Category: Process and Project Management

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Six useful email alternatives to ease your workload

At Econsultancy’s recent Digital Transformation event it was suggested that businesses could improve productivity by getting rid of email for internal communications.

The theory is that doing away with email saves time as employees aren’t fighting a constant battle with their overflowing inboxes.

Also, your colleagues will think twice about sending frivolous messages or trying to kick tasks down the line if they have to get in touch by instant messenger, which is generally seen as a more personal form of communication.

And perhaps the most obvious benefit is that getting rid of email encourages face-to-face meetings, which can help to improve teamwork and ‘break down silos’ (yeah, I said it).

This is all very good in theory, but what are the alternatives to email? Well here are six alternatives for you to investigate…

Article Ecommerce

Releasing a product into the wild: an honest survival guide

One of the frustrations I find with the digital media industry is the plethora of people who feel it necessary to tell you how you should be running your website.

I’m going to add to that list.

However, rather than dictate to you what you should be doing, I hope to open your eyes to some of the things you need to be aware of should you be planning on launching or relaunching a website in the not too distant future.

Article Digital Strategy

Four talking points from our new Unified Marketing Report

Obtaining a single customer view has become something of a holy grail for marketers, however its achievement is extremely problematic.

An ever-increasing number of customer touchpoints and data sources make it near impossible for marketers to correlate all this information in one place.

Econsultancy’s new report, The Path to Unified Marketing, examines the difficulties that brands face in obtaining a single view of their customers, as well giving an overview of the state of the industry.

Published in association with Tealium, the report is based on a survey of 313 client-side marketers in Q2 2014. Here’s a summary of four main talking points:

Article Process and Project Management

How complex can it be?

Managing complexity is tough. Especially if you can’t agree on where the complexity lies.

Sometimes decisions are easy.

You have the data you need. You know what you want to achieve. You know how things work – if we do this, then that will happen. So you connect the dots, make the decision, and all is well.

Make the same decision often enough, and you’ll define a standard, even a ‘best practice’.

Article Content management

The Guardian’s agile processes showcase digital best practice

Digital has changed our world. The web has transformed the way we gather information, make purchases and carry out daily tasks.

Social media is altering the way we interact with friends and even the nature of society as a whole. And mobile has nurtured the 24/7, always on culture.

Organisations are scrambling to adapt to this new reality. Some businesses have been too slow and digital has forced them to close their doors. HMV, Tower records, Kodak and Blockbusters are all high-profile victims of the digital revolution.

But some organisations are making the transition, even in sectors harmed by the arrival of digital. One such organisation is the Guardian newspaper.

Article Process and Project Management

Procurement: five ways to maximise communication

When you’re buying, focus on opening up lines of communication, not on attemping to appear objective.

We’ve all been there, sat around a table talking to a series of vendors about how they’ll deliver our new site, or campaign, or brand.

By the end of the day, we’ll be confused, up to our eyeballs in jargon, unable to remember quite who said what.

Article Process and Project Management

Is your company ready for agile marketing?

Just over a year ago Econsultancy and Marketing Week published a Modern Marketing Manifesto, an attempt to try and capture what should constitute marketing as we move further into the 21st century.

But only one of our twelve manifesto points, which we called ‘Character’, really addressed how we should work as marketers.

Not what the tools of marketing are but the skill set practitioners need to operate and work day to day.

Article Process and Project Management

Recognising risk in project management

Most of us want to work on projects that make a difference. So we have to deal with risk.

Project managers talk a lot about risk. They prepare risk registers. They analyse impacts and probabilities. They define strategies to mitigate risks.

Then they do nothing.

Article Process and Project Management

Ecommerce information architecture: the devil in the detail (part two)

This blog is part two of my ecommerce IA mini-series and takes a look at some of the key components and guidelines for what ecommerce teams need to think about.

Today I’m going to send you to sleep talking about URL structure & data formats (yawn…).

For those of you who missed it, part one is on site & catalogue structure.

I’d welcome comments to add to my views and share advice/experience of what works, what mistakes to avoid and useful resources to use. Hope you find it useful reading.

Article Process and Project Management

Why centralisation is a power game

Centralisation is a power game. Treat it as a strategy for learning, and it might be more useful.

How does your web team work?

We’ve all experimented with various forms. When content management systems were new, devolved teams were all the rage. Give this wonderful tool to everyone in the company, and they’ll each edit their own little bit of the site.

What a wonderful site that was…

Article Process and Project Management

Avoiding ecommerce deployment disaster: 10 areas to watch

Replatforming and deploying major updates are some of the most stressful moments for an ecommerce team.

These moments are vital for staying ahead of the competition, for introducing innovative new features or responding to user testing, but they’re also the point at which things can go most wrong.

Too often when you or your agency throw the hypothetical switch you end up with a site that’s got serious bugs or, even worse, no site at all.

What can you do to ensure that the deployment of your new platform, or of important revisions to your existing one, run seamlessly and effectively?

Article Process and Project Management

What does success look like?

We play mind games with success. That’s OK if you’re trying to avoid blame, but not if you’re trying to avoid failure.

My American friends are still talking about HealthCare.gov. Why did no-one see failure coming? Why, when so many people on the project could see issues, did no-one act to improve things? Another high profile project failure enters the lexicon.

Great questions. Why don’t we discuss the issues that are so manifest on our projects?