Since the global economy tanked in 2008 things have been pretty gloomy for most of us. Inflation is soaring, unemployment is high, credit has all but vanished and the debt-laden government is cutting at a faster rate than happy hour in Sweeney Todd’s. Not great. However in an effort to try and look on the brighter side of life I thought I would examine how these economic conditions have actually helped progress the digital industry.

1. User Centric Design

I have worked in digital since 2001 and in that time one of the most frequently frustrating experiences has been persuading people to design for their users, not themselves.

Design solutions should be based on a thorough understanding of the core target audience and clear business objectives that you wish to convert on. However I have spent many hours in meeting rooms trying to persuade decision makers not to commit design hari-kari by letting personal preference dictate the path we took. I have tried everything from blunt refusal to regaling the fable of Homer’s Car but could never seem to surmount the issue.

However, when market conditions are tough and budgets need to work hard you cannot afford to risk losing valuable eyeballs and custom because you prefer pink to blue. Briefs have always pertained to place the user first but we have noticed clients like Channel 4, BBC, The British Library, Pearson Education and others I cannot directly mention put increasing emphasis and budget on analytical research, user focus groups and thorough usability testing during the design phase.

It is very illuminating that when budgets need to work harder you see increased investment in a particular area. You might think the trend would be to “best guess” and cut corners but when you have to get results, you can’t afford to muck around on design.

2. Wider adoption of new ideas and trends

Similarly I have also noticed corporate brands embracing and adopting fresh ideas and trends that I previously would have associated to forward thinking geeks and start-ups. Open source software is now pro-actively requested rather than suggested and a lot of the old wives tales about lack of accountability and support have been put to bed. Did anyone ever try calling Microsoft when their .Net site crashed anyway?

I no longer spend a significant portion of my week scanning signed NDAs as people have begun to appreciate that the best way to succeed online is to share and iterate your great idea rather than hide behind password protection for months whilst crafting the all-singing all-dancing solution. Instead I am pleased to see clients shipping the minimal viable product and holding budget for future iterations once real users have got their hands on it.

If the economy doesn’t sort itself out soon we might even see the Agile project process becoming a regular fixture but I think it will be a while before people can fully trust the cost effectiveness of that path.

3. Customer Service is fashionable again

About 10 years ago it was decided upon high that customer service units should be offshored to reduce costs and this would be a great deal for the consumer because of more competitive prices. I am not so sure the consumer agreed, or got a better deal, but it didn’t really matter, as they had no way of really being heard beyond mouthing off in the local pub to a few disinterested souls.

I guess the powers that be didn’t anticipate social media. When your margins are tight and undercutting on price is not viable customer service can be the differentiator. As consumers feeling the pinch we want to spend our pennies effectively and that means taking informed recommendations from others. It is near impossible for a brand to buy a good online reputation. Brands have to prove themselves if they want to build trust and loyalty. Simply put, they have to engage.

And many have! I have anecdotal evidence of BT sorting out a huge billing mess triggered by a frustrated tweet I sent out and I know of many others. It has spawned the Thank You Economy and has proved to be a champion bottom line strategy by guys like Tony Hsieh. It is a return to the principles of the local store where properly serving the community made all the difference between success and failure. Mass consumerism killed that off for a while but it is back now with a vengeance.

4. Death toll for IE6

Internet Explorer version 6 is over 10 years old and the time has come for it to take its place in the historical archives. In a tough environment you need to differentiate from the competition and maximise your budget reach. Neither of these is likely when you are catering to the low-tech needs of 2.9% of your user base (and it’s shrinking rapidly).

I was heartened to see that Google is dropping browser support on its products for anything beyond the previous two versions and the new Alpha Government Project spearheaded by Martha Lane Fox deviated from traditional Government website guidelines by ignoring IE6 and focussing on modern web standards to create delightful experiences for the vast majority. I highly recommend reading their design principles blog post.

5. Innovation in technology embraced

In much the same way we have noticed an embrace of new trends by previously conservative decision makers we have also seen dramatic shifts in how clients look at tech. Cloud platforms and virtualisation servers have been around for a while but have only been seen as acceptable solutions when the cost effectiveness of them became a determining factor on whether a project could happen or not.

Previously we were dreaming up physical dedicated server solutions housed in Central London using traditional (expensive) CDNs to distribute media. This often meant large up front costs to buy expensive licenses and kit. There used to be a sense that it was important to completely own and house your own web architecture, and there was a real distrust of using someone else’s platform, it felt that it even cheapened the offering.

Now we are not only seeing powerful and scalable cloud services becoming common for site hosting but within offices virtualised documents, file sharing, and other software as a service is being widely adopted. We are using a more diverse and tailored toolset to increase efficiency as team sizes shrink, budgets reduce and competition intensifies.

In conclusion...

I do think all of these trends were coming regardless of the economic situation we faced but the recession has certainly brought focus to what is important, killed off a few ridiculous old wives tales that were holding us back and opened our minds to new and improved ways of working.

Would you add any other items to the list? Let me know in the comments below.

I chaired a round table at the IDBG Marketing Directors Strategy Meeting last week on the subject of corporate blogging. There were two key things that we wanted to look at:

1. How should brands approach the subject of blogging? Should they even be blogging in the first place?

2. In what ways should brands be working with other bloggers who may have an influence on their customers?

I’ll talk about the first one today and follow up with the second one next week.

The panel of brands represented at the table was an interesting one: it included representatives of companies such as Bowers and Wilkins, CNN, Comet Group, Endsleigh, Hodder and Stoughton, Microsoft, More Than and T Mobile. Some of these companies are doing interesting things with their blogs.

We began by talking about our own experiences: I admitted that our Codegent blog sometimes became a bit of a sales tool and was often written by the usual suspects, even though the blog is open to everyone in the company to contribute to and is not policed. So, note to self: less bragging about how great we are and more industry observations and insightful witticisms. Maybe even have the balls to criticise people now and again.

The over-whelming feeling is that blogs have become incredibly influential over the last few years. One attendee explaining that they treat bloggers with the “same deference as they treat journalists”. With this in mind it makes absolute sense to have some degree of involvement, but without turning what you do into an overt drive to increase sales.

But hang on a minute, we’re all a cynical bunch really, aren’t we? Can blogs from corporates rather than individuals ever be anything ‘more than’ a sales tool? More Than (see what I did there in the previous sentence) believe that they can. With their Living Blog, they write, not about insurance, but about green driving. The site is a genuine attempt to raise a debate around this important area which, although loosely associated to More Than’s products, is not directly related. In other words, by writing a blog about green driving rather than a blog warning of the dangers of inadequate insurance, More Than believes it is able to maintain credibility.

Microsoft, too, allows its staff to blog about issues that their customers might be interested in. The very popular and respected blogger, Robert Scoble (pictured), “Scobleizer” is a geeky employee of Microsoft. He apparently isn’t “policed” as such, but in a strangely relevant post this month he talks about the question of whether what he and other corporate bloggers might say reflect on the companies they work for.

Hodder & Stoughton talked about their multiple blogs that are written both by authors and by staff. We discussed whether negative comments should be responded to. The feeling was that it depended on who was writing the blog: a member of staff might have thicker skin than an author who is being directly attacked.

This led onto whether a blog could be used for crisis management. We spoke about PA Consulting’s handling of the loss of data for the Home Office and their subsequent radio silence for three weeks afterwards. Everyone agreed that starting a blog just to deal with this would have been a mistake, but given the fact that PA Consulting already have embraced the internet with their Second Life  presence, arguably they should have already had a blog. According to Robert Scoble in his Corporate Weblog Manifesto, you should “Post fast on good news or bad” and “If you screw up, acknowledge it. Fast.” But in a world where you have demonstrated publicly how useless your staff are at holding onto information maybe opening up a public forum where they can talk about it isn’t the smartest idea.