MillsMash

The following article was written by me and published in Hotelier Middle East, August 2009 Issue. Unfortunately they have not placed it online so i took the liberty…

The 21st century will be remembered as the time when the digital marketplace came of age and people turned in their millions to spend their billions online. Leading the way in this massive expanse of spending has been the travel and leisure consumers who are utilising this new open source of information to research their chosen destinations and facilities, drawing from a wealth of information provided by friends, families and strangers.

Many hoteliers have already realised the benefits that an online brand presence can bring them and either created their own sites or forged partnerships with online travel agents to capture sales. Unfortunately just as many have hoteliers have become comfortable with the online market place its focus has shifted and customers are basing their decision making on a much wider range of criteria.Increasingly people are turning to social networking and online advice to guide them in their decision on where to go and where to stay.

In this current climate it is vital to capitalise on all lead generation opportunities using the available online channels and reduce customer disaffection. One key strategy to this is increasing your brands awareness online. To achieve this we have put together the following 10 key points to help hoteliers maximise their online brand presence and increase the traffic on their websites ultimately leading to increase bookings.

1. Content is king. Ensure you site has all the very latest, relevant and accurate information on hotels and their surrounding area’s. Accuracy is key to ensure customers are not misled otherwise their brand experience will be affected and that negative experience shared with others. Content will ensure your customers needn’t look elsewhere for information and may even turn your site into a central reference point.
2. United you stand, divided you fall. Look to make partnerships with content providers to bolster your site’s information and stop customers from seeking information elsewhere. The longer they stay on the site the greater the chance they will book. Working with well know companies like What’s On When can bolster your brand value proposition and provide new valuable content for your site.
3. If you can’t beat them, join them. Social networking is not the enemy and if used effectively can drive traffic to your site and improve brand awareness. People are more likely to trust other people’s recommendations then an advert or corporate communications. TripAdvisor recently capitalised on Social Networking by creating a Facebook gadget “Cities I’ve visited” allowing people to enter cities around the world they have been too and add photos, feedback and advice which is then shared. By embracing the power of social networking you can increase your brand awareness and drive traffic to your website.
4. People want an easy life. Make sure that finding information and booking at your hotels is fast and easy. Web analytics provides an easy way to evaluate your sites performance allowing you to optimise customer journey. Even small improvements to the conversion rate add up. Conversely a slow and frustrating experience will have a negative impact on your brand and act as a barrier to any future interactions.
5. Don’t rest on your laurels. The most successful sites are constantly looking at how they can improve their customer’s online experience. Use web analytics to help you identify area’s of improvement.
6. Make yourself visible. The first place most people will go to find a brand’s website or destination information are search engines. It is vital that brands dominate the top results for specific terms, especially when searching on brand names. Although more people are searching using brand names they are not always ending up at the brand sites. Employ paid for adverts (PPC) on search engines to capture people’s attention.
7. Spread your wings. Look to increase awareness and accessibility of your site by increasing the number of other sites that talk about your hotels, brand and link to your website. Ensure any literature, advert, review, news article and press release both off and online include a link to your website. Not only will this increase awareness of your site and enable people to easily access it but it will also improve your listing in search engines.
8. Stop: Don’t rush in where fools fear to tread. Just because there is a new online trend does not mean it’s suitable for you and your brand or that you are ready for it. Evaluate the service first and plan how you will use it in the short and long term. Importantly make sure you have the resource and the content to make best use of the medium into the future.
9. Look: Look at how your customers are using the internet and how they are finding your site and interacting with your brand online; don’t be afraid to engage them on their own ground.
10. Listen. Customers are using social networks to have their say and can provide you with a free source of consumer information and feedback. Are you listening and more importantly are you prepared to react to what they have to say? You may find customers are twittering or blogging about their stay while they are with you. By monitoring this real time you can address their problems immediately and first hand you turning a possible PR disaster into a positive brand experience.

Ultimately people will only choose your hotel if it is represented well, be that online or offline. Protect your brands, monitor their reputation and ensure their being represented in the best possible light. In the digital world this is easier to track and monitor however you must ensure your reaction is planned and measured to capitalise on the opportunities.

Ok, I was looking forward to Nielsens presentation on 30th of June 2009. It was billed as “Launch of Nielsen Online Media Measurements for MENA” and they said “The Nielsen Company … will announce the statistics for participating website traffic in the (MENA) region”. Now the Middle east is crying out for some decent online statistics, in fact its crying out for any market data. Hell, they don’t even know who watches what on TV here!

So the idea that Nielsen, a well established renowned media research company where going to release figures about internet usage in the region was fantastic.  I was thinking age ranges, average usage time, most visited sites, online activities etc. A gold mine of information.

Well sadly i was shocked, disappointed, astounded and speechless by the end and here’s why.

This is a company which prides itself on its data and data analysis. So why did the presenter try to tell us that the break down figures for marketing spend across online, TV, magazine, etc. in Australia (even though we’re in MENA!) in 2007 had probably not changed much in comparison to today’s figures? Yet only a couple of slides earlier in the presentation they had said that online ad spending had gone up and as we all know marketing budgets by in large are frozen so therefore the % share for online must have changed.

Then there was the fact that this was billed as stats on the region, yet there where no stats about the region. The most we got told was that Maktool saw a drop in visitors in the region during june because people had left for the summer. A taxi driver could have told you that! Also, apparently usage dropped over the weekend, shock horror. And finally, usage increased on news that Michael Jackson had died, ground breaking!

Then as a sad indictment of their lack of knowledge of even their own product, when a member of the audience asked what the difference between Nielsen’s online tools and Google Ad Manager & Analytics, the presenters where unable to provide any compelling insight or differentiation. The reasons given where that Nielsen’s tag implementation was ’standardised’ across all websites and their results auditted by  a 3rd party. Now, given that Google tools are free and Nielsen’s cost quite a bit and if Nielsen what to try and persuade a region historically bad at research and tracking to invest in their tools they are going to have to come up with far better reasons then these. Hell, I can rattle off half a dozen reasons without having to think to much but that’s not my job and their presentation has certainly not indeered me to support or assist them.

One final sad twist in the tale is that I posted my thoughts about the presentation on their linkedIn discussion about the event and within 24hrs the discussion was no longer available.  Seeing as they are a company embracing social networking and marketing the importance of tracking online ‘buzz’ to enable companies to respond this just goes to show that someone in Nielsen (hopefully just this region) does not get it.

Come on Nielsen, pull your socks up and take the region seriously!

[Rant finished]

——-

Bootnote

I received a response from Tahir @ Nielsen which went some way to addressing the issues i raised but did not wholly satisfy me. I will ask him if i can use his response on this blog and post an update.

1.    How important is the digital world for brands?

The digital world is extremely important to all brands, both established and new. There are countless examples of young up-starts overturning more established brands by purely utilising the power of the digital world. Because of this, the digital world is an area that brands can no longer afford to ignore, rather, they must ensure is a key part of their brand strategy.

As customers are becoming increasingly technologically savvy, their expectation of the digital brand experiences grows. If these expectations are not met, then it will have a substantial negative impact on the brand value. To this end, all brands must ensure that they capitalise on the digital opportunities and offerings available. The scope and expectations are huge as too are the benefits if successful.

The digital world has become a vital territory which companies must explore and brands must conquer if they wish to survive let alone succeed in these challenging economic times.

2.    Advantages of the digital world?

The biggest advantage of the digital world and more specifically the online marketplace is the ability to measure the success of campaigns in a variety of key areas.

Not only can the financial benefits of a specific campaign, advert or even article be recorded but the increase in brand awareness and brand experience can also be easily recorded and monitored. This enables companies to quickly calculate their return on investment, tweak campaigns to maximise their effect and ensure it’s providing a positive experience for their customers.

The digital world also provides a fast and effective method to communicate with its target audience at cheaper costs than traditional mediums. Traditional mediums have for too long restricted companies to shouting to a crowd of people and hoping their message is heard and understood. Not only does digital technology provide a means to send instant tailored messages directly to customers & potential customers and measure the impact, but it also provides a means to start a conversation with their customers. This instils a sense of involvement in the brand which increases brand loyalty and pride as customers feel in control.
Ultimately all organizations should have a digital strategy as it provides an effective way to communicate with customers. At The Brand Union we encourage our clients to embrace and explore digital developments and utilize them as a means to engage their customers in conversation.

3.    Are there any drawbacks?

There are no direct drawbacks from embracing the digital world however neglecting it can be damaging to the brand experience. Alternatively it can be damaging if the digital experience does not live up to expectations and frustrates the user more than it assists them.

A negative experience can be caused by a variety of different issues but they are mainly caused by neglect, poor planning or bad implementation of a digital campaign. Due to the pervasiveness of the digital world combined with the ease and speed of communication a negative experience can easily spread and spin out-of-control.

In addition, careless blanket online advertising has led to brands being advertised along side unsuitable content with a negative impact on the brand image.

4.    How does a brand distinguish itself in the digital world which is so cluttered up?

As is the case with any successful brand, increasing brand awareness requires creating and implementing a detailed and thorough brand strategy. Building on this, the key to a successful digital brand strategy is ensuring that it is incorporated as part of a holistic campaign and not treated as a separate entity in its own special bubble. By utilising both traditional and digital mediums a brand can increase its awareness far greater than either medium would achieve alone.

It is important to meet your customer’s expectations and provide a positive brand experience which not only adds value encouraging them to return but which they will also communicate across their social network. Research has shown that people will trust recommendations received from friends and family twice as much as any other direct communication.

5.    Examples of successful branding in the digital world?

The real success stories are companies who do not treat the digital world as a separate entity but as part of a holistic brand strategy. Online and offline strategies that tie in seamlessly with each other have a far greater impact on brand awareness then segregated and disconnected campaigns. Large multinational corporations, like Apple and Adidas are definitely leading the way in this area. However Hollywood is also very successfully utilizing the internet to launch new movies and TV series by cleverly tying the programs into online campaigns.

Adidas are a great example of a brand increasing its brand awareness by utilizing a variety of digital techniques. During the last world cup Adidas utilised brand tracking technology to monitor discussions on their brand and its current campaigns and products lines. This online tracking highlighted online discussions regarding an issue with one of their products which was caused by customers not following included instructions. Based on the information obtained, Adidas altered their production and packaging process to resolve any issues or confusion. They also undertook an online campaign to alter current owners to a simple solution to the issue all the while continuing to monitor discussions to ensure success and measure the value.

Middle Eastern companies who have embraced the digital world and reaped the benefits are companies like Emirates Airlines and Jumeirah hotels. Their openness to digital opportunities has been driven by their need to appeal to broader markets many of which have higher expectations then local audiences historically have. However this is now rapidly changing and local companies in the region are finding themselves racing to catch-up.

6.    Examples of failure?

There are many examples of failures in the digital world which have damaged brands. What’s surprising is that these failures are not limited to small or inexperienced companies but can be afflict by some of the worlds largest and most successful brands. Below are a couple of recent examples which show how sometimes the simplest problems and misunderstandings can lead to huge issues.

Amazon is one of the largest online retailers who have mastered the digital world to not only market their company but also to service their customers. However recently they updated their cataloguing system which resulted in a large number of books loosing their high ranking and being mislabelled. This caused a massive outrage and accusations of censorship. Within hours many social networking sites where ablaze with fury at Amazon for their actions. Due to a small mistake which was later rectified Amazon not only lost a vast amount of potential revenue but also their user’s trust which had taken years to accrue. The digital world is a very fickle place which without foresight and planning can seriously damage a brand.

Skittles recently re-launched its website with great fan fare and turned its homepage into a twitter profile page allowing all it’s loyal customers to post messages of encouragement and adoration for the candy. Unfortunately, within hours of the site going live people where posting inappropriate messages which would then appear on the skittles site. Skittles giving its branding over to the public, and its homepage to its audience, is a gutsy gesture indeed. However they had not thought through the implications of their actions and had misjudged the power of the medium.

7.    What does a brand need to look out for when their brand world is being created for the digital world?

When creating a Brand World for a digital environment it is important to bare in mind several key points.

The digital world is unlike any other environment you and your brand may have encountered. The speed and ease of communication means that successful brands can succeed just as easily as they can fail and that the smallest issue can be amplified and blown out of proportion. Plan your strategy and ensure your actions are thought through and not knee jerk responses otherwise you could end up doing more damage than good.

It is important to appreciate that the digital world is interactive and customers expect their communications within this environment to go both ways because of this. There is no-point trying to communicate with customers through this medium if you are not willing to take the time to listen. Don’t be afraid to empower your customers as this will increase brand loyalty, but in doing so you must be ready to listen.

As previously mentioned, the digital environment is not detached or segregated from the outside world. The most successful digital branding exercises are always undertaken in conjunction with offline traditional branding exercises.

Success in the digital realm has the potential to propel a brand forward very quickly as it suddenly becomes visible to an entirely new market. If the brand is not prepared, it can quickly become saturated or over exposed. If a brand is not ready or open to the changed and impact the digital world has, then success can quickly turn to disappointment sizzling away, never to be resurrected.

Ultimately planning and strategy are the best ways to ensure a brand will succeed in the digital world. However, this must be undertaken as part of the bigger picture and a holistic approach, otherwise opportunities will be missed.

8.    How do brands stand out and ensure that they provide the consumers with a good brand experience that lives up to the brand even in a digital world?

Companies and their brands must continually strive to grow their digital representation. Constantly challenging their digital agencies to push the boundaries and explore new opportunities will ensure brands stand out and customer expectations are met. This in turn will improve brand awareness as customers share their positive experiences.

It is important to appreciate the ability and willingness for customers to use the digital world to communicate with a brand and about a brand to friends and family. Listening to customer’s direct comments as well as the general online discussions is vital to a brand. This will ensure that it maintains customer’s interest and expectations and also ensures the customer feels like an integral part of the process and hence increasing their loyalty. This in turn, will increase the brands virility which increases the chances of its success.

Essentially customers are looking for a positive experience and added value. If the brand ensures that these are retained within the digital environment, then they will succeed.

From time to time I use web sites which frustrate and anger me. I’m left wondering why they are hard to use, why so little thought has been put in and why some obvious opportunities have been missed. But what really really makes my blood boil is when I see a site that has been badly developed, especially when a developer has taken a reasonable, sometimes simple concept and made a complete mess of it.

Today I have, amongst other things, been looking over a clients site, Sorouh. The website is far from the worst i’ve seen in this region, in fact it looks positively up-to-date compared to some i have seen. The design is simple with a good amount of information and even has a site map for SEO purposes but then i started to notice strange things. The site map link was not being recognized as a link, on hovering over the “Developments” menu the link shown was different from the page you landed on. Then i looked at the source code and i nearly cried.

The developments home page is nearly 800Kb in size, the homepage html alone is over 1700 lines and 155kb in size and the javascript is 700 lines long and 214kb in size! All the page displays is a bit of flash, a few images and some 400 words! Who ever developed the site seems to have included every Ajax / Javascript library. The have surrounded simple links with entire html tables which then have onClick events on them which over-rides the link its surrounding. Every menu link is re-written in javascript and the links that appear in the html are different to the ones that appear in the javascript.

I fail to understand how someone can code such a simple site so badly. Time is not even an excuse as they have way over complicated it and at least doubled if not trippled the amount of work they needed to do. Programming should be simple, elegant and serve a purpose, not a complete waste of time and space! What makes this worse is it’s so un-necessary, adversely affects SEO and impacts the time taken to display the page and thus the user experience.

I recently came across this great way to create YouTube virals that incorporate the “Choose your own adventure” story format.

The viral is based on a series of snippets of a story around one and a half minutes long. At the end of each snippet the user is presented with several options on how the story should continue with each option then taking the user to another YouTube video. Not only is a clever use of YouTube but the directing, editing, and soundtrack are also very well put together. This highlights the way in which YouTube (and similar sites) can be used to successfully market a company and it’s products online. Brandawareness can be just as valuable as physical sales in that it can directly and in-directly lead to future sales.

The point of the video, other than being comical, seems only to bring awareness to specbox.net and a number of similar online foram sites for geeks and gamers. However i can’t belive it will be long before similar online campaigns are being launched by larger agencies. Although similar campaigns have been done in the past where there have been online treasure hunts using a variety of mediams from PPC adverts through to GoogleMaps (Eqtr used this once as a Xmas campaign) this is the first I am aware of that soley uses YouTube in this fashion. Please do let me know if you are aware of any others.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AQhSLcTlUBA&feature=related 

Over the past few years and more notably over the last 12 months Linux has started to make real in-roads into the traditional MS Windows market place with its inclusion on OEM systems from Dell, IBM and HP as well as the likes of the OLPC and cheap Netbooks. This has not just been driven by a desire to reduce costs but also by the fact that Linux has matured greatly over the years and some new flavours are really starting challenge MS Windows with regard to usability and functionality. Couple this with MS move to ‘open up’ MS Word document standards so that they can now be easily opened & edited in other programs due to their XML nature and suddenly there are very few reasons not to at least try out Linux.

Other than some very basic Unix monkeying back at university in 1997 I’ve not explored Linux at all and being a techie/geek that was just was not on. Especially seeing as you can now get VMware Virtual Server for free. Using a ‘virtual machine / server / computer’ allows me to install Linux on my laptop from within XP without it affecting XP in the slightest. The virtual machine appears as a new program within XP so I can use both simultaneously with only a minor hit on performance. As my laptop has a dual core 2.4 Ghz processor and 4Gb of RAM it can easily handle running Windows XP as a main OS and Linux running from within VMware. Hell I could also run XP in VMware as well and it wouldn’t blink however that would require a new license for XP if one was to stay legit. As the basic VMWare server and Ubuntu are completely free doing this costs’ me nothing more than disc space!

So I’ve downloaded the latest version of VMware & Ubuntu and mapped the Ubuntu installation (ISO) to a new VMware machine. Once I turned it on it happily booted into the Ubuntu installer and away it went. It was simple to install with no issues what’s so ever and now I have a Linux on my laptop without any concerns about it corrupting Windows.

But, what’s the point in all this if I’ve already got XP & Office & everything else I need happily running on my laptop other than as a proof of concept and to confuse people looking over my shoulder? In an acronym: LAMP! LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP and represents a series of packages you can install on your server to have a fully fledged web server.

Before I created this blog I had never done any ‘real’ work with PHP or MySql but when I saw that my hosting company was providing a means to roll out WordPress easily to my account I thought ‘why not give it (Wordpress & Blogging) ago’. That meant getting to grip in some ways with PHP and MySql to install the software and configure the blog to look & feel how I wanted. Admittedly installation was very easy and the only PHP I’ve so far had to do is filtering posts for specific pages but coding it is none the less.

Unfortunately the version of WordPress offered by my host is quiet old and out-of-date so having got to grips with that version of WordPress I wanted to see what else I could do as well as what the newer versions offered. The only way to do that was to install WordPress myself and I sure as hell was not going to load XP up with yet more server software etc. to try it out. This is where the beauty of a virtual machine comes in, I now have a fully fledged Linux installation (admittedly minus any pretty interfaces due to VM graphics card limitations) with LAMP and WordPress installed. I’ve also installed WinMin which is a web based GUI for administering a range of items including MySql, Apache as well as the OS and I’ve been very impressed with it. I can now play away with all the packages to my hearts content without threatening the stability of anything but a ‘virtual’ test system.

OK, I have to admit its not gone entirely smoothly. During first attempt at installing WordPress I managed to corrupt MySQL and the only way I found to resolve it was to completely whip the machine L There may have been an easier way but everything I tried seemed to make the matters worse and as I had no data on the machine it was easier to wipe it and start again. This is where Virtual Machines come into their own as not only does formatting it not affect the main XP system but all the data for it is stored as a single file in a directory on my laptop. This not only means that I can back-up the system at different stages extremely easily but I can also spawn infinite versions of the OS just by copying the file and mapping it to a new virtual machine!

My experiences so far with Ubuntu and LAMP have been varied. I’ve been incredibly impressed with how easy certain things are to do and the wealth of programs available from the initial installation as well as through the package installed. However, other ’simple’ things like refreshing network interfaces, installing packages which are not on the main list and updating some packages has been a nightmare. Needless to say a lot of it includes command line usage which I don’t mind if only I knew the commands. On the plus side the web is full of answers to the majority of the questions & issues I have had, Google is your friend J

I would highly recommend to any geek / techie / developer to have a go, you’ll be surprised how easy it is and it does not cost a penny. However I would say that Ubuntu (Linux) is not quite ready for non-IT-literate people like your granny but it’s not far off.

I’ll keep you posted on my experiences…

I wrote this a while back as a guide for clients who where thinking of redeveloping their website and thought i would put up on the blog. Content Management Systems (CMS)  have come along way since this was written so I will update it but it still has some valid and valuable points…

BENEFITS OF A CMS

Benefits of a Content Management System
A Content Management System (CMS) provides a range of benefits over traditional static HTML pages. The main benefits of a Content Management System are:

Fast & Reliable Updates

The single largest benefit of using a content management system to administer a website is the ability for authorised personnel to edit the content which appears on the web pages without having to have any prior knowledge of web development. The success of many of today’s popular and successful websites owes a lot to the frequency with which content is updated. The use of a CMS system allows company personnel to update the sites content easily and frequently ensuring users return regularly.

The majority of CMS systems work very much like the popular MS Word office application making them very intuitive to users. These systems also provide a variety of additional functionality to ensure the integrity of the site, e.g. Work flow process, version control and Staging area’s. The document below outlines the main benefits of additional functionality.

Training

One of the main benefits of a web based Content Management System is the reduced training requirements for users to be able to access the system. No prior HTML experience is required to enter data or control it’s formatting. Control of formatting can vary depending on the content ensuring pages always conform to expectations while still providing users with the flexibility they would need and expect.

Web Access

A Content Management System would provide one central web area to edit content. The main benefit to this that a user can access, modify and publish content from anywhere in the world; as long as they had access to a web browser and the site. This reduces licensing costs and restrictions on user locations as the majority of computers now have both web access and a web browser. When this is used in conjunction with workflows and security policies it leads to a highly efficient and secure system which is still flexible enough to meet the requirements of an ever growing and changing intranet.

Workflow

Workflow ensures that no content can appear on a site without having been checked and signed off by a variety of users. This guarantees that no content can appear on a site ‘accidentally’ and that the content has been checked for spelling errors, accuracy and validity at each stage before being published. This also provides an audit trail which ensures users are accountable for changes and allows administrators to track user actions and the progress of work
A typical work-flow could be:

• Edit
• Review
• Publish

Componentisation

Componentisation allows for content on a page to be broken down into independent objects and for content to be divorced from its presentation. It also allows for pages to be accessed and modified by multiple uses simultaneously as each one can work on different areas without affecting the other.

Work Distribution

As content on the intranet will be controlled by hundreds of users, a Content Management System would ensure that a variety of users could work simultaneously on different content on the same page or across multiple pages. At the same time it also prevents users from editing the same content at the same time.

Advance Editing

Content held within a Content Management System can be preset to be published at set times allowing content to be edited but not published until an approved time. This is particularly useful with industry news and events where early release of information can be detrimental to the company and its employees.

Versioning

Versioning ensures that every change to a page or component on the site is stored so that items can be easily and quickly rolled back to a previous state without having to re-edit them. It also provides administrators with information on the date and time of changes as well as the users involved.

Globalisation

An ever growing percentage of web users first’s Language is not English and represent a lucrative market if a website can accommodate their Cultural needs including Language and Interface variations. A CMS system provides an easy way to create pages which can service a number of languages and cultures without requiring new pages or sites to be created. Access to the CMS can be given to Language specialist to allow companies to outsource translation work without jeopardising the integrity of the site.

Blue Printing

Blue printing is the process by which child sites can be created using a parent site as a template. The child site is then able to inherit all the structure, content and functionality of the parent site which can be customised and built upon. This enables site administrators to quickly and easily roll out new websites or micro-sites with the minimum of effort.

Storage

A Content Management System provides a centralised storage location for all content on a site be it simple text, binary files or multimedia objects. The benefits of this are that assets can be accessed globally, tracked and backed-up. It also ensures that content is stored in a structured format which allows it to be easily located by users.

Backup

As content is stored in one central location, backing up and restoring data to all areas of a site can be easily managed from the central location by very few staff.

Publishing

Content Management Systems provide the ability to publish content to a variety of targets. Not only does this mean that content can be published to a server for testing and approval but it also means that different content can be published to a variety of websites while still being maintained in a central location and without duplication. Another ability of Content Management Systems is to enable the same content to be published to a variety of clients for example: Web, PDA’s and Cell phones, without requiring content to be inputted multiple times.

Security

Content Management Systems allow access to different areas to be restricted to the users who are in charge of a particular area of a site. For example, content editors can freely edit content but only authorised personnel would actually be able to publish content once it had passed through the work-flow system. Equally on authorised users would be able to change the presentation and layout of content. Different types of content can also be assigned to different users allowing designers to change graphics without them being able to change textual content.

Search & Locate

As a Content Management System ensures content is stored in a central structured format it provides users with the ability to easily locate resources which would otherwise be dispersed across a variety of locations and computers.

I recently read an interesting blog post by Jeff Atwood where he discusses the importance of developers being profficient and quick typists. This is something that i have long felt strongly about however I tend to take it one step further. I believe developers should not only be able to type quickly but they should also know a huge array of keyboard shortcuts. I dont just mean the simple Ctrl+C (copy) & Ctrl+V (paste) but also Alt+Tab, Ctrl+Tab, Windows+E, Windows+R, Windows+D, Ctrl+Enter (for IE & FF) etc…. I have even gone as far asking developers in interviews what keyboard shortcuts they use the most!

To some this may seem crazy but as Jeff discusses we spend the vast majority of our time in front of keyboards and should be able to produce work quickly. This doesn’t mean firing out drival like a team of monkeys, i mean the speed of input should constrict a developer as little as possible. One of the most frustrating things for me when working with /watching other developers at a computer is when they constantly use the mouse to copy and paste, change windows, search etc. It’s soooo slow. One of my favorite shortcuts is Ctrl+Enter in IE & FF which automatically enters “www.” and “.com” around a phrase in the address bar.

I have to admit that i have yet to master all of Visual Studio’s shortcuts, especially the dual key ones like Ctrl + E, C (comment out code) however i think my speed round most menu’s makes up for this and i do try to learn new ones with every bit of work i do.

One exception though is how important it is when showing someone else how to do something on a computer, be them a novice or an expert, is to slow yourself down and ensure they are following your every move. I know that some people have been mesmerised / confused at watching me use a computer as they don’t know what i did to accomplish something. I skip between windows, menus, scroll down pages etc without thinking or stopping. This can mean that the person that i am demonstrating something to or working with either can’t keep up or is utterly confused by what i have done which is often counter-productive. This is often componded by people being ashamed to admit they did not follow or understand something and going often and wasting hours of their own time and others.

Some of my most used shortcuts are (starting from most obvious):

•  Ctrl+
  • C = Copy,
  • V = Paste,
  • X = Cut
  • W = Close window
  • Enter = In Internet Explorer and Firefox this surronds the text in the navigation bar with “www.” and “.com”
• Shift +
  • Enter = In Internet Explorer and Firefox this surronds the text in the navigation bar with “www.” and “.net”
• Windows +
  • E = Explorer,
  • R = Run,
  • D = Show Desktop
  • S = Select (OneNote)
  • Tab = In applications which support tabs this goes between the tabs
  • 1 to 9 = In applications which support tabs this goes to a tab of that number
  • (nothing) = Opens start menu and then use Arrow keys to naviage
  • (nothing) and then Tab = Opens Quick start menu
• Alt +
  • Tab = Changes window,
  • R = Run,
  • D = Show Desktop
  • S = Select (OneNote)

This is far from a complete list and I’ll add to this as time goes on.

Btw: My current typing speed is around 60wpm so still some improvement to go…

As I’ve previously written i’ve been spending some time recently catching up on with the .Net community and exploring some of the new tools that are out their to assist and speed up development of ASP.Net projects. One of the tools I have come across and been playing with is a new ASP.Net web site administration starter kit created by hunzonian which uses the ASP.NET Membership Provider. The starter kit is basically a template to produce an admin front end website for the ASP.NET Membership Provider. It looks good and works well however i have found the following issues:

• Although i have yet to fully develop using MVC, it would be nice to see this implemented using the framework. The main reason for is would be the clear delimitation between functionality and presentation.
• One of my main gripes with the ASP.NET Membership Provider is the way it stores profile data as one long CSV string in a single field. This means to run any queries against it you have to extract the data from the field and manipulate it to seperate the values and then run your query against it. I much prefer having each profile setting in a seperate database field and there are providers out there that will do this.
• Currently to add new profile fields to the schema you have to edit the web.config and then add the fields manually to the forms. Not a lot of work but would be nice if the admin site had a way to do this.
• The site currently uses CAPTCHA for logging in and another number of area’s. While this is a useful tool I would life some way to easily turn it on and off.

Overall this is a very good starter kit and certainly looks better than anything i could have put together on my own. It’s also worthwhile bearing in mind that the full source code is there so you can easily amend functionality.

Enjoy and let me know what you think…

Well it seems there has been some confusion in the community about the future of LINQ to SQL and Microsoft has tried to clarify their position and reassure developers & companies alike in a recent posting. The first item to be clarified is that LINQ (Language Integrated Query) will continue but LINQ to SQL development may stall.

So what’s the difference? LINQ is a language which allows developers to easily construct statements (like SQL) to be exectuted against a data source. Its a great language which allows developers to quickly and easily construct powerful queries without tons of code. To use LINQ against a data source an interface has to be provided, e.g. to execute LINQ against a dataset, XML data or SQL. This is where the problems arise, MS have produced an interface for LINQ to connect to SQL (LINQ to SQL :-)). MS are also working on another data interface called EF in which it seems they are putting all their Eggs. As i said before i can understand their want to concentrate development but many people are asking why can the two technologies not co-exist? Especially those that have tried both and found difficulties, e.g. Chad.

So, what is the situation? Well MS is saying that LINQ is definatley not going away which is great. However they are probably going to stop developing LINQ to SQL at some point in the future however they will continue to do some development based on “Customer Feedback”, whatever that means and whoever that is. MS say they are just trying to be open about future paths they are going to take which is appreciated. However most people, including myself, who use LINQ would like to see support for LINQ to SQL continuing. So we’ll just have to watch this space to see what happens…