Flat for sale in Nice

Anyone interested in buying a 3 bedroom flat in Nice? If so visit frenchriviera.org.uk for photos and further information or contact me!

Season's greetings

As the end of the year is fast approaching it's time to think about what the new year holds in store for us.
Just a few thoughts...
Is 2008 going to be remembered as the beginning of the end of Google's search supremacy and the start of Search Wikia which will not share search data with advertisers, nor invade privacy by storing users' search terms?
Or will 2008 be remembered as the year when Google started to unsettle Wikipedia supremacy with its own Knol project. Knol (from the word "knowledge", just in case you did not get it) is designed to allow anyone to create a page on any topic, which others can comment on, rate, and contribute to if the primary author allows.
Or perhaps will the likely financial turmoil cause an upsurge in the use of the web for e-commerce and marketing? After all it's somewhat easier, cheaper and far more effective to change a website than convert building or relocate offices.

Whatever happens, I would like to wish a wonderful Christmas and best wishes for a happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year to all the readers of this blog!
Kind regards
Andre

PS: Get your Christmas present here.

What is web design about?

With over 12 years of developing websites and working for our clients for many years it is not surprising one develops some ideas and methods about what it takes to develop a successful website.

Far too often people are more interested in what the site should look like than what it should do for their business.

Not a surprise really as it is difficult for a single person in any business to have all the skills require to run successfully all aspects of a business.
So it is possible to end up with a beautiful website which does not help your business. Is yours like this?

As always, a superfluous approach is always the easiest, the quickest and cheapest and the measure of whether a website is successful is very often how sexy it is!

So how do we at EAB approach a new website project, be it a brand new site or a re-design?

First we try to understand the background to the project. What are the main reasons for justifying the project?

Are these reasons in line with the business objectives? Have the objectives been properly formulated? I would argue that a website is successful if it enables a business to fulfil its objectives, therefore the success of the project can only be measured in this context.

In the ideal situation we would look at a number of business considerations such as financial, marketing, operational and technical. If a project brief has already been written we would analyse it with these considerations in mind. We would then work with the client to address any mismatch in order to ensure the website is developed in such a way as to match the stated business objectives. This way only a suitable set of criteria can be established for measuring the success of the project. In this context, the subjective look and feel of the site is only one of many considerations.

Following this business analysis a project brief is created and revised, creating the basis for site design mock-ups and structure. This process will be the subject of another post soon!

If you feel your website isn't supporting your business objectives or has not delivered its promise, why not get in touch?

I offer a free hour consultation followed by a proposal with costed options!

You have nothing to lose!

Please contact me at abottin@eab.co.uk or phone direct on 01727 751446 or skype me at abottin.

The power of networking

EAB is about to change! Since its inception in 1992 the company has relied mainly on word of mouth and personal recommendations for getting new business. This is of course cost effective but as we're a small company the number of contacts generated in this way remains small. We have decided to embark on an ambitious growth plan, but of course, cannot afford the daily rates of consultants whose expertise is required to help us achieve the objectives.

Enters the power of networking.

Two networks have been providing the necessary skills.

swapaskill.com

Strictly speaking this is probably not associated with a "social network" as such, however all its member do have at least one thing in common: a need for a specific skill and a skill they are able to offer in exchange. I first heard of the swapaskill website on the Guardian several months ago. I immediately signed up then and asked for "business coaching" as the skill I needed. Nothing much happened till I received an email from Nicole Wehden, a consultant who was willing to offer these skills in exchange for web design. Nicole's company, Evolve International, support the development of major business change and strategic growth. Nicole also happens to be the Swapaskill.com founder.

We decided to meet face to face and explore the suitability of the exchange. The meeting was successful and we decided to go ahead with the swap.

Several months down the line now, we're both happy, the swap is going very well. Since the initial meeting, Nicole has clearly delivered value to our business by helping us to formulate a long term plan. We, on our side, have started the process of designing Nicole's new website.

Nicole can be contacted directly at nicole@evolveinternational.com. Her company's website address is www.evolveinternational.com.

Nick Heap also spotted my entry! Nick provides tools and consultancy to help people listen to each other and work together better. His involvement enables me and my team to prepare ourselves for the new EAB.

I meet with Nick every two weeks and we try to split the time equally between the two tasks: preparations for the new website for Nick and preparing me to lead my team better.

His probing into the facets of my character and personality allow him to provide me with the guidance, tools and support to become fit for the purpose of leading the new EAB! After a few meetings the following has already been implemented:

Team of two: a simple and effective way of working better with colleagues (see http://www.nickheap.co.uk/articles.asp?ART_ID=87 for further information).

Core Process: Nick's skilful counselling allows individuals to identify their “positive centre”, or their central 'reason for being'. “Creating vision” is my core process, the future sessions will teach me how to use this in my everyday life. See http://www.nickheap.co.uk/articles.asp?ART_ID=81 for further information.

Nick can be contacted at nick@nickheap.co.uk and his website address is www.nickheap.co.uk.

ecademy.com

Both Nicole and Nick are also part of another network for business people I joined a couple of years ago: ecademy. I had not been active there till Nicole convinced me to become a proactive member and enjoy the benefits of such networking. I now wished I had started this before. Through ecademy I have now met other businesses which have become EAB partners or serious prospects. One of these companies is Profit Solutions. They are Business Growth consultants. Jonathan Baynes and Hendré Moolman are working closely with us to build the new EAB. They are in the early stages of implementing the HMA (Hidden Marketing Assets) system and I look very much forward to reap the benefits of their involvements with us. As we go through the process we are developing a close partnership and we are in the early stages of re-engineering their website in compensation for their service.

Jonathan Baynes can be contacted at jonathan@profitsolutionsuk.com. Hendré's address is hendre@profitsolutionsuk.com. The company's website is www.profitsolutionsuk.com.

I have found this method of networking suits me well. The system allows you to look at profiles of individuals or companies and you are free to make contact with them if you wish. The system lets you know who visits your profile. I have never found myself pressurised in spending time networking with people with whom I feel there's no need.

As a business, we can never operate in isolation. A network like ecademy provides a time and cost effective method of meeting potential partners and clients. This complements the more traditional attendance to regular networking meetings. A more detailed comparison between the two systems will be the subject of a post in a few months time when I will be also reporting on other social networks and more traditional “breakfast meeting” local networks where I can be found on Tuesday mornings..

For further information visit www.swapaskill.com and of course visit my profile in ecademy at www.ecademy.com.

Website maintenance

We're asked from time to time what we do between new projects. We're actually busy maintaining a number of websites for our clients on a regular basis. These tasks have been going on for a long while for some of our clients,in one case up to twelve years! These maintenance tasks range from simple updates to development of additional functionality.

In this day and age you would have thought that there's no room for a web development company to maintain existing sites! There are some significant advantages though for some companies as, by using our services, they do not need to have in-house resources such as HTML programmers, graphic designers who can ensure the site keeps its look and feel and does not get broken. We are in a way acting as a human Content Management System (CMS) for our clients! This is a very cost effective use of resources as we do things effectively given it's our core business activity, leaving our clients to deal with their own's. Our knowledge of the client's site and our technical experience mean the tasks we carry out are cost effective. As we know the sites well we are often in a situation where we advise our clients on how the information should be presented on their websites.

A few examples....

St Albans District Council

We have been maintaining the site since its first appearance on the Web in 1995 or thereabouts. The site has been redesigned and re-engineered several times since of course. The continuous involvement of EAB in the Council's e-government activities over the years has earned us the title of "Strategic Partners" (IEG).

The Cathedral of St Albans. We initially designed the site some ten years ago now (and it shows its age of course!) but the site has been continuously updated. For instance the Music list has been religiously updated every month. For a couple of years we worked with the Cathedral staff to develop and maintain a dedicated site for the Cathedral Campaign which helped to promote the campaign aiming to raise £6M.

Hertfordshire Visual Arts Forum

Apart from the ongoing updates of the news & gallery pages we also do the Open Studio programmes. This year's programme has just gone live and, guess what, you're just in time to visit the page and schedule a few visits to your local artists!.

The Radlett Centre

A regular programme update takes place every quarter since the site went live many years ago.

Drop me a line if you would like EAB to look after your site, or if it's the case, to let us re-engineer your site with a Content Management System so at least you can update it yourself on a regular basis without the need for in-house technical expertise.

Summer 2007 Holidays

Given the time of the year, here's a brief and somewhat different post!

Summer holidays are over for me. With my wife and my daughter we stayed 15 days or so at my Dad's house in St Martin du Var, a small village some 15 miles behind Nice.

This break was an opportunity to get away from computers and the Internet (this was made easy thanks to the smartphone paying a short visit to the loo just before we left and I forgot to take the power brick for my laptop....) and enjoy seeing my family, the warmer climate, brighter skies of the French Riviera, not forgetting the tasty local food, wine, mountain scenery, the warm sea when you get used to it that is!).

Our daughter decided that beach was going to be compulsory every day, so we ended up visiting beaches in Nice, Cagnes and Antibes to add a bit of variety...

It was also an opportunity to meet with old school friends (from the 60's!) including Jean-Jacques Beltramo, artist photographer (visit his website), and an EAB's client.

It was interesting to see the French newspapers praising the UK for its investment in research. It seems that the Universities across the Channel are underfunded and many of the few researchers prefer to go and find better careers in the UK or US. However, all imports of meat products from the UK are stopped...

View a few photos of this visit to the French Riviera.

Hope you enjoy the selection and do get in touch if you would like one of the photos!

Gifts4petowners.com: a web project that changed the shape of the business

I would like to illustrate in this post how EAB's involvement in a web project can change a business significantly.
It all started when John Goodridge, the owner and Director of Animal Treasures Ltd approached us to make comments about his website. The main reason for this approach was the feeling that the site was not selling enough.
I and my colleagues looked at it and made several comments related to the look and feel and the engineering quality of the site.
Encouraged by these early comments John entrusted us to make some cosmetic changes to the site and gave us access to the online database so we could start suggesting improvements to the site.
At this point in time, after due consideration, we suggested to John that the current site was not able to be developed further. It was indeed a bespoke development and it would be a somewhat risky venture to modify it. We recommended to John a fresh technology start which would enable Animal Treasures to make a leap forward on their Internet fortunes, having already spent a great deal on money without really achieving a satisfactory ROI. As a last ditch attempt John agreed to our suggestion. Further discussions followed and the issue of who the site was aimed at was raised. The animaltreasures.co.uk url lacked the focus the site required. After John explained the site was aimed at primarily at pet owners we suggested to John he should perhaps consider buying the gifts4petowners.com ["Gifts for Pet Owners"] those similar ones for cat, dog and horse owners, hence gifts4catowners.com, gifts4dogowners.com and gifts4horseowners.com were also registered.
Having agreed these suggestions, EAB then proposed to design a higher class website, much more in line with the quality of the products John is selling, thus giving John an opportunity to increase its prices.
The scope for the initial functionality of the site was agreed together with a budget and EAB proceeded to engineer the site, using eZ Publish, the Enterprise Content Management System fast becoming EAB's development favourite CMS platform for its clients committed to make their business more successful on the Internet.
Additionally, the EAB team provided comprehensive advise on how to promote the site (SEO), so an eMarketing strategic plan has been conceived which will ensure the site will become more and more successful as time goes on.
The site is now live at gifts4petowners.com. Within days of going live, the number of visitors has already increased by almost 40% (from an average of 41 daily visitors in the last six months of the old site to 56).

I will come back to this project in due time with an update and share further progress and other useful lessons with you, meanwhile why don't you visit the sites below.
gifts4petowners.com
gifts4catowners.com
gifts4dogowners.com
gifts4horseowners.com
poshdogtags.com

Please drop me a line if you want to discuss how your business could benefit from our involvement or write a comment to this post for the benefit of all!