The Agile Micro ISV Blog

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There was a time when in order to be considered ‘forward thinking’,
one need only to have a blog. Those days are gone, and we find
ourselves, or at least our online selves defined by the network our
social objects form.

What do I mean by a social object? There’s a good synopsis here. Essentially, a social object is a node in a social network. It is a reason for people to connect. Flickr and MySpace succeed because they are networks built around social objects, namely photos and music.

Although there is increasing indication of an increase in social
network apathy creeping in, I suspect that has more to do with the
individual networks themselves, rather than any fundamental shift.
Networks always form around objects. As Hugh MacLeod points out, the
nodes, or objects always come first. Lose that focus, and you’ve lost
the battle.

Increasingly, the web-savvy are learning the art of identity
management. We are learning which objects to use to present ourselves.
Taking myself as an example, I use comparatively few social networks. I
use LinkedIn, that’s it. The likes of Facebook just don’t interest me. I have an account there, but that’s just in case The phenomenen of micro blogging (a la Twitter)
makes me tired just thinking about it. I just can’t bring myself to be
even remotely interested in it. I find that being so short of time, I
like to concentrate my information management in 1 place.

Blogging is important to me. It forms a social object through which I can connect to people.

What social objects are you using to present your personal identity? What about your business? Do you use YouTube? Facebook? Twitter? Why? Or why not?

You know what it’s like to dip your toes into something, only to have your leg bitten off?

A couple of days ago, I made a video of me using Ergo
to search for Rambo. Why? Because I had a crazy notion that using
YouTube might bring the occasional hit to our web site. Well…

I wasn’t at all sure that the effort would pay off, so I did a
mediocre video, without a soundtrack, and watched it appear on YouTube,
just as a proof of concept. When I talk of mediocrity, that’s not
modesty, here it is:

After I made my first coffee yesterday, I discovered that we were
topping the Science and Technology channel with around 22,000 hits.
Needless to say, we were very pleased, and a little surprised. Worse
was to come. By dinner, we had attracted 567,000 hits, and were the
third most viewed video on YouTube. By my first coffee this morning, we
were approaching 750,000 hits and were (and still are) the top video on YouTube.

We’ve had mostly negative comments, largely due to the fact the video is mediocre at best, but still…

I wonder what would happen with a decent video?

Edit: Our 15 minutes is up, and the video is back on its way to obscurity, where it belongs.

Over the weekend, I’ve been thinking about the accepted wisdom
regarding micro ISV website design. A lot of the websites I’ve looked
at are well made, clean, easy to navigate and so on. In other words,
they tick all the boxes. And I think that’s the thing that’s bothering
me.

Software houses that use Agile Software Development techniques have
to negotiate contracts like all other companies. Wherever possible,
agile teams will try to steer clear of fixed cost, fixed scope, fixed
time contracts, preferring instead to opt for an optional scope, or
time and materials contract. There are a number of reasons for this,
but the one that sticks out in my mind is this: Fixed scope/cost/time
contracts are gladiatorial. They pit the interests of the customer
against the interests of the vendor. Optional scope contracts, on the
other hand, align the interests of the two, specifically because
optional scope contracts are typically short, 90 days or something, so
it is in the interests of the vendor to continually impress, rather
than to take the quickest dirtiest route to satisfy the contract.

When I think about issues of trust, specifically investing in trust,
I wonder whether traditional micro ISV website designs are the right
idea. After all, by their nature, they exist to sell ‘the product’. I
wonder if this too might be gladiatorial. I wonder if potential buyers
browse sales oriented sites with their guard up, as if they’re wary,
looking to see if they can trust you.

If I ask the question “what might a non-gladiatorial micro ISV web
site look like?” I find that the answer is “a blog”; a blog that sells
stuff, but a blog nonetheless.

So say if you write task management software, what would happen if
your site was a GTD blog, a GTD blog that sold task management
software. If you write <cough> some document management software
for home users, your site is a blog about decluttering and organising
your home documents. If you’re passionate about your domain, and write
passionately about it, I wonder what effect it would have on your
customer’s perception of your trustworthiness. Your interests are now
aligned with your customer’s interests, so would this breed trust? I’m
not sure. But it has to be worth a shot. I’m prepared to be wrong.

It opens up other interesting possibilities: Guest bloggers. If
you’re lucky enough to get prominent voices in your field, having them
guest blog on your site will further increase your credibility, and
make you even more aligned with your customer’s interests. I’ve seen an
increasing number of sites use a ‘magazine’ layout for their blogs, and
it’s one I think would be particularly suited to the task. It is
content rich, and it helps foster the notion that you sell a product
because you are passionate about solving a particular problem, not
because you think you can make a quick buck out of it.

I might be way off base. But like I said, I’m prepared to be wrong.

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EXTENDED