Step-By-Step Site Planner

This is how you build a house. First, buy lots of wood, nails, windows, doors and paint. How much, you ask? I don’t know – a lot. Next, hire a crew of carpenters and tell them to go for it. Then, ask the guy who drives the concrete mixer to pour his load wherever he thinks the driveway should go.

Blueprints? A plan? No time for all that. You know what a house looks like, and, besides, you don’t want to stifle creativity with a bunch of formalities.

Think again, Sparky. Whether you’re building the family domicile or your organization’s Website, you need to start with a plan. An effective plan starts with quality information, and to get quality information you need to ask the right questions.

Here’s a Site Planner, a collection of focused questions to help you jump-start the information gathering process. Each section (Background, Audience, Resources, Competition and Content) asks several basic questions along with “Next Steps” for detailed follow-up.

For best results involve as many stakeholders as possible — business/process owners, marketing and sales staff, IT folks, content managers, developers and customers.

Ready? Sharpen your pencils and roll up your sleeves. And good luck enhancing your Web presence!

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Mashups: The Small Business Applications

By Renee Oricchio

The next big thing involves combining two or more applications into one new mutant application that is customized for your business’ specific needs. While the business world races to catch up with Web 2.0 applications like wikis, RSS feeds, and widgets, the “next thing” is already here and starting to catch on fast: mashups.

“It’s the next natural step of the Web,” says Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst from Zapthink, an IT advisory firm based in Baltimore, Md.

Mashups are a hybrid genre of Web applications that borrow from two or more other Web applications or data sources and then literally mash them up into one unique application. For example, a company called Infopia has developed a mashup that eBay sellers can use combining the data from their online stores with the tools of Salesforce.com, such as customer relationship management (CRM), inventory management, and online performance analytics.

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