Michael Flatley, the Lord of the Dance, apparently taps his feet at the rate of 35 taps a second. Sometimes, even 40. His shows boast up to 110 dancers on the stage at one time. You’d think that, at that rate, the show would be over in 10 minutes, tops. But no, it stretches for a full 93 minutes, the same length of time of a ballet.
Hmm. There’s a lesson here for the web.
How many of us have heard our bosses or bosses’ bosses say “We want a new website built that integrates our key communications messages, provides information for a number audiences, and provides a high level of interactivity. And since it’s the web, it will take five weeks from inception to launch, right?” Uhm, no.
In point of fact, the Web brings three key changes to our communications efforts:
1. It extends our reach, offering people access to our information 365, 24/7, around the world. Have dial-up, will travel.
2. It allows us to update and aggregate information quickly and easily, not only across our own sites, but between sites. Typo? No problem. New press release, easy. It’s a matter of cut and paste, publish to site, and distribute to email lists. Not as fast as Flatley’s feet, but close.
3. It allows us to layer information for our targeted audiences and provide a multiplicity of details. The New York Times Online and National Geographic, for instance, do a marvelous job of augmenting their individual stories with video and audio clips, interactive features, tracking capabilities that provide notice of follow-up stories, and related links to other good sources of information.
What the Web should not do is allow us to compromise our efforts at producing targeted, well-conceived and crafted, medium-appropriate communications. Remember the print paradigm?
Outline > Manuscript > Layout > Blue Line > Color Key > Press Check > Printed Brochure
Dancing in Web time, we have a much longer string:
Architecture > Manuscript > Wireframes > Functional Usability Testing > Graphical User Interface Design > Marketing Usability Testing > Buildout > Beta Site Review > Quality Assurance Testing > Launch > Feedback and Refinement
There’s no way to cheat the process, not if you want to do it right. Cutting corners simply requires a different type of tap dancing at launch.
Voltaire Santos Miran EVP, Web Strategy I've developed and implemented communication strategies in education for more than 20 years now. I think my team at mStoner is the smartest, funniest, and coolest group of colleagues ever, and I can't imagine being anywhere else. Except Barcelona. Or Paris. Or Istanbul. To quote Isak Dinesen, "the cure for everything is salt ... tears, sweat, and the sea."