The power of collective intelligence
The Web is the greatest collective intelligence engine in human history. We are living through a Renaissance in democratic thought and individual opportunity.
All the news is bad. Or so it would seem. We are witnessing the decline and fall of Europe, according to TIME magazine. It’s hard to find an optimistic journalist or opinion writer […]
Nobody cares about your new app
Stop talking or writing about your new app, video, Twitter feed or Facebook page. Start making your customers’ lives simpler, faster, cheaper.
“Dear Gerry,” the email from John Kavanagh, Loyalty Marketing Manager for Aer Lingus begins. “As a valued member of our Gold Circle programme I am delighted to be contacting you with news of the […]
What we can learn from Yahoo
Yahoo is an extremely popular website, yet its stock has performed really badly. Why? Because it sells stuff (banner ads) people don’t want to buy.
Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo, stated in 2009 that “My fortunes are tied to my pages.” Yahoo has lots and lots of pages and lots and lots of page views. It […]
The changing role of marketing
Marketing has become everything you do. Everyone in your organization is a marketer.
In classical management thinking, marketing, advertising and branding were often separate from the product and company. This is a particular type of thinking best associated with what is called Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), but has become popular for all types of […]
Measure negative behavior, not just positive behavior
The Web is not just another medium, another channel. More than anything it is another culture, another way of living and thinking.
If you sat a mathematics exam and got 3% would you be happy? Probably not. But those who create banner ads think a 3% click-through rate is amazing. In fact, they’d be ecstatic with […]
The power of the written word
The Web reflects the return to dominance of the written word.
I’m just reading a book on Lenin, having previously finished books on Marx, Stalin and Hitler. More than anything they were writers. They saw that the written word was essential if their ideas were to triumph. They saw the critical importance of controlling newspapers.
Newspapers claim […]
Eliminate task duplicates
How many unique tasks are there in the following list?
• Book an appointment online
• Appointment reminders
• Let me book an appointment
• Make an appointment
• Request an appointment
Yes, two. One task is about booking an appointment and another is about getting reminders for the appointment you have booked. As you develop your task list you will come across a lot of […]
Managing your task list
Collect your task longlist in a spreadsheet with the following headings:
• Tasks: This is where we place the task word/phrase
• Duplicates: This column contains task phrases that are very similar to each other.
• Class: This is the broad classification the task phrase fits into.
• Source: This is where we found the task phrase. For example, “Top 100 Search Results”.
• Internal […]
Where to get your task list from
The first step in top task management is carrying out a task situation analysis in order to understand the whole range of customer tasks that exist. I call this list of customer tasks the ‘Longlist.’
The following longlist sources are specifically for a public website, but the basic approach to building a longlist works […]
Identifying top tasks: an introduction
Identifying top tasks: an introduction
How do you measure the value of your website? You identify your customers’ top tasks. Then you measure whether they are able to complete these tasks quickly.
Over the coming issues we’re going to go into the detail of how to identify top tasks and how to measure them. This will be […]
