{"rowid": 51, "title": "Blow Your Own Trumpet", "contents": "Even if your own trumpet\u2019s tiny and fell out of a Christmas cracker, blowing it isn\u2019t something that everyone\u2019s good at. Some people find selling themselves and what they do difficult. But, you know what? Boo hoo hoo. If you want people to buy something, the reality is you\u2019d better get good at selling, especially if that something is you.\nFor web professionals, the best place to tell potential business customers or possible employers about what you do is on your own website. You can write what you want and how you want, but that doesn\u2019t make knowing what to write any easier. As a matter of fact, writing for yourself often proves harder than writing for someone else.\nI spent this autumn thinking about what I wanted to say about  Stuff & Nonsense on the website we relaunched recently. While I did that, I spoke to other designers about how they struggled to write about their businesses.\nIf you struggle to write well, don\u2019t worry. You\u2019re not on your own. Here are five ways to hit the right notes when writing about yourself and your work.\nBe genuine about who you are\nI\u2019ve known plenty of talented people who run a successful business pretty much single-handed. Somehow they still feel awkward presenting themselves as individuals. They wonder whether describing themselves as a company will give them extra credibility. They especially agonise over using \u201cwe\u201d rather than \u201cI\u201d when describing what they do. These choices get harder when you\u2019re a one-man band trading as a limited company or LLC business entity.\nIf you mainly work alone, don\u2019t describe yourself as anything other than \u201cI\u201d. You might think that saying \u201cwe\u201d makes you appear larger and will give you a better chance of landing bigger and better work, but the moment a prospective client asks, \u201cHow many people are you?\u201d you\u2019ll have some uncomfortable explaining to do. This will distract them from talking about your work and derail your sales process. There\u2019s no need to be anything other than genuine about how you describe yourself. You should be proud to say \u201cI\u201d because working alone isn\u2019t something that many people have the ability, business acumen or talent to do.\nExplain what you actually do\nHow many people do precisely the same job as you? Hundreds? Thousands? The same goes for companies. If yours is a design studio, development team or UX consultancy, there are countless others saying exactly what you\u2019re saying about what you do. Simply stating that you code, design or \u2013 God help me \u2013 \u201chandcraft digital experiences\u201d isn\u2019t enough to make your business sound different from everyone else. Anyone can and usually does say that, but people buy more than deliverables. They buy something that\u2019s unique about you and your business.\nPotentially thousands of companies deliver code and designs the same way as Stuff & Nonsense, but our clients don\u2019t just buy page designs, prototypes and websites from us. They buy our taste for typography, colour and layout, summed up by our \u201cIt\u2019s the taste\u201d tagline and bowler hat tip to the PG Tips chimps. We hope that potential clients will understand what\u2019s unique about us. Think beyond your deliverables to what people actually buy, and sell the uniqueness of that.\nDescribe work in progress\nIt\u2019s sad that current design trends have made it almost impossible to tell one website from another. So many designers now demonstrate finished responsive website designs by pasting them onto iMac, MacBook, iPad and iPhone screens that their portfolios don\u2019t fare much better. Every designer brings their own experience, perspective and process to a project. In my experience, it\u2019s understanding those differences which forms a big part of how a prospective client makes a decision about who to work with. Don\u2019t simply show a prospective client the end result of a previous project; explain your process, the development of your thinking and even the wrong turns you took.\nTraditional case studies, like the one I\u2019ve just written about Stuff & Nonsense\u2019s work for WWF UK, can take a lot of time. That\u2019s probably why many portfolios get out of date very quickly. Designers make new work all the time, so there must be a better way to show more of it more often, to give prospective clients a clearer understanding of what we do. At Stuff & Nonsense our solution was to create a feed where we could post fragments of design work throughout a project. This also meant rewriting our Contract Killer to give us permission to publish work before someone signs it off.\nOutline a client\u2019s experience\nRecently a client took me to one side and offered some valuable advice. She told me that our website hadn\u2019t described anything about the experience she\u2019d had while working with us. She said that knowing more about how we work would\u2019ve helped her make her buying decision.\nWhen a client chooses your business, they\u2019re hoping for more than a successful outcome. They want their project to run smoothly. They want to feel that they made a correct decision when they chose you. If they work for an organisation, they\u2019ll want their good judgement to be recognised too. Our client didn\u2019t recognise her experience because we hadn\u2019t made our own website part of it. Remember, the challenge of creating a memorable user experience starts with selling to the people paying you for it.\nAddress your ideal client\nIt\u2019s important to understand that a portfolio\u2019s job isn\u2019t to document your work, it\u2019s to attract new work from clients you want. Make sure that work you show reflects the work you want, because what you include in your portfolio often leads to more of the same.\nWhen you\u2019re writing for your portfolio and elsewhere on your website, imagine that you\u2019re addressing your ideal client. Picture them sitting opposite and answer the questions they\u2019d ask as you would in conversation. Be direct, funny if that\u2019s appropriate and serious when it\u2019s not. If it helps, ask a friend to read the questions aloud and record what you say in response. This will help make what you write sound natural. I\u2019ve found this technique helps clients write copy too.\nToot your own horn\nSome people confuse expressing confidence in yourself and your work as boastfulness, but in a competitive world the reality is that if you are to succeed, you need to show confidence so that others can show their confidence in you. If you want people to hear you, pick up your trumpet and blow it.", "year": "2015", "author": "Andy Clarke", "author_slug": "andyclarke", "published": "2015-12-23T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2015/blow-your-own-trumpet/", "topic": "business"}
{"rowid": 56, "title": "Helping VIPs Care About Performance", "contents": "Making a site feel super fast is the easy part of performance work. Getting people around you to care about site speed is a much bigger challenge. How do we keep the site fast beyond the initial performance work? Keeping very important people like your upper management or clients invested in performance work is critical to keeping a site fast and empowering other designers and developers to contribute.\nThe work to get others to care is so meaty that I dedicated a whole chapter to the topic in my book Designing for Performance. When I speak at conferences, the majority of questions during Q&A are on this topic. When I speak to developers and designers who care about performance, getting other people at one\u2019s organization or agency to care becomes the most pressing question.\nMy primary response to folks who raise this issue is the question: \u201cWhat metric(s) do your VIPs care about?\u201d This is often met with blank stares and raised eyebrows. But it\u2019s also our biggest clue to what we need to do to help empower others to care about performance and work on it. Every organization and executive is different. This means that three major things vary: the primary metrics VIPs care about; the language they use about measuring success; and how change is enacted. By clueing in to these nuances within your organization, you can get a huge leg up on crafting a successful pitch about performance work.\nLet\u2019s start with the metric that we should measure. Sure, (most) everybody cares about money - but is that really the metric that your VIPs are looking at each day to measure the success or efficacy of your site? More likely, dollars are the end game, but the metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) people focus on might be:\n\nrate of new accounts created/signups\ncost of acquiring or retaining a customer\nvisitor return rate\nvisitor bounce rate\nfavoriting or another interaction rate\n\nThese are just a few examples, but they illustrate how wide-ranging the options are that people care about. I find that developers and designers haven\u2019t necessarily investigated this when trying to get others to care about performance. We often reach for the obvious \u2013 money! \u2013 but if we don\u2019t use the same kind of language our VIPs are using, we might not get too far. You need to know this before you can make the case for performance work.\nTo find out these metrics or KPIs, start reading through the emails your VIPs are sending within your company. What does it say on company wikis? Are there major dashboards internally that people are looking at where you could find some good metrics? Listen intently in team meetings or thoroughly read annual reports to see what these metrics could be.\nThe second key here is to pick up on language you can effectively copy and paste as you make the case for performance work. You need to be able to reflect back the metrics that people already find important in a way they\u2019ll be able to hear. Once you know your key metrics, it\u2019s time to figure out how to communicate with your VIPs about performance using language that will resonate with them.\nLet\u2019s start with visit traffic as an example metric that a very important person cares about. Start to dig up research that other people and companies have done that correlates performance and your KPI. For example, cite studies:\n\n\u201cWhen the home page of Google Maps was reduced from 100KB to 70\u201380KB, traffic went up 10% in the first week, and an additional 25% in the following three weeks.\u201d (source).\n\nRead through websites like WPOStats, which collects the spectrum of studies on the impact of performance optimization on user experience and business metrics. Tweet and see if others have done similar research that correlates performance and your site\u2019s main KPI.\nOnce you have collected some research that touches on the same kind of language your VIPs use about the success of your site, it\u2019s time to present it. You can start with something simple, like a qualitative description of the work you\u2019re actively doing to improve the site that translates to improved metrics that your VIPs care about. It can be helpful to append a performance budget to any proposal so you can compare the budget to your site\u2019s reality and how it might positively impact those KPIs folks care about.\nWords and graphs are often only half the battle when it comes to getting others to care about performance. Often, videos appeal to folks\u2019 emotions in a way that is missed when glancing through charts and graphs. On A List Apart I recently detailed how to create videos of how fast your site loads. Let\u2019s say that your VIPs care about how your site loads on mobile devices; it\u2019s time to show them how your site loads on mobile networks.\nOpen video\n\nYou can use these videos to make a number of different statements to your VIPs, depending on what they care about:\n\nLook at how slow our site loads versus our competitor!\nLook at how slow our site loads for users in another country!\nLook at how slow our site loads on mobile networks!\n\nAgain, you really need to know which metrics your VIPs care about and tune into the language they\u2019re using. If they don\u2019t care about the overall user experience of your site on mobile devices, then showing them how slow your site loads on 3G isn\u2019t going to work. This will be your sales pitch; you need to practice and iterate on the language and highlights that will land best with your audience. \nTo make your sales pitch as solid as possible, gut-check your ideas on how to present it with other co-workers to get their feedback. Read up on how to construct effective arguments and deliver them; do some research and see what others have done at your company when pitching to VIPs. Are slides effective? Memos or emails? Hallway conversations? Sometimes the best way to change people\u2019s minds is by mentioning it in informal chats over coffee. Emulate the other leaders in your organization who are successful at this work. \nEvery organization and very important person is different. Learn what metrics folks truly care about, study the language that they use, and apply what you\u2019ve learned in a way that\u2019ll land with those individuals. It may take time to craft your pitch for performance work over time, but it\u2019s important work to do. If you\u2019re able to figure out how to mirror back the language and metrics VIPs care about, and connect the dots to performance for them, you will have a huge leg up on keeping your site fast in the long run.", "year": "2015", "author": "Lara Hogan", "author_slug": "larahogan", "published": "2015-12-08T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2015/helping-vips-care-about-performance/", "topic": "business"}
{"rowid": 60, "title": "What\u2019s Ahead for Your Data in 2016?", "contents": "Who owns your data? Who decides what can you do with it? Where can you store it? What guarantee do you have over your data\u2019s privacy? Where can you publish your work? Can you adapt software to accommodate your disability? Is your tiny agency subject to corporate regulation? Does another country have rights over your intellectual property?\nIf you aren\u2019t the kind of person who is interested in international politics, I hate to break it to you: in 2016 the legal foundations which underpin our work on the web are being revisited in not one but three major international political agreements, and every single one of those questions is up for grabs. These agreements \u2013 the draft EU Data Protection Regulation (EUDPR), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the draft Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) \u2013 stand poised to have a major impact on your data, your workflows, and your digital rights. While some proposed changes could protect the open web for the future, other provisions would set the internet back several decades.\nIn this article we will review the issues you need to be aware of as a digital professional. While each of these agreements covers dozens of topics ranging from climate change to food safety, we will focus solely on the aspects which pertain to the work we do on the web.\nThe Trans-Pacific Partnership\nThe Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a free trade agreement between the US, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru \u2013 a bloc comprising 40% of the world\u2019s economy. The agreement is expected to be signed by all parties, and thereby to come into effect, in 2016. This agreement is ostensibly about the bloc and its members working together for their common interests. However, the latest draft text of the TPP, which was formulated entirely in secret, has only been made publicly available on a Medium blog published by the U.S. Trade Representative which features a patriotic banner at the top proclaiming \u201cTPP: Made in America.\u201d The message sent about who holds the balance of power in this agreement, and whose interests it will benefit, is clear.\nBy far the most controversial area of the TPP has centred around the provisions on intellectual property. These include copyright terms of up to 120 years, mandatory takedowns of allegedly infringing content in response to just one complaint regardless of that complaint\u2019s validity, heavy and disproportionate penalties for alleged violations, and \u2013 most frightening of all \u2013 government seizures of equipment allegedly used for copyright violations. All of these provisions have been raised without regard for the fact that a trade agreement is not the appropriate venue to negotiate intellectual property law.\nOther draft TPP provisions would restrict the digital rights of people with disabilities by banning the workarounds they use every day. These include no exemptions for the adaptations of copywritten works for use in accessible technology (such as text-to-speech in ebook readers), a ban on circumventing DRM or digital locks in order to convert a file to an accessible format, and requiring the takedown of adapted works, such as a video with added subtitles, even if that adaptation would normally have fallen under the definition of fair use.\nThe e-commerce provisions would prohibit data localisation, the practice of requiring data to be physically stored on servers within a country\u2019s borders. Data localisation is growing in popularity following the Snowden revelations, and some of your own personal data may have been recently \u201clocalised\u201d in response to the Safe Harbor verdict. Prohibiting data localisation through the TPP would address the symptom but not the cause.\nThe Electronic Frontier Foundation has published an excellent summary of the digital rights issues raised by the agreement along with suggested actions American readers can take to speak out.\nTransatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership\nTTIP stands for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a draft free trade agreement between the United States and the EU. The plan has been hugely controversial and divisive, and the internet and digital provisions of the draft form just a small part of that contention.\nThe most striking digital provision of TTIP is an attempt to circumvent and override European data protection law. As EDRI, a European digital rights organisation, noted:\n\n\u201cthe US proposal would authorise the transfer of EU citizens\u2019 personal data to any country, trumping the EU data protection framework, which ensures that this data can only be transferred in clearly defined circumstances. For years, the US has been trying to bypass the default requirement for storage of personal data in the EU. It is therefore not surprising to see such a proposal being {introduced} in the context of the trade negotiations.\u201d\n\nThis draft provision was written before the Safe Harbor data protection agreement between the EU and US was invalidated by the Court of Justice of the European Union. In other words, there is no longer any protective agreement in place, and our data is as vulnerable as this political situation. However, data protection is a matter of its own law, the acting Data Protection Directive and the draft EU Data Protection Reform. A trade agreement, be it the TTIP or the TPP, is not the appropriate place to revamp a law on data protection.\nOther digital law issues raised by TTIP include the possibility of renegotiating standards on encryption (which in practice means lowering them) and renegotiating intellectual property rights such as copyright. The spectre of net neutrality has even put in an appearance, with an attempt to introduce rules on access to the internet itself being introduced as provisions.\nTTIP is still under discussion, and this month the EU trade representative said that \u201cwe agreed to further intensify our work during 2016 to help negotiations move forward rapidly.\u201d This has been cleverly worded: this means the agreement has little chance of being passed or coming into effect in 2016, which buys civil society more precious time to speak out.\nThe EU Data Protection Regulation\nOn 15 December 2015 the European Commission announced their agreement on the text of the draft General Data Protection Regulation. This law will replace its predecessor, the EU Data Protection Regulation of 1995, which has done a remarkable job of protecting data privacy across the continent throughout two decades of constant internet evolution.\nThe goal of the reform process has been to return power over data, and its uses, to citizens. Users will have more control over what data is captured about them, how it is used, how it is retained, and how it can be deleted. Businesses and digital professionals, in turn, will have to restructure their relationships with client and customer data. Compliance obligations will increase, and difficult choices will have to be made. However, this time should be seen as an opportunity to rethink our relationship with data. After Snowden, Schrems, and Safe Harbor, it is clear that we cannot go back to the way things were before. In an era of where every one of our heartbeats is recorded on a wearable device and uploaded to a surveilled data centre in another country, the need for reform has never been more acute.\nWhile texts of the draft GDPR are available, there is not enough mulled wine in the world that will help you get through them. Instead, the law firm Fieldfisher Waterhouse has produced this helpful infographic which will give you a good idea of the changes we can expect to see (view full size):\n\nThe most surprising outcome announced on 15 December was the new regulation\u2019s teeth. Under the new law, companies that fail to heed the updated data protection rules will face fines of up to 4% of their global turnover. Additionally, the law expands the liability for data protection to both the controller (the company hosting the data) and the data processor (the company using the data). The new law will also introduce a one-stop shop for resolving concerns over data misuse. Companies will no longer be able to headquarter their European operations in countries which are perceived to have relatively light-touch data protection enforcement (that means you, Ireland) as a means of automatically rejecting any complaints filed by citizens outside that country.\nFor digital professionals, the most immediate concern is analytics. In fact, I am going to make a prediction: in 2016 we will begin to see the same misguided war on analytics that we saw on cookies. By increasing the legal liabilities for both data processors and controllers \u2013 in other words, the company providing the analytics as well as the site administrator studying them \u2013 the new regulation risks creating disproportionate burdens as well as the same \u201cguilt by association\u201d risks we saw in 2012. There have already been statements made by some within the privacy community that analytics are tracking, and tracking is surveillance, therefore analytics are evil. Yet \u201cjust don\u2019t use analytics,\u201d as was suggested by one advocate, is simply not an option. European regulators should consult with the web community to gain a clear understanding of why analytics are vital to everyday site administrators, and must find a happy medium that protects users\u2019 data without criminalising every website by default. No one wants a repeat of the crisis of consent, as well as the scaremongering, caused by the cookie law.\nAssuming the text is adopted in 2016, the new EU Data Protection Regulation would not come into effect until 2018. We have a considerable challenge ahead, but we also have plenty of time to get it right.", "year": "2015", "author": "Heather Burns", "author_slug": "heatherburns", "published": "2015-12-21T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2015/whats-ahead-for-your-data-in-2016/", "topic": "business"}