Smallman’s 3 laws of energy conservation

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Working hard? That’s great! Good for you. However, working smart is better. The trick is knowing when to work hard and when to work smart. Get it wrong, and you’re just wasting time, and end up doing neither.

Automated versus Manual processing

A few weeks ago, a client of mine asked me if I could automate the processing of a list of data. I asked her to send me the list. In total, there were just over 30 items. My advice was to just process the whole thing manually. She wasn’t pleased, but worked her way through the list.

I’m a PHP developer, which means I can write all kinds of things for the web — everything from a simple scripts that automate response forms for websites, right up to full-blown web applications, that process vast amounts of commercially sensitive data.

So, depending on the circumstances, I can write small scripts to batch process things like lists. My client knows that I’m a programmer, which is why she asked about some automatic way of processing her list. But the thing is, I had to invoke Smallman’s first law of energy conservation:

“1st law — If you’re dealing with a single array (or column) of data that’s less than 100 items, do it manually. Beyond that (more than 100 items, or a list of multiple arrays), automate it, so long as it’s possible to do so in a fraction of the time it would take to process the list of data in its entirety manually.”

But my laws don’t just apply to processing data, they also apply to images / photographs, for example. Adobe Photoshop has some excellent batch processing tools.

Let’s say I have 10 images that need resizing, given my experience, I could probably do them manually in the time it would take to set up a batch process in Photoshop. But let’s say I have 10 high resolution images that need re-sizing, their colour profiles changing from RGB to CMYK, and then saving as JPEGs. At that point, it’s more than likely I’d save some time automating the whole thing — especially if there’s a chance of me repeating the process at some later date.

This is where I’d have a conversation with the client, asking them if there’s a chance I’d be repeating this process at some point.

Write once, process many times

Even though you’re solving a problem (not just for yourself but you’re client), it’s not the best way of spending your time. So even though you’ve automated a process, the client is still coming back to you with Microsoft Excel files or emails full of photographs, asking you to process them all.

Here’s where I take my automated process and turn the whole thing into a small web application, where the client can do the processing themselves:

“2nd law — If there’s any chance that an automated process will be repeated, give the power to the client (write an application or script) and let them process their own data.”

Of course, this might not apply to digital imagine processing, although there are ways of doing this, but the cost become prohibitive.

By handing the power to your client, you’re adding value to your service. At the same time, your time is freed up to do more meaningful things. By all means, charge the client for the effort you made handing the power to them, but make sure you explain the cost savings they’ll be making over time.

Let’s say the client needs to change the data in a table on a web page. Initially, I’ll do this manually. As time passes, the table gets bigger, with more columns. At some point, it’s just not practical for me to do this manually any more. This is where I write a script that allows the client to upload a .csv file and upload the table themselves.

A problem shared is a problem out-sourced

Have you ever been asked to do something that’s either right at the edge of your skill set, or just plain out of reach? Of course, it’s tempting to swat up and try doing it yourself. And good on you! However, in the meantime, there’s a deadline to meet, on top of which, are you actually making any money doing this?

“3rd law — If in performing an activity that’s not a core service you’re likely to lose money and / or exceed a deadline, out-source the work, or delegate to someone with the requisite skills.”

If this is something totally new to you, and it’s got an appreciable learning curve, there’s a better than average chance you’re not making a profit. Also, there’s no guarantee the quality will be sufficiently high enough to meet the exacting standards of your client. Worse still, you might not get the work done in time.

Of course, choosing to out-source or delegating the work to a colleague is no silver bullet, so it’s all about selecting the right person to execute the work for you. In the end, it’s better to get the work done right and on time than not at all.

If you think there’s a good chance of there being more of the same work in the future, there’s a good argument for learning on your own time and getting good enough to take the work on. But that’s your choice.

Working smart and not hard

I see so many people squander huge amounts of time, it’s unreal. They might feel they’ve done a good days work, but working hard is not nearly as rewarding as working smart, so long as you do it right.

If you’ve got your own tips for working smart, feel free to share them here…

Berryman Glass Recycling — website development and blog

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After many months of planning, designing and web development, the new Berryman website is live.

Berryman Glass Recycling is Britain’s largest purchaser and recycler of waste glass. Founded almost 90 years ago, they’re now looking forward, and meeting tomorrow’s challenges, both in terms of maintaining a technological lead, as well as carving out a presence for themselves on the new social web.

Berryman are a progressive business, so the potential for expanding their activities (to include video as well as adopting more aspects of social media, for example) is encouraging.

Berryman now have a place on the web around which they can build various other activities, such as using their website as a point of entry for exhibition attendees to follow up a meeting with one of their team, or as a way of publicizing their activities and various recent business successes.

Berryman Glass Recycling

If you’d like to know more about the specifics of the project, take a look at the Berryman Glass Recycling case study, as well as visuals on the portfolio page.

The pros and cons of staying secure and blocking spam with a contact form

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So you’ve got a website! Now what? If you want to connect with your visitors, you’re going to need a contact form. But what are the security advantages and disadvantages associated with a contact form?

I’m sure you, like me, have had your fair share of spam email; people trying to sell you everything from prescription drugs to watches. Worse still, some of these offers will probably be coming through your companies contact form, which is both annoying and a time waster.

Securing response forms with a CAPTCHA

OK, I confess, this is a buzzword. After everything I said about buzzwords and jargon being a pain, I go and do this! But, there’s a a very good reason.

There is a way of preventing a good percentage of the unsolicited email you receive, and it’s a security feature you can add to your contact forms. It’s called CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Human Apart. If you go to the contact page of the Octane website, you’ll see one in action.

Manually submitting contact forms

However, CAPTCHAs aren’t a silver bullet, or some kind of cure-all. Because of the various tools I use, I can see where people come from before they send me a message via my contact form.

The vast majority of the spam I get is from India. So rather than this being some automated system trying and failing to complete my response form and navigate its way around the CAPTCHA, it’s a real person at the other end. That’s a problem you can’t solve with software alone.

However, some feel having a CAPTCHA on your response forms might be doing more harm than good. As an example, a recent body of research shows that CAPTCHAs have a measurable effect on conversion rates:

“From the data you can see that with CAPTCHA on, there was an 88% reduction in SPAM but there were 159 failed conversions. Those failed conversions could be SPAM, but they could also be people who couldn’t figure out the CAPTCHA and finally just gave up. With CAPTCHA’s on, SPAM and failed conversions accounted for 7.3% of all the conversions for the 3 month period. With CAPTCHA’s off, SPAM conversions accounted for 4.1% of all the conversions for the 3 month period. That possibly means when CAPTCHA’s are on, the company could lose out on 3.2% of all their conversions!”

Those figures do certainly offer pause for thought. But it’s also worth mentioning this is a relatively small study group, and I have a feeling that the type of visitor could play a major part in conversion and abandon rates.

Respondr response form script

Because I got sick of relying on other people, I wrote my own response form script, called Respondr, which you’ll find being used here on Octane, as well as on the Blah, Blah! Technology blog, and several clients of mine.

Rospondr is free to download, and if you’re a web developer, it should be easy enough for you to install and configure. Rospondr also includes a built-in CAPTCHA, which can also be configured.

In the time I’ve been using CAPTCHAs, I’ve seen several people get stuck with them, but very few have abandoned them. My feeling is, people know why they’re being asked to enter a security code, because they’re just as sick of unsolicited mail as I am.

But if you are concerned about people abandoning your contact form, make sure your telephone number is near by, so they can call you direct.

Masked passwords versus usability

I’ve always disliked masked passwords. What’s a masked password? It’s any text field on a contact form that turns all of the characters you’re typing into bullet points. Let’s face it, if you can’t see what you’re typing, how can you be at all sure you’ve typed the right thing?

Recently, usability expert Jakob Nielsen weighed in on the subject of masked passwords:

“The more uncertain users feel about typing passwords, the more likely they are to (a) employ overly simple passwords and/or (b) copy-paste passwords from a file on their computer. Both behaviors lead to a true loss of security.”

This is a problem for both new and seasoned web users alike. As a web developer, I don’t use masked password form fields. If a client asked for them, I explain why they’re such a bad idea, who’s positives are massively out-weighed by the negatives.

If you’re worried about people looking over your shoulder, that’s a people thing and not something software can get around. At the very least, if web developers are going to use masked passwords in their response forms, they should include a little check box which enables and disables it, to give the user the option.

Conclusion

Ultimately, if you choose to use CAPTCHAs or masked passwords on your company website, it’s about balance; are you doing the right thing by your customers / clients visiting your website?

And knowing your audience is essential, which is why I highly recommend you track the visitors to your website, to help widen that knowledge.

9 essential reasons for tracking visitors to your company website

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Having the best company website in the world counts for nothing if you can’t track who’s visiting. Be you the managing director, or part of the sales and marketing team, knowing the where, why, when and what of your website is essential.

Tracking visitors to your company website

When I build a company website, I have a list of prerequisites, one of which is installing options to track and monitor visitors to those websites. Without an understanding of your visitors, you run the risk of steering your website into rough seas, less trafficked than the calmer waters more popular websites are to be found sailing through.

Here are some of the top benefits of gathering web statistics for your business website:

  1. know how many visitors you’re getting daily, weekly and monthly;
  2. see where those visitors are coming from (such as other websites, search engines, or typing your web address directly);
  3. if you’re getting visits from the search engines, like Google, you’ll see what words they searched for;
  4. see how long each visitor spent on which web pages, and what they did next;
  5. monitor downloads of things like software, PDFs, white papers et cetera;
  6. if you have a search tool on your website, you can track what people are searching for and which web pages they’re visiting.

They are but a small selection of the things you’ll be able to do once you start tracking visitors to your company website.

Using web statistics to improve your sales & marketing

But you don’t just want to accumulate all of this data. You want to put all of this data into action. So here’s some ways you can make use of your visitor data, which include:

  1. track marketing campaigns, which include campaign codes;
  2. use your web statistics to build a demographic profile of your visitors, which will help your sales & marketing team target their campaigns with more precision;
  3. spot recurring trends, such as visits from particular web pages or articles, and use those sources to hone your marketing activities.

So the next question is, now? I use a number of tools, but the main two I use and recommend to clients are Google Analytics and Clicky Web Analytics.

Web analytics software

Google Analytics is free. All you need to sign up is a Google Account, which is also free. As well as a huge wealth of data at your disposal (far too many options here to cover in any real detail), you can also add profiles for different people, like colleagues and perhaps your own clients, as I do.

Clicky Web Analytics is a paid service, but there are some very unique features particular to Clicky what you won’t see in Google Analytics. For example, Clicky has a Spy feature, which allows you to see visits to your website live. The advantages of this might not be immediately apparent, but over time, you’ll appreciate being able to respond to currently active marketing campaigns in real time.

Clicky really comes into its own once you have a business blog. There are options to track buzz, such as who’s talking about you and your brand on Twitter, for example.

In both instances, Google Analytics and Clicky Web Analytics require you to install a small portion of code into each web page for them to do their magic.

So what have we learned? Data is good! Data can give your business a critical edge, one perhaps not shared with the competition…

Recommended reading

Emily Cagle Communications — website design and blog

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On the back of the success of my popular ebook, The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media, the Emily Cagle Communications website and blog provides a wonderful case study for using social media marketing for your business.

Emily Cagle is a marketing and communications consultant who enlisted Octane’s services shortly after reading my ebook and then putting some of the things I wrote about into practice. We’ve both worked together to produce a website and blog we can both be very proud of.

As I mention over on the Social Media Marketing Technology blog:

“It must come as little surprise to know that both Emily & I are thrilled with the end result, which you can read more about in my case study on the Emily Cagle Communications website. But this is only the beginning. We’ve both been working on planning a long-term social media strategy, making the most of the key technologies out there, like Facebook and Twitter to help promote her business.”

Emily Cagle Communications

If you’d like to know more about the specifics of the project, and Emily’s thoughts, take a look at the Emily Cagle case study, as well as visuals on the portfolio page.