I attended an E-business Evening (that’s what they called it) a while back at the University of Stellenbosch’s Business School, with the main topic being “Does e-business really make a difference?”. Kind of a stupid question if you ask me, but interesting to see a less-savvy-than-those-of-us-who-live-on-the-web perspective in any case… Actually it’s not that stupid, and I always try to retain a broad outsider’s perspective – we sometimes forget that a large part of the world economy doesn’t understand, know much, or even care about “e”. One part of the presentation did catch my attention though: A demo of a GI (Geographical Information) System.

The guys from Global Image took us through the basics of GIS, and proceeded to demo something that seriously impressed me... They had developed a mapping system for a major South African e-commerce business (they couldn’t say who it was, but from the scale I guessed it to be Kalahari.net). The database in the back-end had full records of all transactions and deliveries within major metro poles, with the example of Cape Town (where I live) being used to show what can be done. They pulled up a map of the city, and proceeded to drill down into different areas of data. I never cease to be amazed by what visual representation can do for information. “Let’s look at shoppers who had bought books within the last week, within a specific category, indicated by density within a sub sector”. Using a specific example, it became obvious to the casual observer where lush areas of the city were (by the amount of gardening books sold). High income areas were pretty accurately mapped (according to my knowledge of the city), and gaps in sales made sense by looking at where the price of goods dropped the revenues in certain areas. Pretty straightforward stuff really, but presented in that interface, it just seemed to make “aha!” light bulbs go up.

While browsing designers on webdeveloper.co.za, I remembered the GIS thing, and started thinking about it when I noticed how much the “designers” from certain areas of our country sucked. I didn’t do a carefully-designed and well-thought-out study, but I deem it safe to say that our friends up North in Gauteng (and this is generalizing only, as there are obviously many exceptions) can’t design to save their lives. I wasn’t ever predisposed to having this opinion (mainly because I grew up in Pretoria), but the casual browse confirmed the suspicions I’ve been having of late. Generally speaking, the design studios/individuals listed under Cape Town just had something more in terms of finesse. Small things, like shading and dropshadows, and not-so-small things, like using JPG’s for text (a universal stupid error by the way).

Anyway, I’m not here to slate people, because it just made me think of geographical clustering in general. Haven’t you ever noticed how people/industries of certain skillsets and/or orientation/interest group together? Silicon Valley is a good example. Cape Town is supposed to be the gay capital of the world (personally, I just think it’s the most beautiful city in the world). New York is home to stock-trading and general banking-related stuff. So is London. Milan is the fashion capital. Hong Kong is home to electronics, Chicago to media, and good old San Francisco (which I hope to visit one day) just seems to be the newest-media (and with that I mean blogging and web-tech) centre of the universe. All the cool people are there. It just seems strange doesn’t it, especially for an industry which claims to have no geographical boundaries.

Anyway, I just thought it an interesting observation. Long live personal, made-possible-by-geographical-proximity contact. By the way, please excuse my over-eager use of the –.

I am sometimes amazed by the relative values people attach to things. Case in point: corporate websites.

I recently had spent a serious few hours thinking about value in the form of perception. It’s one of those intangible “things” people have always (and will always) struggle to label with a concrete value. In the corporate world (where businesses are owned by those who don’t have a clue what these businesses are really about), ROI is king. It’s all about investment, and how much you can get back. People often couldn’t care less whether the business they’re investing in actually has a future, or more importantly, whether it actually adds value. Sure, the market (and its invisible hand) is supposed to correct things over time, but it’s still only about the money.

The question becomes: how do you quantify perception of the business, and more importantly, positive perception. People try, and that’s when “goodwill” starts popping up in balance sheets and annual reports. It’s however largely guessed, and often by people much less intelligent (but more qualified financially) than you or I – and with that I’m not negatively accusing anyone (or presuming your intelligence as a reader…).

Still, without even getting to the measurement part, another question could be: how do you create this goodwill?

Does it make any difference whether a prospective client/investor/other stakeholder’s first impression of the business is positive? If the business comes across as professional during the initial contact, does it create value? Even better still, hah, does it create shareholder value?

You might have deduced that I’m referring to websites as first points of contact. In many cases, they are. Many people do their first phase of information-gathering on the web, and this percentage will probably only increase in future. Which makes the web an increasingly important medium with which to create positive first impressions. Maybe it’s just me (the obsessive perfectionist that I am), who gives a damn about clean and functional presentation. Maybe only I care that colours are pleasing to the eye, that concepts are brought across effectively through paragraph structuring, and that grammar style and tone communicates the business/individual’s message to me in the best possible way. Hey, I could be delusional…

Sometimes I think I am. Like when I get people complaining that my services are expensive. Realistically, and comparatively, they’re not at all. But that’s the perception, because people often don’t understand the difference that attention to detail makes. It takes time, but it shows. I’m willing to go out on a limb and guess that the most important web visitors (and the most intelligent) notice attention to detail, and that it impresses them. Chances are they accordingly associate this with the business, and that’s where the value is created (however vague and possibly weak this value chain link might be). If they decide to do business because of the positive impression, the value’s clearly there. But not measurably…

People like measurability and tangibility – take the vehicle market as an example. The amounts people (and South Africans specifically) spend on new personal automobiles never ceases to amuse me. It’s often pointed out, but is inevitably accepted as normal again after a while. A new Mercedes Benz C-Class or Audi A4 does not, in my humble opinion, warrant a R350 000 price tag. No matter how safe/luxurious/fast it is. Sure, looked at in digestible monthly payments, it doesn’t seem that expensive, and that’s exactly the point – people don’t perceive them as high-end vehicles. They’re just cars that young executives should/can drive, right?

How much wealth can a new mid-range luxury German automobile generate for you? None. It is wealth? Nope, sorry, it’s actually just an expense, and will inevitably be worth nothing eventually. How much does it cost? OK, how much does that precision website cost again? Only R16 000?

My point? It’s a tough battle to fight, convincing the world that real value can exist in intangible forms. I for one believe it can, and will continue to believe so.

3 Islands, 3 tribes, 18 individuals, the best of the best, only 1 survivor (accompanied by an orchestral soundtrack of grand proportions). That’s the advert I saw last night, and it actually interested me.

As much as we love to hate reality-TV, and especially Survivor, it still sticks in our minds. It’s watched by millions, many of those being the type who wouldn’t want to admit it.

Why? Because it shows real people dealing with each other without the distraction of planning. It’s how we live every day, even if we’re not island-bound castaways with too much exposure to mosquitos and not enough rice to go around. It gives people something to reflect on, something to make them think about how they handle the relationships in their own lives. It deals with emotion, with people getting pissed off at each other, with them making friends, forming alliances (even if they only last for the duration of the show). All of these elements combine to make the spectacle undeniably like we believe it should be – because we can identify with it, even if only with little bits of it.

Reality TV is one of those things which gives us insight into the human mind. It’s not cleansed, adjusted to fit corporate image, or to portray a neutral, professional image. It’s a version of something that’s GOT SOUL.

Wait!, I hear you say. It’s all a load of commercialised rubbish, adjusted according to the directors’ aims and how they want to position the show “strategically”. Correct. But for a specific reason : The producers of these shows are driven economically, and because of this motivation, have to create something that as many people as possible can identify with. Sure, it’s aggregated and manipulated. But that’s not the point… Even in this form, bits of the phenomenon still strike a chord with almost everyone – an extremely difficult thing to do. In most cases, reaching a global audience successfully requires painfully precise scripting and research into every slight nuance, every smile and pronuanciation. Not so with Survivor.

My point? People are driven by human interaction, more than anything else. As much as many of us like to push clean corporate branding, we just can’t ignore the emotional element. It’s what we all want – SOUL.

You know how you sometimes only learn things when they’re forced on you, even if you’re someone who’s proud of always investigating and exploring ? Understanding often works the same way – you think you understand something until something else makes you realise you don’t.

Today, my car broke down. No big deal, from an outside perspective. The problem is, to me it was a big deal. Me, without a car… No ! What will I do ! How will I get things done ? How will I be the independent self I like being ? How will I drive to Pick ‘n Pay to buy groceries (no, I’m not a big shopper, but I do need my basic food supplies every now and then)?

So I walked to Pick ‘n Pay, because I live in a prime location within about 1 km of just about every kind of shop anyone could ever need. As I strolled down to the superstore (it really has just about everything), I passed through Claremont “town centre”, and walked about 200 metres down Main Road. On my way, I passed the Friday afternoon crowd of commuters (mostly shopworkers I suppose), climbing in and out of minibus-taxis, on their way home. There were MANY of them. And then it hit me…

Most of these people have never even driven a car, nevertheless owned one. Sadly, most of them never will. They’re just not part of an economic class which has such luxuries as an option. To them, food and shelter for them and their families is much more important than superior German (or Italian) engineering. And, you know what, it doesn’t matter to them as humans.

I felt ashamed. I have a little bit of inconvenience with my almost-perfectly-cared-for classic Mercedes, and the world ends. Why ? Because I got used to it. I have a state-of-the-art (at least it was in 1997 mountain bike which is more transport than many people will ever have. I live within 150 metres of an award-winning shopping mall. We have offices in a very cushy office block, with state-of-the-art (even for 2004) IT infrastructure at our disposal. I don’t have a car for the weekend, but I have CAPACITY, something I should be very thankful for.

So, whenever I design a corporate identity, or help someone make sense of navigation and megabytes of content, I’ll try to keep the above in mind. I’ll try my best to add enough value for someone to get (or keep) a job, so that they can reach towards the kind of life I often take for granted. It’s my responsibility, because I can.

For quite a while now, I’ve wanted a site which was “real”.  It had to have soul, something you can’t buy, no matter how many stylesheets are used, how much fancy XSL is applied, or how expensive the graphics are. Nope, soul is something which only comes along when you delve into a person’s thoughts, revealing complex things like unique emotions and personal tidbits. It’s almost like character, if you will, but not quite. You have to be able to touch and feel it. Be changed (even if only a little bit) by it.I hope this site fulfills its purpose. Even though content is still very sparse, I PROMISE to keep on revealing little bits of my philosophy, and to least learn something through the process myself. Put differently, I am now finally happy with the structure, and so the enlightenment can begin...

On a technical note, I put in a few days of research to build this version to be (almost) fully cross-browser compatible, for the benefit of the semantic web and our friends at Frogfoot. If things go wonky, please excuse my still-less-than-guru-level CSS experience.

I’ve been doing some thinking on standards (and not just web standards) so I’ll be commenting soon, from a (hopefully) neutral perspective. Wait, according to what I’ve said before, there is no such thing as complete neutrality – context rules all. But let’s keep that for next time…