The year ahead

So, firstly, it’s been far too long since my last blog post.  No excuses other than time management issues and the launch or update of a number of sites over the Christmas and New Year period.

That’s in the past and it’s time to look at the year ahead.  I’ve already planned my goals for the year but I’ve not planned specifics, there are no “New Year’s Resolutions”, they’re too easy to break and most are so vague that they mean nothing.

Also, in the field that I work, things are changing all the time and not only is keeping up with them all impossible, you never know which one of them is going to change the way you work completely.

The only thing I do know is mobile is going to be big this year, bigger than it’s ever been before and it’s just going to keep getting bigger.  Access from mobile / smart phones and tablets like the iPad are going to make it so that more people can access the Internet from more places than ever before.

One aspect of this is making sure I develop websites that, when viewed on these devices, look and work as well as they do as if you were accessing them on a desktop or laptop computer.

Another aspect is one of my goals for the year, something I need to take time out and think about.  If staff in a particular business had the ability to access a private area of their website what would they do with it?  If they could view items, what would they want to view?  If they could contribute information, what would it be?  If they could use Internet technology to help their company from an internal viewpoint (rather than the external viewpoint of most websites i.e. getting more customers for the business), what they want to do?

For example, I’ve converted a fairly complex sales order process (20 steps, with 5 tasks in each, involving at least 10 members of staff at each stage) from a paper based system completely over to a full online system.  This helps the company keep track of where there orders are, makes sure staff keep up to date with the work they have to do, helps management find any bottle necks in the process and helps their customers who can call the firm and find out straight away where in the process their order is.  Things like this only scratch the surface of what is possible though.  As usual, it’s the imagination of people using these sorts of systems that limit what they can do.

That’s part of what I’ve got going on this year, there’s plenty more though…