Knowmad Blog

Johnson C. Smith University and Knowmad are in process of building a new .edu website for the university. There is a lot of excitement about the new web presence for the university, both at the university and at Knowmad. The new website will more accurately represent the opportunities that the university offers and will offer a highly usable website to online visitors.

We started working with the university mid-2010 to develop the strategy for the website. Development started in January and we’re expecting to launch the site in August. As you can imagine, it’s a complex project. The site contains over 150 pages of content. Knowmad is coordinating with the university on the development of the content.

Read more in our news release…

Now that “the cloud” has reached mainstream media with Microsoft’s “To the Cloud” marketing campaign, I felt it was time to address the risks and rewards of this next evolution of the Internet. In a nutshell, the cloud is Internet-based computing that enables the sharing of resources, software, and information. A commonly used analogy is the electricity grid which supplies power to our homes and businesses.
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In November, I was privileged to present to the Charlotte User Experience Group on the subject of form usability. The talk was well-attended with a great discussion following. Designers and developers in Charlotte, take note: this group, organized by the talented Bermon Painter, is a hidden gem, filled with bright web professionals from varying backgrounds.

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As Facebook and social media have become more prominent in our daily lives, businesses have been moving into the social media arena in search of customers. At Knowmad, we’ve explored Facebook and decided it’s not the ideal avenue for us but it’s not to be ignored.

Why? Customers and prospects typically don’t look for us on Facebook because we sell to businesses (B2B), not consumers. However, a company or individual could create brand confusion by presenting themselves as Knowmad on Facebook. In addition, we might later find a use for Facebook in our marketing and we don’t want to lose the opportunity to claim our brand name.

How did we decide on the use of Facebook for our brand? I’ve included a few questions in this post that helped us evaluate if Facebook is right for our business. Hopefully, these questions can help you start the conversation for your business.

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Old Italian Homestead

During my travels in Italy this fall, I witnessed both the beauty of this historic country as well as the impact that neglect has on its ancient structures. Indeed, a common job in the country is in the maintenance and restoration of its architecture, art and books. Likewise, in today’s business world, the heart of a successful Web strategy is regular maintenance of your website. Read the rest of this entry →

Lessons Learned

Over the course of growing Knowmad Technologies from a freelance programming business into a full-service Web agency, I’ve learned a few things along the way (sometimes by the school of hard knocks). For instance, there was the pivotal learning moment in realizing that we not only needed to be good at designing & building Websites but also good at discovering and capturing business goals & objectives.

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“The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.”—Edith Wharton, Pulitzer-prize winning novelist, writer, and designer

Here’s some advice that might be hard to swallow: The colors, fonts, spacing and imagery on your website could be the difference between a user purchasing from you or choosing a competitor. This means that even the most strategic SEO or marketing campaign could be jeopardized by a visually neglected site.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the value of website audience research while working on audience research for a client. To be honest, we haven’t always done this research. You’re probably surprised at the honesty and I cringe a little now while admitting it.

It’s not that we didn’t know the value of audience research. We all know that it’s important to know who your audience is whether you’re writing, performing or creating a design. Otherwise, how can you ensure quality or perform well?

Sometimes, we just did it informally for an internal guide and didn’t deliver the research to the client. Other times, sadly, it just got skipped because there was no budget. So for a dark time in Knowmad’s history, we didn’t formalize the audience research process and it wasn’t fun.

These days, I don’t know how we designed a site without this valuable and easy to obtain information! Crazy, I know. I also know we’re not alone here in having skimped on the audience research step in the past so I thought I’d share some insight into our ever-evolving process. Read the rest of this entry →

One of my favorite questions to ask prospective clients is why they have or want a Website. Granted, in 2010, it’s de rigueur for a business to have a Website. However, building a Website just because everyone else is doing it is an unsatisfactory reason that will produce limited results at best. If you don’t have the time and budget to build a serious Website, you should consider this strategy. Otherwise, there’s really no excuse to ignore this important question which can be used to define your goals, create a strategy & measure the success of your efforts. Read the rest of this entry →

Last week, Kmart and Sears Holding Co. came up in my news reader, announcing kmartdesign.com and other web initiatives by Sears Holding Co. to boost the Kmart brand performance and sales.

Kmart isn’t a place I shop, which isn’t saying a lot because I’m not a big in-store shopper. I can’t say I’ve even been on the Kmart website until reading this news nugget. The brand doesn’t strike me as modern, so it made me curious about how the company is using the web and what results they might achieve.

After a quick search, I found that Kmart has several initiatives on the web including a mobile app (kmart2go), mygofer.com and kmartdesign.com. Business strategy and the web are two of my favorite topics so I began to wonder…

What can we learn from Kmart?

Here’s what stands out to me about Kmart’s web strategy, none of which is surprising and gives us a great example to look at for web strategy.

• Clearly define business goals
• Segment and target specific audiences.
• Offer presentation formats specific to the target audience
• Use Social Media to augment existing marketing, PR and sales strategies

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