photo cred­it: dandy_fsj

To wrap up this inter­view series with Krista Vie­ira, we’re fea­tur­ing the Key Mes­sages gen­er­ated by con­fer­ence attendees.

If you missed the inter­view series read these:

• Gerry McGov­ern Mas­ter­class — essen­tial con­tent for con­tent man­agers (part one)
• Gerry McGov­ern Mas­ter­class — essen­tial con­tent for con­tent man­agers (part two)
• Gerry McGov­ern Mas­ter­class — essen­tial con­tent for con­tent man­agers (part three)

Key Messages from the Gerry McGovern Masterclass, Ottawa, May 5–6, 2008

We need a clar­ity of under­stand­ing of what our web­site is for. To much choice = no choice. We must focus on what our cus­tom­ers want. Why are they com­ing to our web­site? What task are they try­ing to complete?

Customers

Cus­tom­ers are:

• Harsh, demand­ing and difficult
• Skep­tic­al and cyn­ic­al of authority
• Have the power on the web — not the organization
• Dic­tat­ors, not kings
• Impa­tient
• Quick to use they’re favour­ite but­ton — the Back button

Web real­ity #1: The web takes the power to con­trol inform­a­tion away from the organ­iz­a­tion and gives it to the people.

The web is about giv­ing real inform­a­tion and facts. The web allows people to get to know a sub­ject bet­ter or make a bet­ter decision. People can com­par­is­on shop; read reviews; find out what oth­er people think, etc.

The web is the land of A.D.D. We live in a money rich, time poor eco­nomy. Time is our most valu­able resource. We meas­ure our web­site’s suc­cess by the time it takes users to do some­thing; the quick­er they per­form the task, the bet­ter. The sin of the mod­ern eco­nomy — though shall not waste my time.

Web real­ity #2: Using the web is not a planned activ­ity; it’s rushed, impa­tient and hur­ried. People are search­ing the web in between com­mer­cial breaks, after they’ve put the chil­dren to bed, when they’re tired. Accept this: the web is ALWAYS fit­ted in between some­thing else.

Building Trust

• People trust people like them­selves, not author­ity fig­ures. They will trust the fact­ory work­er more than the CEO.
• Give the truth on the web not PR or mar­ket­ing. This will build trust.
• No one believes an organ­iz­a­tion is per­fect, so they don’t expect it.

Importance of Simplicity

• We read on the web like we’re rid­ing down an escalator.
• Con­tent needs to be dir­ect and to the point. Think speed of action and clar­ity of message.
• The web is an act­ive doing medi­um, so use the lan­guage of action. Don’t talk about what you’ve done or what you’re going to do. Don’t become the pass­ive com­mu­nic­at­or, become the act­ive facil­it­at­or of the content.
• Every time you add to your web­site, you com­plic­ate things. There is always a trade-off with sim­pli­city. To make some­thing more simple means some­thing else will be more com­plic­ated. Focus on doing your top task well, then worry about the rest of the website.
• Some­thing that’s easy is imme­di­ately doable. Show by doing; don’t talk about it. For example: Google does­n’t have to explain to you how to search. The sim­pli­city of it imme­di­ately makes it usable.
• Don’t talk about an applic­a­tion form, let people use it.

Remem­ber, web­sites are built from, and func­tion, on words.

The Web is Self-Service or Having a Customer-Centric Website

Only hav­ing inform­a­tion on the web is the greatest mis­man­age­ment of a web­site. People are not com­ing to web­sites look­ing for inform­a­tion. Do you go to an inform­a­tion booth and just ask them to give you inform­a­tion? People come to the web to solve a problem.

Inform­a­tion only has value when asso­ci­ated with a task. Identi­fy the most import­ant tasks and make sure your cus­tom­er­’s can find them and com­plete them quickly.

Web real­ity #3: Some­times we spend so much time doing things wrong, that we don’t have the time to do things right. The best web­sites focus on their top tasks and keep improv­ing them. They find out how people are reacting.
3 core rules of self-service:

1. Con­veni­ence
2. Speed
3. Price (the web is the land of the cheap deal)

If you can­’t do price, you’d bet­ter do the oth­er two really well.

Web real­ity #4: Hav­ing a cus­tom­er-cent­ric web­site means the con­tent focuses on what the cus­tom­er wants. When an organ­iz­a­tion does­n’t know its cus­tom­ers or what they want, they end up with a put-it-upper web­site: can you put this up for me by Thursday? The 20,000 page web­site is built by put-it-uppers.

Eco­nom­ies that aren’t suc­cess­ful put numer­ous steps in the way of their cus­tom­ers. For example, in Peru it takes 289 steps to set up a company.

We meas­ure web suc­cess by the amount of time it takes people to do something.

To have a cus­tom­er-cent­ric website:

1. Identi­fy the top tasks
2. Speak the lan­guage the cus­tom­er is using. Don’t make them use the organ­iz­a­tion’s language.

The web is where you go to do stuff. In order for a per­son to do some­thing, a web­site must be use­ful. We must potty train our web­sites so we get rid of the we-we’s: We did this; we launched that.

We must focus on what the cus­tom­er wants to do.

Addi­tion­al Resources:

• Gerry McGov­ern’s website
• Mas­ter­class con­fer­ence website
• Killer Web Con­tent — the book that star­ted it all