July 30, 2004 - Issue 20

THIS ISSUE INCLUDES:

• What's New?
• Going, Going … Gone!
• Resource Referral
• Lessons Learned
• Tips & Tricks
• Community Leaders
• Member Spotlight
• Community Stats
• Your Account Summary
• Special Thanks
• Last Laugh

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WHAT'S NEW?

Dear Askers & Answerers,

First off, thanks for being here today! I never take your time for granted. In fact, I spend about six hours each week prepping this for you, to make sure it's quick and easy to read. So you can imagine how my heart sank when I started receiving all the replies last Thursday in response to the duplicate broadcasts.

There are few worse moments (at work, anyway) than pressing a button to send an email and then wishing you hadn't ... knowing you can't take it back. Now multiply that times 8,000. Yikes. So I would like to apologize to all of you for the trouble! As far as we can tell, it happened because I was broadcasting remotely. So I don't expect a repeat performance.

Many of you sent emails. I'm afraid others tried, but were unable to get through (my box overflowed). Some of the messages were short: "You might want to check you settings." Some were informative: "I love this newsletter but I have received 3 of the same one at 1:47; 2:20 and 3:04 today." Others were angry: "Why on earth have you emailed 4 copies of the same thing today???? This is annoying." or "Enuf already." And several were funny:

"I think 4 of these newsletters is enough today."
"I like the material okay but you are sending 4 copies of it to my account. If we could lower it to one it would be better!"
"They just keep coming! Make it stop! Please, in the name of all that’s good and decent in this world, make it stop!!!!!!!"
And my favorite: "Stop! I have received this several times today. Are you sending it from Kinko’s, the library and all your new stranger-friends?"

I'm sharing this with you because I know many of you have publications of your own. A newsletter only exists as an agreement between a publisher and a reader. And it's good to be reminded every once in a while how easy it is for something to go wrong ... and how frustrating that can be for the recipients.

That said, there's lots of good stuff for you below. I hope you enjoy it. Onward and upward!

Happy exchanging,

Val Frazee
Moderator, Know-How Exchange
MarketingProfs.com

GOING, GOING, GONE!

Here are KHE's 10 oldest questions. They're likely to close soon. Have an idea to offer? Better do it now!

RESOURCE REFERRAL: COMPUTER PROTECTION

sweetasman01 asked me to share with you a link to a site that offers several free programs.

"This site provides some useful tools for keeping peoples' computers safe from hackers. I really recommend the id blaster. It changes the IP address of the computer every 30 seconds, so people can't track the pages you look at on the Internet. There is also the MRU shredder. This program wipes the most recently used files menus from the computer so hackers can't see what programs you have used. The spywear guard stops mel-wear and ad-wear before it even gets installed on your computer."

Resource: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/downloads.html

I'm always looking for resources to share with our readers. If you know of one, send me a blurb. I'll send you 250 Question Points.

WARNING: May Cause Coworkers to Stare

Premium content from the 'Profs.
It's creepy how much you'll learn.Click here to read more.

LESSONS LEARNED: COPY FIRST? OR DESIGN?

Earlier this month cwbysfan1 asked the question: When you're putting a Web site together, which comes first - copy or design? Since many of us are developing sites or contemplating redesigns, this is a good conversation to learn some things from.

kwinters: The way that we did it was we decided what content we wanted and made a rough outline. Then we found a list of sites, some similar in business nature others not, and gave them to the designer and told him what we liked about each. Then we asked the designer to come up with a couple of ideas, and we thought of our own ideas in the meantime. At our next meeting we began to hash it out.

vevolution: Copy comes after you have completed your creative aspects. Of course you need to understand the high-level concept of what the categories/types of content will be, as that is integral to the creative. The detail copy has to wait until you have mapped out the web structure and settled on a format.

Frances: My opinion is that it should be done at the same time: I find that one of the success factors in web site design is the amount of collaboration between writers and designers.

Deremiah, *CPE: Personally, I'm all for writing down things first. This is because when we begin with pencil and paper, rough sketches and notes, our ideas can be refined. [Skipping this step would be like] starting a business without (at least) a sketch of an idea for a business plan.

LJW: It depends totally on the purpose of your website. Why do you want a website? Who is it for? What do you want them to do? What's in it for them? If you have reason to submit your site to a search engine, then you will need to concentrate on making it search-engine friendly. Search engines like words not graphics. ... So start with the words.

SRyan: Don't stall the launch of an important website because all of the content/copy isn't ready. Get your designer to help you plan for staged releases, and plan for testing visitor traffic patterns along the way. Good content management tools will help if you want to update the copy frequently, too. Keep it human, friendly, and usable!

Steve Wasiura: Write all your content first. Then if you decide you still want a website, (after you realize how hard it is to write GOOD content), contact a web designer to convert it all to HTML. Put it online so the search engines will crawl your content. Then discuss who your website visitors are and how they will use the website, to come up with a usable design. Then when all the design is done, do your usability testing. ... Wash, rinse, repeat.

Michele: You do not start with either the copy or the design - you start with the strategy! The strategy includes things that have been mentioned above - the site architecture (flow), the target markets, the site purpose. If it is a technically complicated site, then you would do a technical specifications document, which would contain elements like the database structure. Once the architecture is complete, the design and copy can run in parallel.

km2000: Basically, you need to be sure that what you're creating online will be useful to your target market. In other words, what's your purpose for creating the site? Once you know your purpose, figure out the best way to get that across (your content & design) and then review it to make sure that the design & content reflect your purpose and are easy to use. So, to summarize: content & design can be developed in tandem, but only AFTER you've clearly defined the purpose & the best way to achieve it.

kimbiqua: My big fear in all of your suggestions is that by writing content first, you are almost guaranteed to write too much. It's not a white paper. You can't put all the details on your site. So I suggest you do strategy and a site map first. ... Then have the copywriter fine-tune and fit the copy to the layout. ... If you have details to convey, do a PDF or send them your sales materials in the mail.

Mac: Michele is dead on. Get your strategy down cold first. Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Then write it up. Short, sweet, to the point. Then get the Web designer to package it effectively and attractively.

The DN Group: I highly recommend that your first step be to write the website copy (emphasizing the keywords that are most likely to lead "searchers" to your site) and determine the sitemap (for the most intuititive, user-friendly navigation). Your second step would be to provide clear creative direction (along with the website copy and sitemap) to the web designer.

The Question: Copy First? Or Look-and-feel First?

TIPS & TRICKS: SEARCH QUESTIONS

In a recent KHE discussion thead we were brainstorming about what instructions we could add to the Search Questions page to make it easier for members to use. We know there are some functional improvements we would like to make eventually. But in the meantime, telemoxie made a good suggestion, so I thought I would pass it along.

He pointed out that it's pretty easy to use Google's Advanced Search form to get back search results in our forum. This enables you to use AND, OR, NEAR, SAME and all the Boolean operators. Here's how you do it.

Go to: http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
In the domain box enter: marketingprofs.com
Press the Search button
Voila! You have more precise search results

You might want to give this a try and see if it speeds up your search process.

Have a question? Ask the experts.

Post a brief synopsis below, and invite other members to offer their feedback.

My Question Title

COMMUNITY LEADERS

As of this week, these are our superstars! The Most Inquisitive are those who have asked the most questions. (Where there's a tie, we broke it based on number of points they offered for their questions.) The Most Expert are those with the highest number of Cumulative Points (given to them by question authors for offering helpful answers).

Most Inquisitive

Jett

Val (Moderator)

kwinters

Jay P A R K H E

whitefeud

AprilGuy

Richard B

Den E V

Noel

lsebbens

Most Expert

Jett

mbarber

Jim Deveau/Catalyst

gerardodada

Michele

Pepper Blue

aosterday

amandavega

JBtron

kwinters

NOTE: These are our top members as of midday July 30, 2004

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: MEET JCMEDINAVE

Juan Carlos Medina Velandia, also known as jcmedinave, is member No. 3855 (out of 270,000). That means he's been with MarketingProfs since the very beginning. He is also the first KHE member in Colombia we have profiled. Please read on to learn more about him.

Where are you based?
Bogota, Colombia, in South America.

What do you do in real-life?
My past expertise was in banking services. And now I'm working hard to develop my own business, around training and consulting. I am specifically focused on customer relations.

How did you find KHE?
I really love marketing and Internet media. It was easy to find the MarketingProfs site, and of course, KHE is a wonderful place.

What kinds of questions do you enjoy most?
I enjoy all questions that engage my brain and my heart. Areas of interest include business development or business focus, creativity, customer loyalty, strategy, sensible feelings, competition, new products and services.

Describe a specific discussion you learned something from.
I marvel about KHE, in general. It is incredible to have the opportunity for learning and giving help at the same time and place and around the whole world. You can talk about candles or gym services or big strategic issues - from anywhere.

How did you get started in marketing?
At my university I had the opportunity to immerse myself in this wonderful subject of marketing. I am 44 years old and I will never stop learning or appreciating this powerful tool and way of life.

What is your next career objective?
I would like to be recognized as a helpful person - a virtual helpful person - someone knowledgable about business and training topics related to customer concerns, marketing, service, creativity, strategic planning and emotional intelligence.

What is the value KHE provides to you?
KHE provides me the opportunity to help and receive help, know new and wonderful people and open my mind and heart to them. I hope to do it business in the future.

Have you made any offline connections?
Not yet, but I will be glad to. My English is not as fluent as I would like, but I am working hard to improve it in order to make new win-win connections.

Do you have any advice for new members?
I invite everybody to actively participate. The only way to increase your knowledge and experience is to participate. Ask and answer questions, get involved in the needs of others, be more helpful, accept differences, open your minds and hearts. I believe that if you want to receive, you will need first to give.

Is there anything else you would like to say?
Colombia is a wonderful country. Of course we have problems. Of course there are a few bad people. But the majority of residents are kind, intelligent, charming, nice, warm, hard-working and fabulous people. I invite you to come to my country, and I will be your host. Thanks to the KHE community, and a big hand to MarketingProfs and the people who work for it.

COMMUNITY STATS

Active Unique Participants (to date): 2,165
Closed Questions (to date): 2,233
Currently Open Questions: 166
Total Responses (to date): 16,828
Subscribers to this newsletter: 8,136

YOUR ACCOUNT SUMMARY

These numbers come directly from YOUR profile. Question Points tells you how many points you have available for asking questions in the forum. Expert Points indicates your standing in the community based on answers you have posted. Visit this FAQ, if you want to know more.

Question Points: %%PointsBalance%%
Expert Points: %%PointsCum%%

Click here to buy more Question Points

SPECIAL THANKS

Thank you, sweetasman01 and jcmedinave, for providing content for this newsletter. And thanks to all the following community members who have emailed or posted suggestions, technical reports or questions in the last week. Your feedback and energy drives this community's development. We couldn't do it without you. Seriously!

cookie, mike, guillermo.reyes, v.a.martinez, shealy, metacrown, megan , conniedubya, reneshph, karyn.kozo, tnue, janedrinkwalter, julieh, dsmith, angelajohnson, eric, jbush, bharmel, david.kart, gwengeiser, jowens, mchumsae, preswinslow, summer bezjak, lbourns, gdmiller, michaelhosto, nschiavo, sbeckmanprint, Celia Triplett, cathleen.blair, Catherine, sanford, lvasko, page_seville, Peter (helpUhire), SRyan, Michele, JBtron, Nicolas, Jett, ASVP/ChrisB, Jim Deveau/Catalyst, mbarber, Vevolution, Pepper Blue, sauk1, Peter Maple, Radu, concarp, , conceicosta, eugene, kalpeshvadera, oldnews, tjh, gerardodada, amandavega, Nila Nealy, htearse, hbasheer, johanschepers, ines, clarice, kwinters, frank2u, madelynk, Deremiah, *CPE, thinkmor

LAST LAUGH

I like to end with a smile. So this space is dedicated to something amusing I find posted in our forum.

Leave it to Jett to raise a question about dodgeball. When he did that earlier this week he seemed to tap into a stream of nostalgia among the men of our communty. I can't say I relate (I dreaded dodgeball days when I was a kid!). Even so, this conversation made me laugh - especially Jim Deveau/Catalyst's analogy about fads and SteveB's observation about people who would like to throw something at somebody else. If you didn't spot this in the forum, you really should check it out.

The Discussion: Dodgeball?

Forum Feedback: The Know-How Exchange is awfully young. So we're still refining how things work. We have a gigantic list of action items, and your feedback helps us prioritize it. So please feel free to reply to this email with any suggestions. Thanks, in advance, for your time!

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