Strategy Blog: Viget Labs

Stephanie Hay - Project Manager :

Coming up with words to pitch services or products can be tough.  When you have so much to offer but so little time to explain before users potentially lose interest, finding the right words is imperative.

More often than not, clients choose to tackle writing content for their sites in order to save time and money; however, because they’re so close to their messages, this approach sometimes can be counter-productive.  What comes back can range from text that’s too cumbersome for making a quick impact to ambiguous content that’s jargon-heavy.

My best advice to clients—aside from hiring an objective (but informed) copywriter—is to not think too much.  Well, at first, anyway. 

Continue reading "Who Are You?"

M. Jackson Wilkinson - Strategist :

Here’s a simple postulate to consider: active moderation is a bad idea for anyone who wants a dynamic discussion on their site. 

Base your practice on the 80/20 rule.  Hopefully 80% of your content is good, in which case you should give new posts the benefit of the doubt, and not actively moderate.  If more than 20% of your content is something you’d want moderated away, then you have bigger problems.

Continue reading "You’re Moderating Your Site to Death"

Brian Wynne Williams - CEO & Co-Founder :

This past weekend, I was in Home Depot looking for a somewhat uncommon electronics device. I figured it was a long-shot that they'd have it, but it was worth asking the young guy with the orange apron who happened to wander by aimlessly. Once he understood what I was asking for, he looked both ways (slyly), leaned closer to me, and whispered:

You should go to RadioShack."

I squinted and nodded knowingly -- as if I'd just been given an insider tip -- and thanked him.

But why the whisper?

If you don't have a product that I'm looking for, why would your co-workers or employer be upset with you for sending a loyal customer (I was in that dang Home Depot three separate times this weekend) to a semi-(at best)-competitor who might have exactly what I'm looking for?  You might be missing out on a couple of bucks (assuming I bought the not-quite-what-I-want alternative) but you're solidifying your position as the first place to go for knowledgeable advice and information.  You're sacrificing (just barely) short-term gains in exchange for strengthening the long-term relationship of trust with the customer.  Shouldn't that be behavior be rewarded, not frowned upon?

Maybe it is rewarded and this young guy just slept through that part of training.

Emily Bloom - Regional Director :

Andy Rutledge describes “the client factors” that designers should consider when calculating project price estimates. I’m not a designer, and I don’t do a lot of estimates; but, I loved his post.

He confesses that the pat answer of “I need more information” before estimating costs, while usually true, is sometimes another way of saying, “What I really need is to spend more time talking with this person, getting to know her; her communication skills, her attitude, and her personality.” Getting to know the person is at the core of making a realistic price estimate.

He goes on to describe the “ideal client” and how to estimate the cost of working with someone who lacks these traits. His list of an ideal client’s characteristics jumped out at me because the constellation of traits seems ideal not just for a client, but for a coworker, boss, or job applicant. (Heck, maybe even a spouse? Just a thought.)

I had three immediate questions: What’s the essence of these “ideal” personality traits? Am I like this? (I want to be ideal; who doesn’t?) Ok, so maybe I’m not; but, what should I do?

Continue reading "Effective Teams: Ideal Traits for Creative Partners"

Brian Wynne Williams - CEO & Co-Founder :

I recently enjoyed a Scott McNealy speech in which he discussed the benefits of open source software. One topic was security, and he explained his view that open source software is inherently more secure because so many people have seen the code that there are no "secret" vulnerabilities to exploit. Lots and lots of people have "kicked the tires" along the way.

This reminded me of one of the reasons we launched 4 new blogs recently. A goal was to better connect and share with our communities of peers. By taking what had been internal discussions and putting them out on our blogs -- in some case continuing the "discussion" part via the comments ourselves -- we involved lots of other people to kick around our ideas and help make them better. We fully expect our peers to smack us around when we're off base. In some cases, we're just sharing something we've learned. In others, we might come right out and ask a question. In all cases, when the community does take the time to engage in the discussion, we feel like everyone comes out ahead.

It doesn't have to be a blog. I encourage anyone to take their ideas out of their own company (without violating any confidentiality agreements, of course), and share them. One of three things will happen:

1. If your ideas are solid, you'll earn praise and goodwill for contributing them to the community.
2. If they're shaky, you'll collect valuable feedback to improve them.
3. If they're downright shoddy, you'll figure that out sooner than you would have otherwise, which is still a good thing.

If you share often enough, you'll probably have all three experiences, and you (and your company) will be better off for it.