MDK

This week I was going to talk a bit more about branding since I am at Disney in Florida with my (Disney-obsessed) wife again…but instead I thought I’d wade an oar (love those mixed-metaphors) into something else…

I had to respond as well…

Groditi made an interesting post in response to SawyerX ‘s post about website branding (that you can view here and the original post). Mostly, if I follow the argument (and no insult is intended if I read this wrong or have paraphrased too much), his point is that this adds little to the sum of Perl for the developer as they already have CPAN and other resources and it is more useful to have good documentation and easy to maintain/search libraries of code, so why all this extraneous ‘blah blah blah’. This is true. To be honest I see no fault in what he has said, potentially developers should have nice sites to look good with the only reason being as a selling point for their marketable skills. They aren’t the most important thing if you are interested in development, and to them that ‘icing’ which is a nice site can be an irrelevant fluff that is almost not worth the debating space.

I’m not trying to contradict that point of view, or say it is inaccurate, I just think there is another point to be made and it is the important point for me, it is the one I usually ‘bang on about’ at some length to people if they happen to find themselves caught between me and a bar often in a post-conference reference. That is that the sites are NOT (just an emphasis not a shout) just for developers. In fact the front page is a good place to point fledgling users at the correct resources, and hey, if you can get the domain name is user/search engine friendly as well, because I heard some people use search engines (sarcasm is inappropriate but useful for the over-stating of a point). But it is also a place that we can point managers, bosses, colleagues, newbie’s, place on advertising, link to (without the linking becoming deprecated as the many modules/libraries documentation can) and generally promote. Because, although it is the developers (and I have never under-sold how much I admire any developer) who ultimately make best use of this end product (they shape and form it, the are inspired by it and go to create and develop it), they are not always the ones who are in charge of using it.

The sad, and prevalent, fact is that we need to capture the mindshare of the other people in our industry. The non-developers. The web enthusiasts, the designers and project managers, the bosses and our technical colleagues. We need to show them sites that they can easy navigate not to learn how to use a module or where to find out where the cool cats hang out, but just to know what it is. To see if it is of use to them. To make it the spoken about ‘item’. No there is no real value to this. Yes it is intrinsically a horrid thing that we have to tell people this when we should just be using the great tools of a good toolbox. But if we are forced to stop using the tools because no one wants to have them, or doesn’t know they are good, or prefers the easier-to-find cheaper-to-buy available-everywhere from a snake oil salesman – then we are totally Betamax (reference for old dudes).

So I am not trying to sell my marketing just to you. I am trying to sell it to everyone.

To all those who see no reason in this and perhaps even in marketing. I am, though, still going to target you. Because you are a hard act to win. I am giving you nothing and there is no need to grab you, you are already here. But if we can, if you can see that this adds rather than detracts/does nothing, if you see the purpose, then we are maybe on a very good track. I am not trying to win a concession, just trying to follow the right path.

The necessary aside…

Also known as the Reason Why…
AKA Jill’s favourite Soup Recipe…

There were one or two comments on Groditi’s blog and I am going to talk about them here. I would have left this all as a comment, but then I realised I was writing a post and I didn’t want to start blasting a long response that may seem derogatory/inflammatory or contradictory as i didn’t really disagree (see above). Also, i feel it is rude to start using someone else’s comments area as a forum for debate hence I will talk about them here.

A…cardboard…slop-soaker…interesting…

(I spilled my drink and made the table sloppy, I wish I had an appropriately themed device to rest the glass upon…)

A few people have mentioned that they think the beermats are wasting money that could be used to make better sites/write documents. Well, yes, I guess, but the beermats were made to give out at a conference and other similar events, they are for when you don’t have time to sit someone down and show them the website or explain things. Also they are for when you have had a few jars of sarsaparilla and want to make sure they remember the thing you just pontificated about at length the next cheery, over-beery morn. They are also conference giveaways intended to stick in the memory, so people take them and maybe look into what they are saying/selling. Their cost was marginal (within bounds) and the need for them was not decided by anyone person, it was suggested to the entire EPO membership and they voted upon it.

I would like to help re-design sites as well but there are more factors here than what you are hinting at. For instance the beermats took a relatively small amount of time to produce, a website design takes quite a lot longer. The design and work to produce the mats was done for free – which is comparable to, say, website design costs done for free. What you should compare with the cost to produce the beermats is the cost to host the sites and resources. Both of these have to be paid as no-one can volunteer it (though the EPO and other community sites get some of the costs donated/ameliorated usually by companies or individuals in the community). So when you say we used money to produce the beermats that could have been used to design the websites you are seeing the picture skewed (ever so slightly), we didn’t take any money/resources away from anything, we allocated what we thought was the best use of those resources, it was a membership decision not a single person guessing.

Also I should point out that the cost to ship the beermats was covered by donation, so the EPO didn’t even foot that bill, so all-in-all the beer mats were a good value promotional item (there are still some available to be given away if you have an acceptable venue).

Loan-A-Designer

As for finding companies with designers free to donate time to redesign sites/logos, as was also suggested, – well YAY. Yes. Please. If anyone knows people, has the time, wants to help. Then get in touch I know I have stuff that needs work and I can certainly find others if mine are all taken. They are all community sites/projects and they all would appreciate the help.

Once again, please don’t read this as an attack on what has already been said/written, it is just another way of shaving this particular hairy creature.

-ttfn – Mark