animations. By providing website publishers with an effective way to monetize content pages on their sites, Google AdSense strengthens the long-term business viability of content creation on the Web.”

Google breaks AdSense down into three free pr