“You can repeat the steps of the development phase forever, but at some point you will have to abandon your quest for hypothetical perfection, go with your best guess, and proceed to the implementation phase.
1. Build
2. Test
3. Revise
4. Implement
5. Market
6. Maintain and Improve
As Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously observed, “Real artists ship.” An architect who never gets hired to design any actual 3D buildings is call a “paper architect.” It doesn’t matter how ingenious his blueprints are: unless he actually gets some buildings built, the history of architecture will not remember him. By the same token, real designers implement.
It doesn’t matter how well the design succeeds in the hypothetical test environment of the development phase. How a design weathers the implementation phase is the true test of its success.”
Skipping the predesign phase and diving straight into the design phase is like taking a hasty, blurry snapshot of a still life and then devoting weeks meticulously painting from that blurry snapshot.
…As Joe Jackson sang, “You can’t get what you want till you know what you want”
“At the end of the day, knowing grid systems, color theory, and the history of typography doesn’t necessarily make you a creative designer any more then knowing a pinch from a pint and how to operate a Cuisinart makes you a creative chef.”
I’ll share more nuggets from his book as I progress beyond page 14. That’s what my blog is for, right? Referencing things from other people and producing nothing original?
Part of hiring a web communications specialist involves browsing around the internet(s) looking for insightful questions to ask a web writer, because I aren’t one. In the process I found this neat girl Tiffani Jones, a sort of web writing gunslinger for hire.
An awesome one-two punch from her amazing recent presentation are below. …The raccoons put it over the top. Put me under obligation to share it:
In the talk, I presented a series of commonsense–but regularly overlooked–tips on how to create good web copy. We covered the basics of solid writing, what makes for effective copywriting, and why web copy is special.
“I only write copy”
“We don’t have a photographer”
“Video? We’re not staffed or equipped for that.”
Your days are numbered. The liberal arts crowd is steadily taking back ground which was previously overrun by the nerds and the technologists. Better tools, simpler technology, and easy-to-use software are making child’s play of once complicated tasks – breaking down the barriers to doing great storytelling online. And there aren’t many excuses for not picking up the skills contained in that great document - a document which was intended for journalists, but easily applies to web communications.
Learn it, live it, and grow. Or get accustomed becoming more irrelevant and replaceable with each passing month. The VCR comes to mind. Heck, Betamax.
“You are only as secure as your ability to find your next job.”
I like my job/employer and I hope I never get fired. But that sentence still rings in my ears. A friendly reminder to never get complacent. Never stop growing.
Every organization makes mistakes running their website; the nature of those mistakes varies, however, depending on the size and type of organization. Institutional websites are often large unwieldy creatures plagued by bureaucracy. In this talk Paul will share some of the harsh truths surrounding these websites and suggests ways to tame the beast!
