It’s Monday morning and you’re getting ready to settle into your week.  You are sitting by your desk with your usual breakfast and large (very much needed) coffee.  You start your morning routine today as always: ritualistically unwrapping your breakfast while opening Outlook to read your mail, snapping back the tab of your coffee lid to take your first sip, opening your web-browser to Yahoo to take a quick look at …Wait!  What the??  

Something’s wrong.  Suddenly you feel uncomfortable, ungrounded.  You feel like you’ve entered and alien world:  Yahoo has completely changed its layout!  How could they do this?  You feel betrayed, lost.  Nothing is where you expect it to be!  Disgusted, you leave the site and go elsewhere to get your morning news.

It’s unnerving when a site changes – and when a staple like Yahoo changes the effect can be users leaving in droves to get their news and email elsewhere.

This is the scenario that Yahoo is trying to avoid by introducing changes to their homepage ever so slowly over the course of the next few months as they make their way to a completely different layout.  As reported in the New York Times article Changing That Home Page? Take Baby Steps, Yahoo is trying to avoid losing users by releasing only small changes to a few users at a time. 

Change can be disastrous for a company.  I have to commend Yahoo:  They are painstakingly taking the time to not only release each change to the public slowly, but they are also usability testing each change and revising to make sure  that it will be accepted by as many users as possible. 

But what about the rest of us?  While it may not be as cost effective to test and release every change individually, we can eliminate user-frustration through timely releases accompanied by usability testing.  In this way your site can grow and remain fresh without throwing off users.  – And grow in a way that the users want.  

There are many reasons to upgrade and change a site, but each change should be a type of evolution: slow, methodical, and containing only those enhancements that were the fittest to survive usability testing. 

Often times change can bring on such a strong emotional response that no matter what it is (even those great enhancements to usability) will wrongly give users the impression that a site is more difficult to use.  These emotions and subsequent brand perception can be easily avoided by acting slowly and with a game plan.  Take it to the users and let change evolve over time!  Releases should show off new features not a blindingly different site.

I recently attended the T3PR conference in NY. One of the most engaging presentations was given by George Wright of Blendtec. If you ever get the chance to see George put on his show - do it!

Blendtec is a small outfit out of Utah (Considering they're in the business of making blenders and blenders are, well, blenders). In order to market their product, Blendtec needed a "big idea" to separate them from the pack. They took the time to reflect and they found it: Video.

In order to create buzz (pardon the pun), they started blending everything from iPhones to rakes. Everyday stuff you wouldn't likely wake up in the morning and decide to blend (at least, I hope not). To prove that it's not a scam, George blended a standard size rake in front of our eyes. People in the room were riveted. Personally, I felt a certain closure in seeing the symbol of the labor that stole many hours of playtime from my childhood reduced to a pile of wood chips. It was a powerful demonstration.

To see the an example of how the concept has taken off on the web or to see the rake blend for yourself check out : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M32baqJGo0A

Blendtec translated this performance effectively online where the company's unassuming president blends everything. It has become a cult phenomenon and a highly successful viral campaign. Willitblend.com has won awards and drives large traffic. People recommend items to blend. Check it out at http://www.willitblend.com/ and see for yourself.

Many people shy away from the "big ideas" because they have big price tags. This project was done on a shoe string budget and has cost pennies per view - maybe less then a penny.  I have to double check with George. 

Note: The pictures are with George Wright and my fellow willitblend.com fan, Julie Brumlik ceo of Dremu Skincare in Miami. Thanks for the pictures Julie!!! And George, thanks for the memories.

Hal R. Varian, Chief Economist at Google was recently quoted saying “The source of Google’s competitive advantage is learning by doing.”  Granted they’ve got a gigantic team of engineers and access to practically unlimited resources, but I think that this is a mindset that can effectively be employed by all kinds of organizations, including a mid-size interactive agency like Flightpath.

It’s apparent to Google that (a) interactive technology is evolving at a dizzying pace, and (b) the ways that consumers are utilizing interactive technology are changing just as rapidly.  Hence, in order to maintain their leadership position, it’s important that Google continuously tests, refines, and improves its offerings. 

Within the body of the primary Flightpath web site, you’ll find an illustration that looks like this:

This diagram intends to show a continuous cycle of evolution baked directly into Flightpath’s service offerings, keeping in mind the end goal of improving the performance of our clients’ businesses  (good news).

For better or for worse, this diagram doesn’t directly account for changes in interactive technologies and way people use them (bad news).  Also, what happens if a client or prospect of ours needs help with business challenges that we haven’t dealt with before?  This is where an organization like ours can also gain competitive advantage by learning by doing. 

In the past year, Flightpath has significantly grown its competency in things like online video, blogging, search marketing and optimization, social media, email, intranets, CMS deployment, widgets, adoption of open source technologies and more.  This was the direct result of learning by doing – many times via internal projects, sometimes (transparently) in partnership with clients.  Apart from these realms, other immediate challenges where we can continue to learn by doing include developing iPhone applications, mobile web offerings, SMS, ERP, CRM integrations and more.

Continuous experimentation and practice in new practice areas is rapidly being ingrained into the Flightpath culture.  Likewise, “learning by doing” is a mantra that can be adopted effectively by all kinds of organizations (and individuals too).  This is one more important lesson that we can thank our friends at Google for reaffirming.

- Jon Fox

This is a response to the previous post, titled "My neighbor the saleswoman".  As I am the saleswoman and my neighbor is one our wonderful project managers.

Typically, sales people usually sit in their own area as we are frequently on the phone, loud, …most of you know how we work.   Here at Flightpath, we have a different office layout and I sit only a few feet away from a couple of our project managers.

It’s interesting sitting near them, because they can hear me answering questions from potential clients and existing clients about budget and timeframes, before I’ve even spoken to them (the people doing the work) about the project.  I can completely understand why they have fear in their eyes as to what I may be promising to close new business, but, my job is essentially to bring in business and bring it in now!   

I always call it “doing the dance”…I have to dance around 100% committing to the clients budget and timeframes, but, keeping them interested in doing business with us. And on the other side, I have to dance around letting our staff know that we have a really exciting project potentially coming our way, but, it has to be done tomorrow!   

The good news is that most of the time clients and prospects are reasonable with project deliverables and budget.  And, most of the time, I am able to set reasonable expectations with the clients and internally.  But, when a client/prospect says to me, it has to be done by this date, or we won’t get the business!, you better believe I’ll be dancing my way over to their desks to set their expectations that we are going to have to throw our schedule out the window and get this done.

We have had some crazy requests come in from clients and our team does everything in their power to deliver on time and on budget!  

It sounds like I’m selling right now…well maybe, just in case…