I have been saying for a while now that technology and communication have fused into one discipline. I don’t think you can communicate effectively in our culture without using digital media. I was reminded of that Saturday night during my late dinner in a tiny Armenian restaurant in Madrid. Restaurant Vartan has been in business for over 33 years. It does not have a website and it is tucked away in a side street away from the city crowded streets. If you do not look for it diligently, you’ll miss it altogether. The fact that I have never been to Madrid and that there are over 3,000 sit-down restaurants in the city to choose from, and that I found my way into Vartan was a feat against all odds. While the establishment does not have a web presence, I found great reviews on the Trip Advisor app on my iPhone.…

How far into the future should your technology plan look? That’s a question I am asked often these days. Technology can be a capital expenditure for businesses and not-for-profits. It seems like yesterday I was sitting in board meetings considering investing in technology, websites, servers, and productivity tools that we expected to be useful for “the next 10 years.” Oh my, how times have changed. Unfortunately today I run into all sorts of limitation issues when clients who bought expensive technology 5 years ago want to continue to use it in today’s context. The proliferation and democratization of technology has taken innovation from the large software and hardware developers such as Microsoft and has moved them down to the level of a college kid who starts a little online tool for his friends based on an open-source platform we now call Facebook. It seems like every day something amazing has…

There I sat hearing the same lame excuses I’ve heard for the past 12 months from the staff of a very large not for profit: “we can’t do it because IT told us it would take 5 years before we can have online registration and payments.”  Are you kidding me!? It’s been over 8 hours since our meeting and I’m still outraged at the ridiculous notion that a multi-million dollar organization cannot, let me rephrase, will not figure out how to make something as common as an online sign up forms work system wide. Sadly, in this case,  IT is killing the organization. I sound like a broken record on this issue, but marketing should drive your web strategy and not IT. Really.  Your online presence lives or dies on the end-user experience. If people can find what they’re looking for, if they can intuitive navigate the site and complete…