Loving this!

Check out more comic book brilliance at xkcd.com (and thanks to Dr Neil Cutland for the tip off - we clearly share a similar sense of humour).

I’m going to be redoing my website soon.

In fact, I’ll be redesigning it and changing it time and time again over the coming months and years because the damn thing keeps going out of date.

But so it is for all businesses, including yours.

A website is never ‘finished’. Never out of beta testing. Never safe to let it rest on its online laurels.

It’s unbelievably annoying, especially when we are all so busy and the marketing budget is tight as hell.

So I thought you might be interested to see my tips for how to approach a website brief and how to go about appointing a good agency to do the job for you.

Actually, it’s the latter that bothers me the most. 

Most good marketers and business owners have clear views on their communications and business development objectives, and many know what they need to achieve.  (See the questions below if you want a bit of help with that).

I find that the trickiest bit tends to be finding the right people to help, because there are all sorts of options out there and no shortage of web wizards prepared to blind you with science and bore you with technobabble.

Other than a few shining examples of excellence, my experience is that the market broadly divides into three. 

So at the risk of upsetting everyone with hugely unfair generalisations, you can end up with a choice between:

1. The freelance programmer who can build you a fully functioning site quickly based on some simple templates and an impressive love of HTML, XML, SEO and MySQL. Often the cheapest option, but unfortunately programmers usually make very poor designers and some use some really dire templates. Needs a lot of supervision.
2. The graphic design agency which puts visuals first, turning your website into a thing of beauty which gets you envious looks. But a bit too fond of Flash and other user-unfriendly gizmos, and don’t think enough about a structure of a site or the back-end stuff. Needs a lot of supervision.
3. The digital marketing consultancy which does it all, integrating and optimising your every online and offline move. They’re usually very thorough in their analysis of your business needs, but it’s a pricey service. They’re happiest talking Web 2.0 and will try to sell you all sorts of other services afterwards. Needs a lot of supervision.

Which to choose? 

Well, much depends therefore on your budget, preferred outcome and how much time you’ve got to manage the whole project. Did I mention supervision?  Yes, you’ll need to set aside plenty of time for this.

Generally I look for a team which has the right balance between heart-stopping visual creativity, bottom line business pragmatism and nerd-like obsession with technical programming and SEO. Oh, and great client handling skills too. I have found some really good teams like that, but sadly it’s not a mix you find that often.

Second, I now put my greatest trust in agencies which don’t try and tie me in to their bespoke content management system. I’ve heard the arguments on both sides, but sorry guys, my mind is increasingly made up these days that a future-proofed, portable, scaleable site needs to be built using Umbraco or a similar mainstream open source CMS.

Third, the Achilles heel of almost all agencies is their writing skills. Writing for the web is completely different from other sorts of copywriting. I look for a team who understand that, and which demonstrates brilliant attention to detail. More often, I do it myself.

Finally, I take up references now about after-sales service. Once the technical specification for a website is signed off, too many agencies just churn you through the sausage machine. They’re off finding the next client. 

I want to be nurtured, proactively contacted with ideas for ongoing tweaks and simple improvements that won’t cost much, and no nasty surprises in the maintenance contract. I want evaluation and regular metrics built in from day one, with hands-on help and free advice on how to measure things ourselves using tools like Google Analytics.

Like most consultants, I’ve neglected my own website for far too long. And I'm no digital guru, by any means. But I regularly project manage and supervise the creation of new websites for my clients, so these tips (and prejudices) are based on real life experience. 

What has your experience been? If you have any other tips, I’d be glad to hear them.

Five simple steps to inform a website brief
 

1. Understand your business goals and what you want a website to do for you.

2. Understand your priority target audiences.

3. Understand what products, services and areas of expertise will fuel your economic future for the next 12 months, and think about the content which shows this off to its best advantage.

4. Understand your customers’ purchasing journey, the information they need at different stages to help them buy from you, and the other actions you want them to take along the way.

5. Understand what’s currently bringing traffic to your existing website and what people are doing once they find you.

There is also some great advice on website design and creation on the Design Council website (look for the 'Getting a great website' guide on www.designcouncil.org.uk)

I was requested to write a short article for the excellent RIBA Insight e-newsletter this summer.

You can view my thoughts on crisis management in the building sector here, or view it on the RIBA Insight website.

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Sadly too many companies are taken unawares by a storm of bad publicity.  

You know for sure that you’re dealing with a serious PR crisis when you are faced with complaints, a wave of social media chatter and invasive and hostile media attention – all usually before full information is available to the executive team.  

You have a choice. You can allow others to shape perceptions of you and your actions, usually by doing nothing until the lawyers say it’s ok and all the facts are known. Or you can attempt to control this by taking an early active role.

Whatever strategy you choose, how you deal with such situations is the acid test of your PR and communications. It will have lasting impact on your reputation and even the survival of your company.  

Our advice is to consider the various stages of your storm and how you will work through them:

BEFORE

• Research into crisis communications proves that success often comes down to two main factors: response time and preparedness.  
• The first 24 hours of any crisis are crucial, and in order to stay in control of a situation you need to be seen to be at the centre of the response.  A speedy, comprehensive and calm response that projects a credible, responsible and caring company can sometimes stop a potential storm in its tracks.  But any sort of delay, complacency or information vacuum can, and almost always will, lead to false reports and reputational damage.
• So plan for the worst. Imagine your worst nightmare and get your crisis preparedness plan in place.

DURING

After many years of handling PR crises in construction, our top 10 tips for managing the situation as it unfolds are as follows:

1. Always be honest and open, but never speculate. Stick to the facts as known at the time. It’s perfectly ok to say “I can’t answer that question because that information is not known at the moment…”. It’s definitely not ok to say “No comment”.
2. Tell people what’s going on now, and what they should do. Talk about what your organisation is doing to mitigate the problem; don’t get drawn into arguments or focus on what’s already gone wrong.
3. Put public, customer and employee health and safety issues at the top of your list of concerns and your messages, closely followed by environment, property and money (in that order).
4. Know when to say you’re sorry. The lawyers will not like this in case it construes responsibility, but you do need to agree a way to demonstrate empathy and compassion.
5. The visibility of the Chief Executive and other senior company spokespeople is going to be extremely important.  Use them strategically to reassure key stakeholders. My strongest advice is that bosses should be exposed to the harsh reality of a crisis before deciding key messages.
6. Put the incident into perspective. A common strategy is for commentators, competitors and critics to take one incident and try and look for/publicise a cluster of other similar incidents. You need to be able to counter this with your own verifiable statistics and facts that prove how rare this crisis really is.
7. Don’t mix your messages, for example saying one thing to the media, another to staff and another to customers. Any variation in message could prove highly embarrassing and fundamentally damaging.
8. Written statements are a good tool to use for most organisations new to crisis management, but these must include relevant content (particularly covering the five ‘W’s – who, what, where, when and why). Go easy on technical detail and jargon. And set up a speedy sign-off system. All your statements should be able to be drafted, approved for use and distributed very quickly in minutes, not hours.
9. Put your statements onto your website, intranet, online PR channels etc. and distribute them to everyone who might be approached for (and is likely to) comment. Don’t just think about the words – visual messages can also be extremely helpful.  Provide your own illustrations, maps, photographs and other visual materials to help communicate what has happened and what you are doing about it.
10. Document absolutely everything.

AFTER

• And when it is all over, take time to discuss what you have learned from handling this crisis.  Think about how you are going to deal with any ongoing recurrence of publicity (such as a later court judgement, HSE investigation, inquest or public inquiry, or the anniversary of the incident).
• Your post-crisis PR and marketing strategy must strike a very careful tone, both positive and upbeat but also emphasising that you are listening. 
• Above all, stay listening. A perfect storm will never take you unawares again.

After one of the busiest and most exhilarating quarters for the business we have seen for 10 years, I actually took a holiday last week.

Among the glorious highlights of my first visit to Cornwall, I spent two days at the Eden Project (a business also celebrating its tenth birthday this year) and yes, I admit it, caught up with some work-related reading.

Both of these events have sparked some thoughts on the perennial questions for communicators in our industry: Do we need a new word for sustainability and, if so, what could it be?

It all started when I was struck by the fact that at Eden I could only find one written reference to sustainability - and that was a statement about the development of the Eden Project as a "sustainable business".

Who was the only person to say the S word on the Eden Project video? The architect.

All the other messages, especially those for young people (and their exhausted teachers and parents grateful for a coffee at The Core, Eden's education centre), were about a "cool future", "inspiration", "transformation"...

So this got me thinking. Is it just us lot in the property and building world who seem so wedded to this word? We put so much effort into positioning our businesses, our projects and products, our corporate ethos, as sustainable. But given that there is so much confusion about what the word actually means (and downright bans on using it in advertising and many marketing communications now) is there another way, a better way, to communicate the essence of what we are doing to the audiences we want to reach?

Framing the issue

This issue was also raised within one of the many interesting topics for discussion at the recent IBM Start Jam - an online summit for environmentalists, celebs, communicators and business leaders to share thoughts and ideas about, well, sustainability.

One of the discussion threads started by Ellen MacArthur looked at the issue of framing - how do we frame the changes that have to happen in order to get maximum support from the population?

Here are some of the interesting points made in response:

• Sustainability must be associated with other lifestyle-enhancing benefits
• Sustainability must be framed as cool, aspirational and achievable within a short to medium term (up to 5 years, say)
• Sustainability must be communicated visually, not just with words
• Sustainability must emphasise the national/local, not global
• Sustainability should be presented as incremental steps, not one big leap that people will perceive as too disruptive

I've commented on these and other excellent tips before.

In the meantime though, back to words.

Ellen MacArthur suggests substituting the words "our future" wherever the word "sustainability" is used. I will give that a try and see if it works.

Other people suggested words like "survivability", "vitality" and "climate prosperity".

An education expert pointed out that she didn't need to use the S word at all - just start with the issues that matter most to people, and don't try and frame it as 'sustainable'. It's implicit, not explicit, and key audiences can label it any way they wish. I am increasingly seeing this approach adopted by leaders in the field. The day will soon come - maybe it has already - when a company's claim to be "sustainable" will sound dated.

Thinner and cooler

But while relaxing in Cornwall and indulging in maybe a few too many cream teas, I did rather like the comment that, to be successfully communicated to the public, sustainability should offer the promise of making us all thinner and more attractive.

So, having checked this out with a few people including my kids, we have come up with a proposal for two new slang terms:

Slim. adj. slang. To be sustainable, or to demonstrate a commitment to sustainability (eg. "OMG, that's like sooooo slim!" - this works well with girls)

Unsus. adj. slang. To be seriously unsustainable, a person considered antisocial and uncool due to excessive consumption, environmental damage etc. (eg. "You're such an unsus" - this seems to work better with boys)

What word would you use instead of sustainable?

How can we get "sustainable" to be the best compliment anyone could pay us, and "unsustainable" the worst insult?

Ok, I'm going to be a bit outspoken here.

I'm on the attack against the Bah Humbug Brigade. The finance director who cut the Christmas Card budget because times are tough, it cost a few hundred quid and it was too much bother anyway. And the marketing manager who decided that it would be "greener and more socially responsible" to just send everyone an email instead.

Boo. Boring. Where's your Christmas spirit guys?

Sure, Christmas cards are still a bit out of fashion.

But I can think of no better way than a creative, well designed card to send a message of Christmas blessings and genuine thanks to all the people who make our working life so fulfilling and full of laughter and fun.

By all means give a donation and/or your time to charity too (big plug here: the Construction Youth Trust is doing some awesome work to get disadvantaged young people into the UK construction industry and it's a great cause to support if you really want to give something back to benefit the future of the industry).

But we also believe in the huge power of a Christmas card and the message of love and laughter we can send out every year.

That's why this year's card is a Ration Book. (Download a copy of the PDF by clicking on the picture above or the link below)

Liz Male Consulting has joined forces with the Ministry of Austerity to bring you a carefully rationed package of silliness and satire. A seasonal allowance to offset against cuts of any sort. Plus a collection of outrageously disrespectful low carbon recipes for the construction industry, and a carol with a twist.

We hope our card brings a bit of a giggle amidst the gloom. As the warning poster says: LAUGHTER IS IN PERIL. DEFEND IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT.

Our thanks go as always to Mike Spike, designer of our Christmas card for many years (see our earlier versions on the Fun Stuff page).

We also thank you, clients, suppliers and friends for all your support this year. Have a very, very Happy Christmas.

Ration_Book2010.pdf (3.50 mb)