IRL: In Real Life

Who's Website is it Anyway

We got our own dose of reality a few weeks ago when, for the first time since the Clinton (Bill) administration a client canceled a project. It came as a surprise, as up until the end all of our meetings had been productive and cordial...wish I had been to the meetings between the meetings.

We did have a few discussions on process: they kept trying to jump or combine steps, we kept trying to keep them on track, could be they resented us tugging on the leash as it were. They also kept making repeated requests for those "window shade" drop down menu items you see on a lot of horizontal navigation bars...we strongly advised against them for usability and  SEO reasons, but never flat out refused to implement them.

This got me thinking: What exactly is our obligation to our clients? Are we just "Digital Gunga Dins" following them around, carrying their water or are we "Cyber-Gurus' leading them to the nirvana of internet business success?

We've always seen development as a collaboration, we each bring certain things to the table and we learn from each other. That said we do have many years of experience and many web sites under our belts and awards on our wall, that has to count for something.

Are we serving the client well by just doing their bidding, even if they're heading over a cliff, or are we serving them better by giving them the advantage of all the experience we accrued over the years (I built my first web site in 1996)

In the final analysis, its a decision every professional has to make for themselves, how much to go along, how much to push back.

As for me, I have found that people who see us as order takers tend not to be a very good match....and those same people will hold us accountable if the project fails, even though we we following their lead.

Like I said, we see development as a collaboration, its about finding that good match...maybe there should be an E-Harmony for business.

Real Estate in Real Life

We have client who is a real estate developer on the Yonkers waterfront. 

Up until recently, when you mentioned the Yonkers waterfront, you got one of two responses:

1) "I did not know Yonkers had a waterfront."

2) "How many bodies were fished out of the Hudson this week."

In other words, this area has something of an image problem.

Which is why working for this particular client has been so gratifying.  Aside from promoting the building, we also had to change perceptions of the neighborhood.

The client, MetroPartners, had the courage and foresight to renovate one rental and construct a new rental building, right in the heart of the business district.

The renovated building was originally known as the Trolley Barn. It was just that, a garage for trolley cars built around the turn of the century.  The building had been converted into loft style apartments, but the original landlord wasn't fulfilling his obligations....our clent took over the building, finished the renovation and within 6 months had fully leased the building. See http://www.metro92.com

The new rental property is literally up the block and within 8 weeks of opening its doors was almost 80 percent leased. See http://www.66main.com

Our contribution in both cases were in the areas of identity creation and website development, and it says something about how the real estate has been changed by the internet.

In the old days most of these leads would have come from classified ads, even real estate web sites, such as Rent .com. But today prospective renters want a more pro-active way of finding apartments. They want to "shop" as much as possible before picking up the phone and seeing the property.

Driving those future renters to he website, and then giving them a meaningful experience, with lots of information about the building, the apartments and the neighborhood has been key the success. The two major web drivers have been Craigslist ads and banners on the sides of the buildings. A look at the web traffic reveals that the average visitor sees almost 10 pages pe visit...so by the time they do reach for that phone they are well on their way to signing a lease.

As I said before, we also had the challenge of "re-branding" the neighborhood. Working with marketing firm, we re-named the " Tolley Barn" Metro92 and created a be identity that also paid homage to the building's roots. Being new construction, the rental property, 66 Main, needed a hip, urban identity that would attract new people to the neighborhood. We also ran a contest on YouTube, asking people to send us videos telling us why they deserved one of te new apartments.

In both cases, not only did we make the client happy, we also had the satisfaction of knowing that we played some small part in the rebirth of the Yonkers waterfront. That's about as real as it gets. See mpilla.com for details.

Earth to Michael...

OK...I admit that once I put this blog up, many months ago, i pretty much forgot about. It's not like I had a core of dedicated fans to cater too, I had only written the one post and I got distracted by such frivolities as making a living, eating and saying good bye to the Sopranos.

That all changed today when I checked my traffic stats for the past month and noticed that, out of the blue, IRL had collected 24 visitors all by it's little self. I had recently joined Linkedin and I can only assume that when people checked out my website they also took the time to check out the blog.

It drove home to me, yet again, that if you put something up there you just never know who's going to find it or when. I have to say I've been encouraged by this sudden interest and look forward to keeping this blog somewhat more current than I have been.

See you soon.

All That Digital Jazz

In the 1995 film The Net, Sandra Bullock played a reclusive software engineer whose life becomes a nightmare when her identity is altered. While tracking down the culprits she exchanges a series of text messages with a fellow programmer who has key piece of evidence that he can only give her “irl”. (Yes...it all works out in the end.)

At the time those three letters marked the boundary between two different worlds, the embryonic online world, and the rest of us. Two worlds with different concerns, different rules, and, as computer dating was demonstrating, different people. Through the years that divide has narrowed to the point where the two worlds have, for all practical purposes, become one, which brigs us to the purpose of this blog. It's easy to forget that all these web sites, blogs, SEO strategies and who knows what else are only a means to a end.

Just what effect does all this cyber-activity have
in the real world?

Eager see what was going on, I fired up the car and headed south to Philadelphia to visit a client, find some good barbecue and groove on some heavy vibes.The West Oak Lane Jazz and Arts Festival is a free, outdoor celebration of jazz, art, food, and community held in North Philadelphia over the last weekend in June. The web site we created had given the three year old festival a higher profile, an increased level of credibility while acting as central point of contact and information. It allowed the producers to reach artists and jazz lovers through out the world. (see what we did)

Going there I was able to put faces to e-mail addresses and meet artists who I had only seen in jpegs and heard in MP3. I saw many "real-world" examples of how the web site had become an integral part of the festival:

People carrying printouts of the web site with them to the festival, especially the schedule of events and artist information. I heard a young woman give her friend the site's web address over her cell phone so that they could meet up later.

The Festival promoters sponsored a contest in conjunction with JazzTimes Magazine that could only be entered by going to the website. The grand prize was an all expense paid trip the three day festival. The winner came from the other end of the country, Vancouver, Washington.

With its added credibility, the festival was able to attract better artists and bigger sponsors. WAR, the rock/soul group from the mid 1970's was this year's headline act. During negotiations Roy Ayers, a world renowned jazz musician, was directed to the web site for more information. After viewing the site his agent quickly called back to say that though Roy would be appearing in Paris during the weekend of the Festival he would fly back to perform.

Total attendance for the three days was estimated at over 125,000 with many people attending for the whole weekend.

In addition to three days of great music and the best pulled pork I ever tasted, it was important and somewhat uplifting to see how our efforts had helped the festival to grow. (We are now adding an e-commerce component...I can get you a deal on T-shirts.) We’re not just sharpening pixels, the work we’ve done has had very tangible results.