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Photo  |  Misc

Thanks $WEBEX_CON_EMAIL

4 Jun 2012

Thanks $WEBEX_CON_EMAIL

Dear WebEX,

We’ve been testing out a few conference systems and first went with WebEX as several of our clients/partners seem to use it, but after a few calls, it seemed like a lot of moaning and groaning on our end about having to navigate their UI.

We’ve since settled on GoToMeeting as their tools/interface feel much easier to interact with.

So, today… I went through your cancellation process, which required me to call and wait on hold for 20 minutes, talk with one of your agents, explain why we wanted to cancel, turn down their offer for free training of using their tool, and eventually wait for my confirmation email. I’ve gone ahead and provided it for you.

I’ll give you some credit though. When I first compared WebEX vs GoToMeeting, I found your marketing/sales pitch to be more compelling, so pulled my credit card out for you first. However, once you gave me access to my new account, It was nothing but headaches and annoyances for the team. Very difficult tools to interact with… the epitome of a web tool designed by technical people who lack much empathy for the end-user. I worry that you’re losing a lot of customers for similar reasons… and would encourage you to have some of your usability experts focus on your online scheduling/planning tools as it was too painful for us to work with.

Sincerely,
$FIRST_NAME

Quote

An Occupying Force

1 Jun 2012

Ultimately, the organization’s instinct is to protect the ground that’s already been taken rather than take new ground. Every organization begins as an advance force and ends up as an occupying force.

Todd Henry from The Accidental Creative

Quote

People are the web

29 May 2012

Beyond the baseline demographic data of age, race, sex, location etc, we should ponder some questions: Who are they? How are they? How well do they sleep? Are they anxious? Are they extroverts displaying their digital peacock feathers? Are they introverts who can socialize but head home early because their feet hurt and they’d rather read a book? Are 52% of them introverts who live voyeuristically through the safety of glowing screens? What is it that they want? Can we provide for them? Do we have to?

Dave Allen, director, interactive strategy for NORTH from Memorial Day musings: Facebook, Bob Dylan, Paul Krugman and introverts

It sounds like Dave had a lovely weekend down in Palm Springs and busted out this thought-provoking post about Facebook's recent IPO and what they are likely going to need to focus on as a business... while raising a lot of good questions for us all to ponder.

Article  |  Strategy

White Paper - Responsive Design vs Mobile Site

29 May 2012

Our team is currently working on a series of white papers and have just finished our first one, which introduces businesses to two strategies for designing and developing a site that targets mobile traffic.

Responsive vs. Mobile

Given that we've approached several projects from both angles, we felt that it would be worthwhile to share our experiences of each with you.

You can now get our white paper, "Responsive Design vs Mobile Site" on "our new white papers page":http://planetargon.com/white-papers/responsive-design-vs-mobile-site.

Continue Reading

Quote  |  Misc

Where are the women?

23 May 2012

A survey of 11 recent Portland tech startups, ranging from companies with four employees to 80, reveals that their total workforces were typically 70 percent to 80 percent male, while their development and engineering teams—i.e., the people who write the actual code—have even fewer women. In many cases, none.

Ruth Brown from Willamette Week: Where the Tech is She?

<p><img src="http://distilleryimage1.instagram.com/5118364ea4df11e18cf91231380fd29b_7.jpg" width="500" /></p> It's good to see this issue getting more and more attention.

Photo  |  Studio

Clients visiting

18 May 2012

Clients visiting

We had Andy Sanders from Contiki visit with us for a few days this week. This morning, Gary and I took him for a hike in the Columbia Gorge and stopped by Multnomah Falls.

Thanks for visiting Andy, we look forward to seeing you again soon!

Quote  |  Strategy

Conversion Rates as the wrong metric

18 May 2012

For any e-commerce site, I have the perfect advice on how to raise their conversion rate significantly. All they have to do is stop marketing. Once they stop marketing, the number of visitors will drop to only those who are already loyal customers.

Because those visitors are loyal, they are probably only coming to buy something. The ratio of purchasers to visitors will skyrocket. Sales will likely drop, but conversion will go sky-high.

Sounds great, right? That’s the other problem with the conversion rate ratio: it’s not at all related to the other business operations.

Jared Spool from Avoid Ratios For Metrics – Moving Beyond Conversion Rates, Part 1

Let's avoid getting too focused on conversion rates.

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