In the land of knowledge gaps

Creating any kind of business usually begins by recognising an opportunity, but, how do you spot them? As a one time professional poker player, I learned to look out for anomalies, elements of play that strike you as being unusual or out of character: something that you wouldn't expect somebody to be doing. Such anomalies alert you to both dangers and possible opportunities.

A similar technique can be used for spotting business opportunities, especially in the environment of e-business. Anomalies occur when players in the e-business game who should know better appear to be acting foolishly or inefficiently. Such anomalies expose knowledge gaps, or, a service or product that is not available.

In an effort to keep up with the latest developments on the Web, I subscribe to several different kinds of technical e-mail discussion forums. There I discovered some interesting anomalies.

The first anomaly was that most of the programmers and graphic designers working on Web sites had only a cursory interest in the core businesses of the sites they were designing for. They were primarily concerned with the problems and solutions revolving around their own particular specially niche of expertise.

The second anomaly was the contempt with which most of these technical specialists regarded the people who employ their services. A commonly held view is that the majority of people directing major e-business projects are totally incompetent

To try to understand why this attitude should prevail, I sent in the following post to a couple of e-mail discussion forums where many expert Web site designers hang out:

Reading through some of the posts in this forum and others, I get the distinct impression that many people involved in authorising the work that Web designers do are far from competent.

I'm aware that many small businesses haven't the faintest idea what the Web is about and how it might benefit them. They simply pay someone to create a Web site so as to see what it might do for their business. How common is this attitude? Do many of these experimental efforts succeed? Are there any really savvy businesses who know how to make efficient use of the Web and use Web designer's time effectively and efficiently?

There are many agencies and consultants who claim to know what they are doing and engage the services of freelancers on their client's behalf. What proportion of these are competent? Are there many whom freelancers have much respect for as far as being capable of creating viable e-business solutions? Is the same sort of situation prevalent with in-house design teams?

BTW I'm not expecting everyone to be competent. That isn't the point I'm making. It just seems, from what I'm hearing everywhere, that the complete solution providers (as opposed to the technical specialists) involve an extremely high proportion of people who don't really know what they are doing. Unlike most other business areas, the incompetent seem to be in the majority. However, I'm not stating this as a fact, I'm just looking for confirmation as to whether this proposition is true or false (with maybe an anecdote or two thrown in).

Peter Small

There were no posts contradicting this proposition, but, many supported it; some providing examples and anecdotes. Here is a selection of the responses:

Marcus Bointon wrote:

Many companies really don't have much of a clue, even some very big ones. I waste a good proportion of my time educating my clients about what it is they're asking me to do! I'd say that this occasionally hits around the 75% mark. You really have to do this otherwise they'll complain that you didn't do what they wanted, but only because they didn't know what they wanted! It's usually in your interests to keep things as simple as humanly possible.

Damian Thomas wrote:

I had a client very recently; apart from knowing nothing about the Internet or websites, didn't know the first thing about e-mail or its uses, and quietly asked, and I quote "Can you see my website from your place?" !!

I replied, Of course, but it can also be viewed worldwide". He was amazed, responding, "phew! s**t! I didn't know that, wow, bla, flipping eck, etc"

So I agree with the comments made earlier, at least half my clients want a website thinking it is just the thing to do. Imagine his surprise when I explained that anyone could send him an e-mail directly from his website :-00hh

Garrett Coakley wrote:

Sometimes they haven't even thought about it that much. They want one because everyone else has one. Remember the IBM advert from last year with the two guys in the boardroom?

Guy 1: [reading a paper] We have to be on the web.

Guy 2: Why?

Guy 1: [looks back at the paper] ...(comedy pause)... It doesn't say.

I deal with a lot of small companies who have been toying with the idea of having a site built. Most of them dip their toe in the water by having a small (4-5 pages) brochure site. The one thing they have in common is that they don't understand how it all works. They expect their profits to suddenly shoot skywards. They expect their company to instantly gain a coolness factor. They can't understand why their staff haven't metamorphosed into sexy, hip 30-somethings.

Deciding to create an online presence involves a lot of work on their part. They have to look at themselves and decide what exactly it is they are offering. What is the user going to get out of visiting their site? How they can best use the medium. Can they streamline their support process? Going to publish an e-mail address? Better be damn sure the customer gets a reply within 48 hours. etc etc.

> How common is this attitude?

> Do many of these experimental efforts succeed?

Hmmm, if they have no fixed idea in the first place, how would you measure success? Profits? Name awareness? Unfortunately, the attitude is far too common.

I think it should be our job as web developers to educate our clients as to the possibilities of the medium. If you're just going in, taking their money and building what they ask you to, then I'd like to have a word. It's up to us to educate them on browsers, platforms and technologies.

I'm not talking about degree level here, just enough to get them over the initial language barrier. Once you've got that, they start to investigate for themselves, start to understand what the web is capable of (and why they can't have that image three pixels to the left)

Offer to show them cool things, things that are useful, spend a bit of time with them, give a bit of after care service. Hell, one of my clients is now using Mozilla M18 as their default browser after I showed them it (they had asked what this "open source thing" was all about.).

They're also much more likely to come back to you with more work. And do you know what? The next time they come back, they're a little wiser, a lot more trusting, and eager to learn more.

Dave Gray wrote:

Oh my god, don't get me started. Incompetence runs rampant all the way up the food chain.

Martin Burns wrote:

The more clueless ones I see tend to have the latest everything (Flash5, WinME, IE5.5 on fast connections) and look at you funny if you don't automatically offer to do the site in Flash.

Buzzword city!

Peter Van Dijck wrote:

Buzzword density reaches intolerable levels:

- they will say things like: "Yes we make very interactive sites" without being prompted to do so.

- ask them what testing they do, they'll say: "We test for the browsers" or something (clued in ones will have a real testing program: stress testing, compatibility, usability)

- ask them why if they propose a certain feature.

Aardvark wrote:

Think about the environments...

- software development shop...

Would they even know how to hire a creative guy? What to look for? What web skills to ask for? Would they do the web stuff, or let the creative guy do it? And then, how do you get a creative guy to stick around when he could make more elsewhere and work in an environment that promotes creativity as opposed to a more rigid SDM? If the creative guy is bad enough, he'll have nowhere else to go...

- ad agency...

Would they even know how to hire a tech? What to look for? What programming skills to ask for? Would they do the web stuff, or let the tech guy do it? And then, how do you get a tech guy to stick around when he could make more elsewhere and work in an environment that promotes an efficient SDM as opposed to a more touchy-feely creative process? If the tech guy is bad enough, he'll have nowhere else to go...

Alan Herrell - the head lemur wrote:

Peter, your suspicions are correct: "complete solution provider" is an oxymoron.

Sales will tell you anything to get you to sign. Marketing will require sales to do anything to sign. The buzzword weinie will fill you with buzzwords to get you to sign. They like to do meetings, lunch and golf.

I have yet to find a 'complete solution provider' that performs due diligence in terms of : what the client wants to do; who the competition is; what the market size is; if the product/service requires all the toys they wanna sell. If a website is the proper venue for the product and service. (I believe that everyone can benefit from a website, but I am also not blind to the fact that some marketing efforts are better conducted in your face)

I get cruised by these folks on an annoyingly regular basis. Their e-mails start: "Saw your site! We are a complete solution provider and would like to offer/work with you". Their phone calls start: "Saw your site! We are a complete solution provider and would like to offer/work with you.

Upon interrogation, the mailer/caller is working from a script, has no idea what website they are supposed to be talking about, and when asked why did you call/mail me since you are a "complete solution provider", the answer is the dreaded pregnant pause.........

Ruth Arnold wrote:

The way I look at it, an educated client is a better client. So much of our time as web site developers is spent telling customers why splash screens are a bad idea, why java is slow and sometimes just plain sucky and why their site has to be designed to fit other people's screen resolutions and not just their own. Allowing them to find this stuff out for themselves via mine or other people's web sites can be an empowering experience. They often have a light bulb moment. This can make my job a lot more rewarding.

There are no shortcuts to educating folk other than automating the process as much as possible and letting them know it's not brain-surgery, it's just something new.

I'm sure the same applies to agency staff, but they don't have any incentive to learn the stuff that I tell my customers, and nor do they have time to I expect. It's all bottom-line stuff in their industry. I don't know what the answer is... maybe starting an agency staffed with designers and developers. But let's face it, developers and designers don't exactly make great sales people and are hardly likely to enjoy spending all day, every day on the phone ;-)

Complementing these anecdotes was a conversation I'd had with the owner of a successful ISP (Internet Service Provider). He'd told me he'd just taken over a Web design company that had got into financial difficulties.

I asked why the company had failed and he explained that in their early days they'd been spectacularly successful, expanding rapidly to meet the demand from all the local businesses that wanted to get onto the Web.

"The problem", he explained, "Was that most of these clients weren't really sure what the Web could do for them and, after paying out not inconsiderate sums for Web site designs, found they received no benefit whatsoever and lost interest. This happened so often that the Web design company found they were continually having to seek new clients to maintain the level of their business activity. As they exhausted new business opportunities in their own locality, the difficulty and costs of finding new clients increased to the point where the overheads exceeded revenues".

Applying this scenario universally, it isn't hard to see that most of the blossoming e-business activity is being funded with risk capital. Businesses are hearing so many stories about the vast potential of the Internet that they decide to spends ome money just to get into the game to see what it is about. A vast proportion of the e-business activity is driven simply by "me-too-ism" with the blind leading the blind.

Even when a Web developer does know what they are doing, it isn't always possible for them to get their message across. One competent Web solution provider I know told of a large amount of time she'd spent preparing a proposal for a retail chain of seventy small specialist stores.

Together with the marketing manger of this company, she'd laid out a plan whereby each store could have its own version of a Web site where the local manager could provide content and interest specifically for the customers in their own locality. The running costs were negligible and she had quoted a very small fee for setting up this operation because she wanted to have this as a case study for her portfolio.

When the design was finalised, it was presented to the chairman of the company for his acceptance. He took a quick look at the prototype and the price he was being asked to pay and declared, "No. I'm not going to go for this. My office manager's schoolboy son knows how to build Web sites, I'll get him to do it".