Knowing the strengths of your own business can be surprisingly difficult.

Exactly what do your customers like about your product or service? Sure, they say they love it and they keep coming back for more. But why? What do they like? Is it something you’re proud of, or something you didn’t even realise?

That’s why customer feedback is so precious.

Today we received the following feedback from a new graduate, Christine Toner. Christine is a marketing coach, skilled at analysing the strengths and weaknesses of a product. So her feedback is especially valuable to us.

Christine’s summary:

“Contented gave me skills, experience and confidence in a short study period. It is a unique and immensely powerful training programme that enabled me to write a clean, clear website on my first attempt. My writing style and my thinking processes have changed for the better in everything I write now.”

The whole story:

“I learned enough in the first Contented module to give me confidence to get started organising the content of a client’s website. I allowed  about an hour to complete each module and I found myself getting really excited about doing the next one.

The material is easy to read, and I was surprised how much I knew when I took the short test at the end of each session.  

Every day I found myself critiquing other people’s web content  — even brochures and reports!

When I had completed ten modules, and applied what I had learned daily, our draft was well organised, the text was tight, the links were in. Then, with even more confidence,  I went in again with a ‘knife’.  My editing skills had improved so much that I could easily make my own work even clearer and more convincing.” Christine Toner

Thank you, Christine! We’ve learned a lot.

You’re trying to make a rational decision. But it feels like eels in your head. The decision seems like a pretty simple one, but before long it’s slipping and sliding and tangling with a bunch of other eels.

Know the feeling?

It happens all the time in web projects and writing projects. But let me give you a silly example from household repairs.

I needed a flued gas heater, but none existed that would fit in my apartment. So I got an unflued heater and (brave little woman that I am) endured the noxious fumes. Then a new flued heater was invented, so I agonised briefly about spending an additional $4000, then ordered one. The only possible location (I thought) meant that my table was too large (I thought) ‘cos people’s backs would get roasted (I thought). I searched for a shorter table and finally found one. In the nick of time I realised (doh!) that my table was not too long: my chairs were too wide. Problem solved by replacing 2 designer chairs with 2 funny little old wooden ones.

This was far too much energy spent on a very small problem. And I remembered too many similar occasions. The TV that failed… The DVD player with hiccups… The redundant sideboard I almost bought. The endless domain names I’ve got.

Felt like eels every time. Symptom: earnest anxiety over something essentially straightforward. Connections that were imaginary. Problems that weren’t problems at all.

My lesson for me: when it feels like eels, I’m trying to make an unnecessary decision. Therefore I’m about to make a bad decision. Leave it alone. Get over it. Think about something else, like Apollo 13 or lunch.

Have you been there, down among the eels? It’s a yukky feeling.

Don’t shave that yak: the inimitable Seth Godin has another way of describing a similar experience.

Google’s advertisements in newspapers around the world, including Niue and the Cook Islands, amuses the New York Times writer Noam Cohen and many others.

But the reason for the retro ads is a bit scary.

Google, the online giant, had been sued in federal court by a large group of authors and publishers who claimed that its plan to scan all the books in the world violated their copyrights.

As part of the class-action settlement, Google will pay $125 million to create a system under which customers will be charged for reading a copyrighted book, with the copyright holder and Google both taking percentages; copyright holders will also receive a flat fee for the initial scanning, and can opt out of the whole system if they wish.

Take it or leave it, o ye copyright holders: if you don’t like it, opt out… provided you noticed that advertisement in the first place. I’m personally all for Google’s grand plan for my own works, in principle, but this strategy is rather like being judged guilty unless found innocent. I want control over my own works and who publishes them.

And if it comes to a battle between a Niuean poet and Google, I wonder who would win? Hm, that’s a tough one. But give me a couple of days and I’ll figure it out.

A List Apart has been talking about content strategy. This means actually thinking about what content you need and why, and figuring who will look after it after the initial launch… and so forth. Speaking as a web developer, Kristina Halvorson says this… and more…

As a community, we’re rather quiet on the matter of content. In fact, we appear to have collectively, silently come to the conclusion that content is really somebody else’s problem—“the client can do it,” “the users will generate it”—so we, the people who make websites, shouldn’t have to worry about it in the first place.

Do you think it’s a coincidence, then, that web content is, for the most part, crap?

Jeffrey MacIntyre writes just as strongly in his article Content-ious Strategy.

Nice illustration, ay? In presentations I often refer to content as the elephant in the drawing room. Not frightfully original: it’s the obvious metaphor for this peculiar and troublesome situation. Happily, Halvorson offers solutions as well as waving a red flag.

Barack Obama’s victory speech is a classic example of oratory. Classic? Sure.

Aristotle analysed rhetoric systematically, as a science, and explained it in Rhetoric, written between 367 and 322 BC. Scholars have added a great deal since then, and yet frankly the principles don’t change. A great speech is a great speech is a great speech.

Build up, catch phrases, repetition, personal anecdotes, climax, call to action… the same devices have always been used. Why not? They still work as they always have done. The speech is heard, not read, so the audience needs two or more chances to grasp each point. The argument must build and build, repeating key phrases so that the audience is carried forward on a wave.

A well crafted, passionate speech is a powerful emotional experience. But the full impact can only happen when the audience is willing and primed and hungry to believe. Which was indeed the case in Chicago when President Elect Barak Obama began,

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

And when he ended,

God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

You see, despite the dark confusing years, the United States of America still knows who it is. It is the land of the free, the land of opportunity, it is great, it is the land where anyone can become President. This identity has a dark side as well as a glory, and it has endured.

New Zealand politicians can never reach the heights of rhetoric because our perceived identity keeps shifting. Personally I got sick to the cheekbones long ago with earnest discussion about national identity in literature and art. It’s dormant at present, thank goodness. But I dare say it wouldn’t carry on decade after decade unless we were a bit confused.

Before Europeans hit these islands, Maori did not perceive themselves as a single nation, but had an unshakeable identity based on iwi, hapu and land. Since then, New Zealand has perceived itself as the farthest outpost of the British Empire; the youngest Dominion; the ends of the earth; first in the world with social reforms such as votes for women and old age pensions; God’s own country; a model of racial equality; a great place to bring up children; a partnership between tangata whenua and other residents; and a nation of innovators and inventors.

What a mess! I suppose in my own mind, New Zealand is a funny little country that I love, a small country with ideas above its station. This does not make for inspiring oratory.

Our politicians cannot appeal to our belief in God, either. The leaders of Labour and National openly admit they do not believe in God, and only a minority of Kiwis are active Christians.

Even the refrain Yes we can is anathema to New Zealand politicians since Winston Peters used it in the last campaign, quoting Bob the Builder. It is sullied. Yuk.

One phrase that might inspire New Zealanders is I think I can, I think I can. If we must quote picture books for children, The Little Engine That Could is more our style. We’re doing our best regardless of size. And sometimes it’s necessary and motivating to believe you have some control over such things as a global financial meltdown.

The Little Engine That Could

Gretchen Enger wrote to me:

I stumbled across your site today. Great articles, BTW. I have a few content questions that I hope you can answer:

Are there best practices for when to expire content?
When content should be removed from a site?
How do you know the value of outdated site content?

Gretchen Enger

Hi Gretchen

Very interesting questions: no easy answer. (You guessed.)

• It depends on the topic – WordPress? Abraham Lincoln? writing sonnets? language usage? camera reviews?
• It depends on the type of web site – .com? education? intranet? government? encyclopaedia?
• It depends on the type of article – news? promotion? general knowledge? inhouse memo? blog post?
• It depends on the purpose – marketing? archiving? adding to your mailing list?

For example, I’m not sure whether you found me through my old QWC.co.nz or the 1-year-old Contented.com. QWC continues to attract readers, so it has value, despite the fact that Google prefers fresh meat. I don’t know the dollar value, but purchasers often find the new site through the old, content-rich QWC site. As long as articles aren’t out of date, I leave them online. (I usually sieve them every six months or so.) The value in credibility is more than the cost of maintaining the site.

That’s why I love blogs, where everyone *knows* each posting is thought-of-the-day and will go out of date. Plus it’s a searchable database, so everything is already archived and dated. That’s why I don’t add to the QWC.co.nz articles, just delete from time to time.

If articles go out of date, you can link to newer ideas.

So looking at each site case-by-case, you need a policy. A few wild, impulsive starting points:

• News: off the news page in 2 days, then archive
• Tips: leave as long as they are valid: check monthly
• General knowledge and feature articles: leave as long as they are valid: check 6- monthly
• Product-associated articles: check frequently, change or shift with change of product
• Blog: leave forever, yay!
• Columns: treat like a blog

Presentation Zen came to Wellington last Tuesday.
Garr Reynolds epitomises the dream presenter, in theory, example and practice.
This was a mini-webstock event. Lucky us!

Garr’s greatest gift may be stating and showing the blindingly obvious in a manner so clear, so cool that we could not fail to read, hear, learn and inwardly digest it.

People simply cannot listen to a speaking voice and read at the same time.

Well, we can try, but fat chance of the audience absorbing either message. It follows as the night the day that the accepted style of slide presentation is utterly ludicrous. Why do we display words to an audience and simultaneously talk to them? This is as silly as trying to feed a baby and cut its hair at the same time.

If we say the same thing as the written words, that’s pointless redundancy. If we say something different, the audience will struggle to absorb either message.

Powerpoint’s original developers intended it to display images only. Good idea.

This penny-dropping fact has interesting implications for training courses developed in Flash with audio. We are pondering them this week.

Garr stressed that there is no one perfect presentation style, but that the idiosyncratic is precious. He showed video snips of wildly diverse presenters. A shy technical man who displays huge isolated kanji in sync with his speech. A stomping ranting demanding bully. And so forth. I felt relieved to get “permission” not to become bland. So in an exercise, our hugely brainy group of nine world leaders demonstrated a Punk style of presentation complete with immortal lyrics:

1, 2, 3, 4
Listen listen
Definition
Listen listen
Repetition, Repetition, Repetition… (or something).

Image from PresentationZen.com: a great blog by Garr Reynolds.