We believe the SAF is an important resource for Spokane creatives. The SAF helps to educate, inspire, and motivate our creative community. This in turns raises the image of Spokane and all regional companies that rely on the SAF members for their marketing and advertising needs.

This year we had the privilege of hosting the judging for the Yakima Advertising Federation at our office on Madison Street here in Spokane. It was a great event. There were a number of good entries from both students and professionals.

The judges for the event where:


Kevin Armstrong – Addison/Kimberly

Jesse Pierpoint – Pierpoint Design & Branding

Rick Hosmer – Klündt | Hosmer
Ryan Stemkoski – Zipline Interactive

Judging took several grueling hours but in the end kings were crowned. We won’t share the winners now but hopefully once they are announced we can share some of this great work with you.

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So yesterday morning, Kayla and I headed out on an adventure to find some plants for my yard. We got started early to allow us plenty of time to find the 31 plants we needed to acquire before heading home. At about 10:30 AM Kayla was already hungry so we looked around trying to find a place to eat. At that time of day your options are limited, and the only viable option in sight was our friendly neighborhood Denny’s. I quickly remembered the February promotion and told Kayla about the “improvements” that Denny’s had supposedly made to their food and service. Against our better judgment, we decided to try it out.

I was optimistic as we walked to the door but I knew we were in trouble as soon as we entered. There were roughly 6 older men waiting in a cramped line to pay their bills and there was nobody waiting to be seated. We looked desperately for the “wait to be seated sign” most restaurants have but could not find one. There was no hostess, or anything that would indicate where we should be waiting. After a 4 or 5 minutes of trying to figure out where we should stand a male teenager walked up to us and asked us how many. I said two and he turned and bustled off without saying a word. We decided to follow him, hoping he would lead us to salvation. We made it about 10 feet before another older angry looking female hostess stole us away from the pimply faced kid. While most the restaurant was empty, she seated us at a recently cleaned and still sopping wet table between two couples whom were already waiting for their food. I understand it is easier for the wait staff to have customers seated in the same general vicinity but a little personal space is nice, especially, in an open restaurant. I hate being forced to listen to the conversations of the people around me. I don’t really care when the guy behind me last made #2. I am sure the next time won’t be too far in the future if he ate the biscuits and gravy. Perhaps, that is why so many older people eat at Denny’s. Moving on…

Once we were seated, we began to browse the menu. I was surprised at the prices. After the free breakfast promotion, I figured Denny’s would be a good value meal but that is not the case. The prices were completely out of line with the quality of the food. Kayla and I both got the Grand Slam, which, was the cheapest thing on the menu. The grand slam was about the only thing we could find under $8. At that price, I would rather go to Red Robin or have 3 meals at Wendy’s. Anyway, after a reasonable 10 minute wait our food arrived. Mine must’ve been done long before Kayla’s. My eggs were cold and overcooked may bacon was so thin it was literally transparent and I think they forgot to put my toast in the toaster before they buttered it. In defense of Denny’s, Kayla’s meal looked much better than mine. Her toast was toasted, her pancakes looked like pancakes, and overall she said it was edible.

After my experience, I feel like there has been no visible change to the quality of the food or customer experience at Denny’s. Admittedly, Denny’s Super Bowl promotion did get me to go in and try the food one more time, even though it was several months later. I expected more. I expected some real improvement to the customer experience but my experience was nothing compared to what was touted back in February. I don’t think I will be returning to Denny’s anytime soon, it was just as awful as I remember it. The only real positive thing I can say about my meal is that I didn’t get diarrhea afterwards.

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The video is from the Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) The rap is actually pretty funny. I have seen a couple other videos from the SEO Rapper but I hadn’t come across this one. Some of my favorite lines are:

“Don’t use italics use emphasis”

“Don’t duplicate it or you might face a litigation”

“Your photoshop functions, slice that design, do your layout with divs, make sure that its aligned”

“Please don’t use tables even though they work fine, when it comes to indexing they give search engines a hard time”

“The competition will get bitter, you’ll shine like glitter”

It isn’t every day you hear a rap song about web design. In fact I have only heard a couple and they were mostly done by white guys skinnier than I am. In all honestly I can’t believe this exists but since it does you have to check it out. If you’re really bored check out some of his other videos. I know some of you may have seen them already but if you’re like me and missed out on the SEO Rapper thus far, you need to check him out.

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It turns out this Ann Coulter like figure, was in fact a CUSTOMER of one of Herman’s previous web development clients. So things don’t get too confusing, we will call this angry lady Rosie O’Donell for the remainder of the article. Anyway, it turns out Rosie was irate because she had hired a contractor to assist with some remodel work at her home. The contractor had taken her money, started the work, and had disappeared for weeks without notifying her or returning her calls. Her house was now a disaster, her money was gone, and she didn’t know what to do.

Why was she mad at Herman though? Well, Herman had created a very nice and professional website for his client, the contractor. In fact, the website was so good and professional that Rosie hired the contractor without meeting him in person. The website was so professional, that she thought she was working with a large construction company and was incredibly surprised to find out it was one man show and he was a part-time handy man working out of his home.

Rosie’s argument was that Herman had helped the client misrepresent himself. Herman’s argument was that his client was a nice guy and he has no control over how he performs his business. Herman, like most of us, was hired to help his client create a professional image. This story really got me thinking though. As web developers and marketers, we often try to position our clients above where they actually fall in their market. Are we doing consumers an injustice? In addition, should we be liable for misrepresenting our clients? Is it wrong for us to help companies try to look better than they actually are? Should we actually be positioning them on par with comparable competition?

This is an interesting story that brings up some intriguing questions. Let me know what you think! I am anxious to hear thoughts from other marketers and web developers on this story.

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Web developers are experts but the main problem I see in web development is blatant disrespect for customers. Web development is a confusing topic for many. If our customers understood design, programming, and SEO they wouldn’t need to hire us. As experts, it is our job to guide them in the right direction and to give them all of the information and advice necessary to make a good decision, even if the result is they work with a more qualified company. Much like CNBC we have a duty to our customers.

Recently, I have been getting bids to do some landscaping and fencing in my backyard. If I really, really tried I could probably do these projects myself. In reality, I know very little about fencing and less about sprinklers, I have some opinions but I am no expert and that is why I am hiring someone to help. When talking with the various contractors, my lack of knowledge really got me thinking about how web development customers feel in meetings.

I don’t think of myself as a dumb person. In fact I feel like I am pretty good at what I do but what I do is web development NOT landscaping. Our customers are smart people. They run businesses, have families, and shape our community. The problem with web design customers isn’t that they’re dumb, the problem is that they don’t understand web design and that is exactly why they’ve hired you! Instead of criticizing your customers for their lack of knowledge you should dance circles of joy. If everyone was a web development expert then you would probably be watching Oprah from your mom’s couch.

As a fellow web developer I challenge you all to try to provide your customers with a good value, good information, and the respect they deserve. Customers are a requirement of running a web design agency but they’re also people with families and lives. Web developers, SEO experts, and marketers in general should work hard to avoid the snake oil salesman reputation that is often given to financial professionals. Both web developers and financial professionals deal with complex topics. Working to provide customers with good, honest advice will help your customers get an ROI, help your reputation, and help the reputation of our industry in general. Don’t become the Bernard Madoff of web development.

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Realizing just how important personal development is to the graphic and web design industry, I’ve been seriously considering the implementation of a mandatory personal development policy for our employees at Zipline. What would it have in it, you may ask? The answer is, I am not quite sure. At this point I am thinking out loud. I have seen bits and pieces over the years about companies encouraging employees to partake in personal development. Some companies offer tuition reimbursement, others offer expense paid trips to conferences. While these are both great ways for employees to expand their skill set, they’re often cost prohibitive for small businesses.

My primary source of personal development is this blog. Every morning I get up at 4 AM and I read dozens of articles on marketing, advertising, graphic design, web design, and programming. After I have digested all of that content I will write an article relating to something that caught my eye, or something I experienced or learned the previous day. Then I will head into the office and attempt to put into practice the various interesting techniques, methods, and ideas I absorbed during my morning read. While I have learned a great deal by doing this, I am quite aware it would be unreasonable to ask my employees to work from 4AM – 5PM everyday, mostly because they’re a bunch of sissies.

So what if we paid our employees to blog, read, and network? During a time when many companies are banning social networking and other personal Internet usage it may seem counterintuitive to encourage employees to browse the Internet while on the clock. I think however that a couple hours of personal development per employee, per week would help the company become more innovative in the long run. I also think that this would help employees stay motivated. I know I personally feel excited and refreshed when I find new technologies or ideas to try. It helps to stave off the feelings of monotony that many developers begin to experience after their 1000th contact form.

While a personal development policy is an interesting concept, the question most managers will have is, how do you control it? In truth, I have no idea. Perhaps the first 30 minutes of every day is devoted to reading articles in a mandatory Google reader account and then it’s back to work. Maybe each employee is required to produce 2 work related blog entries a week. Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer. Personally, I hate to try to govern creativity. Personal development should be something fun and enjoyable. I don’t want to have to stand over someone’s shoulder with a ruler like a Catholic school nun and force them to read Sitepoint or listen to BoagWorld. In reality, if they love what they do it should be something they want to do not something they have to do.

My intent with posting this article was get some ideas out there. I am sure some of you work at companies that have some sort of personal development policy. Please share any ideas, thoughts, or comments you have about what should go into a personal development policy like I described above. Whenever I get a good, comprehensive policy developed, I will share it on the blog open source style for all of you to read, adopt, and share.

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Don’t get me wrong. I find that most of our customers are very intelligent and really understand their market. If they weren’t good business people they wouldn’t be running successful businesses. The problem I find is that just like me, most are not writers. Part of writing for the web is creating web friendly, search engine optimized copy. Admittedly, these are not easy concepts to understand. When you write for the web you have to realize most people aren’t going to read the copy start to finish. If you are lucky enough to have someone read it they will probably scan the headline and read the first couple lines. If you haven’t hooked them by then, they’re already moving on. On top of that, writing is hard and it takes a lot of time most people don’t have. For many, writing marketing and web copy is worse than homework. Sometimes I feel like the parent, trying to get my 6th grader to write a paper on the civil war while a Family Guy marathon is on.

On many occasions, we have had a website completely programmed and then spent weeks waiting for our customers to provide the copy. Had they been willing to hire a writer the website would be online generating business. To solve this problem we came up with a couple of solutions I thought I would share. The first, we have started offering two prices for each website. We create content managed websites so our customers have the ability to populate their own content if they so desire. In these instances, the customers get a lower price on the project but they must populate the site once the framework is completed. The customer must pay the balance of the project before the website framework is turned over to them. Once paid, they can take as long as they want to complete the project and it won’t affect our cash flow. If they would prefer to have us populate the content, they are given a deadline to provide us with the content. If they do not meet this deadline they will begin getting billed for the project. For most this serves as a firm deadline and a motivator to the customer to get the content created in a timely fashion.

We realize our customers are busy. We have had customers stretch out content creation for more than 6 months after development was complete. This obviously causes workflow, cash flow, and tracking problems for us. In addition, it means there is no ROI on the customer’s new website investment. By encouraging the customer to get the copy done in a timely fashion we both benefit. Also, thanks to this strategy we’re no longer in a losing position, as long as we follow our own policies! If any of you have any good ideas I would love to hear them. This strategy works for us but it won’t work for every company. I know we’re not the only interactive firm facing these types of issues. I have talked to numerous friends who are in the same life raft we are.

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I haven’t had a ton of time to analyze the quality of the information but at a first glance it seems like there is some good information mixed with an unusually large number of commercials. I guess on the plus side a good portion of those commercials seem to be unnecessary self promotion advertisements instead of external sales advertisements but there is a mixture of both. Here are a few examples of shows available via Webmaster Radio:

- Webcology
- Search Engine Strategies
- Cover Story
- Life Tips
- PRSA
- Strike Point
- SEM Energy
- Webasters on the Roof
- Domain Masters

I will listen to it over the next couple days and then I will do a follow-up. In the meantime if you have any information about WebmasterRadio.fm please leave your comments. Also, if you know of any other good web design podcasts or information sources I would love to hear about them! If you’re bored listen to it here: http://www.webmasterradio.fm

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Anyway, getting down to business, I know it is a bit late but I wanted to complain about Denny’s Super Bowl promotion. I had built up a number of blog postings so I didn’t get around to sharing my thoughts on this promotion until now. For those of you that don’t know, if there is anyone, Denny’s ran a commercial during the Super Bowl and as part of it they offered free Grand Slam breakfasts to users on the Tuesday following the big game. While I will admit the interactive nature of this promotion was pretty cool, it did get users into the restaurants. In fact Denny’s estimated that they gave away 2 million free breakfasts on Tuesday. My question is, how many customers did this promotion create? Will they get a return on their $5 million Super Bowl commercial or all those free meals? I don’t know if you have ever had a Denny’s Grand Slam but they’re really awful. Giving away your product is a fantastic strategy if your product is so great your customer can’t live without it after trying it. It tends to have the opposite effect if your product is substandard and the free offer doesn’t create future demand or even worse creates negative demand. Not only that but I would bet that a very large number of the customers getting a free meal had previously tried a Denny’s Grand Slam and were only there for free food. Even if a customer hadn’t tried a Grand Slam before, how could you expect them to have a positive experience in a restaurant overcrowded with people fighting for a free meal even if the food is better now than it was in years past as Denny’s claims?

Some may argue that the enormous amount of social media exposure they have gotten from this promotion is worth the money. To this too I must disagree. Sure they had 28 million views of their commercial but how many new paying customers did the commercial actually get? How many meals will they have to sell to re-coup the cost of the $5 million commercial and the 2 million free breakfasts? Sure they got a lot of publicity from blogs and news outlets but how much of it was negative? Even if this campaign did turn out to have a positive ROI I still think it was a failure. I would argue that all of the bad publicity and negative experiences in over-crowded Denny’s restaurants on Tuesday did more damage to the Denny’s brand than good. What if they lowered the price of their Grand Slam meal 2 or 3 dollars and promoted that? It wouldn’t require the major cash outlay but would get butts in seats in this tight economy. Even still, mine wouldn’t be one of them, I like my eggs to come from a chicken not recycled tires.

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I have always wondered what customers think as they enter some of the fancy agency offices. I know if I were walking into many agencies as a customer, I would be thinking hard to myself about how much they must overcharge to support their space. While I do understand that it is important to have a nice environment to foster creativity, I think many agencies go way overboard.

Recently, as the economy slowed I saw some newer agencies experience problems. Many of these agencies had borrowed money to create big fancy compensator offices. They also wasted tons of money promoting themselves to other agencies through competitions and award shows, trying to become the cool new agency everyone wanted to be. Unfortunately this strategy doesn’t get customers in the door and with-out customers agencies don’t last long.

In today’s value centric economy I think balance is the key success. As an agency there is a certain level of professionalism and self-promotion required to be successful. In addition, the cost of working with your agency needs to be in-line with the value you provide. If you can’t make your customers money it won’t be long before there is a for lease sign on your over-sized frosted glass doors.

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