Changing our ways…

When writing the LinkedIn post, I started going on a UX bandwagon which I decided to leave for another time…that’s now. It’s insanity really, how we follow the same process in developing websites. I must be careful in what I say here, as it’s the business we’re in, but I can honestly say things need to change and we (HeathWallace) can potentially be that change.

Traditionally, the UX process thinks about a business OUT point of view. How ever you do it, you start with what the business has and then try to connect with consumers, assuming they will come to your website. What you then develop is framework, a series of templates which you then fill with content. It’s only at the end of this process that you really worry about the words. I don’t think that’s how people are consuming things any more. Most people are deep linking to content i.e. via twitter, Google etc. and finding their way to a page of content, not the home page. I’m trying to think of the last time I went to a home page of a website!

This ultimately changes the role websites play, it has evolved. It’s more dynamic and can be a repository of content. In my experience we skim the internet for information then deep dive to find what we want. I Googled HSBC recently and I can see Google prioritises most visited and up-to-date pages, what I’m exposed to is a portal of content and this becomes a self-fulfilling experience. It’s more acute now as people are more informed in what they want to do and what they want to buy. I think it’s crazy how we create all these websites for nobody to visit or read, it’s like the definition of insanity, still doing it even if we know it’s wrong and expecting a different result.

And it’s a vicious circle, for example, does a start-up really need a website or rather, fragments of content? Fragments which talk about the business concept in snackable and shareable pieces of content, which point people to something that needs to exist, to either close the sale or provide more information. Instead of putting all your efforts into creating a website, you rather put your efforts into the content and think from the content back and how it all pieces together.

The industry (everyone in it from clients to agencies etc.) who is set up to deliver, understand this is the issue but are loathe to implement it. It’s a heretical point of view I know, as you then have to go unpick everything that we’re doing, and all our clients have to do the same. If I’m honest, it means we have to change how we do things, which is possible as I work with some of the most talented minds in the industry. So watch this space…

LinkedIn, endless opportunities

This last week we had a workshop with LinkedIn. We discussed content development and how LinkedIn can become a more valid place to go. The more LinkedIn can create better content, the more of a valid place it will be to go. They need corporates and industries to create better content, so it becomes a virtuous circle.

This is interesting as B2B is their sweet spot and it’s our strength. I’m seeing LinkedIn as a new channel. So what does a corporate need? A website, mobile site, and intranet, but they also need to be fit for purpose on LinkedIn. It becomes a more of a necessity something they have to do. The potential opportunity is integrating LinkedIn as a platform with corporates’ internal systems; this could open new opportunities for LinkedIn to reinvent themselves as potential a software company.

I’m sure they recognise that they have all this data which they could leverage and that’s fantastic but the more they integrate into businesses, the better the kind of content will be. I could almost imagine them having all of a corporate’s employees on their platform and then you could start thinking about intranet groups. As soon as you start talking about this, it opens up huge opportunities. Why do corporates do the same old in creating intranets where most staff (this is a generalisation) don’t go and ultimately pump huge amounts of money into it and it fails? Use the same external marketing approach and go where your employees are…LinkedIn.

So the gap really is the content publishing side, the more valuable LinkedIn becomes as a publishing property, the more they integrate with businesses, the stickier and valuable they will become. It transcends the thinking about content and what people are reading and what they’re likely to consume and build out from that point where at the moment we come up with a framework for a website and fill it with content, it’s really a stupid thing to do…it’s old (this leads me onto another blog post).

LinkedIn can become a destination for you to discover more about what you need to know and who to follow, but it’s only as good as the content and network of users that underpins it. If I’m a company who understands that most of my staff is going to LinkedIn, then I should invest in being there. It can become a place where people can manage their careers not only a relevant content hub. That’s just the start of the potential opportunity in my opinion, a small one at that!:-)