Accessibility

The World Health Organization estimates that 15% of the world population is disabled. After the initial shock about that statistic sets in (that is a lot more than I expected), you may ask why I’m writing about it.

People with disabilities are on the web every day, trying to use your product, just like their non-disabled peers. However, I’m willing to bet that accessibility is an afterthought as you design and build. That does not make you a bad person. Far from it. It just makes you unaware. Unaware that you are ignoring a significant number of users who may find your site, who may want to signup for your site or even pay you money. Your particular user base may over or under index, but even if a conservative estimate is just 5%, you should address this issue. Imagine if your dev team told you they would no longer support a browser that accounted for 5-10% of your traffic? Seems crazy, I know. That is effectively what you are doing when you ignore accessibility on your site. Continue reading “Accessibility” →

Kill your email

Communication is the lifeblood of a business. Without it, there is confusion, misalignment, wasted effort, missed opportunities, poor performance, and failure. Email revolutionized communications. Email reduced the time to communicate AND increased information density at the same time. The ROI on those simultaneous improvements to communication was incomparable. Rapid adoption ensued and everyone became glued to their email.

As with most technologies, and the innovations that disrupt them, email reached (a long time ago) a mature state. We are now entering a post-email age. New forms of communication are emerging that push the boundaries to an even more efficient frontier.

Email suffers from some significant shortcomings that are no longer justified in the face of new solutions. There are now solutions, from Trello to Slack to Basecamp, that better optimize both variables of the ROI.

What does this mean for you?

Try to move all your communications off of email. That might sound crazy, but just try it. Especially if you are a PM.

Encourage face to face interactions when there is a need for synchronous information exchanges. Face to face will always will be the best form of communication. Use new tools when there is a need for asynchronous information exchanges.

We are currently experimenting with some new processes where email is not allowed. The early results are positive. Stakeholders are more active participants. They are providing better information, faster. They have more clarity of thought.

But, why is that?

My hypothesis is that email has become a crutch. Response time often comes at the expense of a thoughtful response. By changing the medium, it forces people to take a bit more time and organize their thoughts. The end result is that the communication is more information rich and actionable. The information is more dense, but the amount of time it took to communicate (using the new tools) is equal to that of email. Thus, the ROI is better on that new form of communication, when compared to email.

Plus, no longer being a slave to your inbox is amazing. At first, you are anxious because you don’t have a ton of email – but then you realize – that’s the point. You and your team will be more productive. Stakeholders are better equipped with the info they need. And you can finally start doing all that work that has piled up because you had been spending so much time responding to emails!

What do you think? Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.

A Matter of Time

There’s been a lot of consternation lately about the cost of higher education, skyrocketing student loans and the unfortunate masses of recent grads who only seem to be finding unemployment and financial dependency. The complexity of the entire situation is sufficient to have me writing non-stop for years to come. Everyone has their own opinion and only a small subset have bothered to try and provide a solution. A recent article on Inside Higher Ed, normally a good source of opinion in the higher ed space, caught my attention. It was written by the President of Drake University, David Maxwell.

The basic premise of the article is that college administrators need to play a good offensive attack in order to defend themselves against the negative onslaught brought upon them by the media with respect to college affordability, student outcomes and the true value of a college, specifically, liberal arts, degree. Administrators need to re-shape the argument about college being excessively expensive and “making an increasingly broad sector of the public suspicious of our relevance, quality and integrity.”

Maxwell then calls for his colleagues to “find ways to collectively guide the national discourse back to a position of truth — of fact-based information that is relevant to the needs and aspirations of prospective students and their families — and then ensure that our institutions communicate our individual values, strengths and demonstrable outcomes in the context of an accurate and nuanced narrative.”

YES! FINALLY! Someone wants to bring fact-based information to the table to help the families and students find the best, most effective schools that enable the best outcomes. I can’t believe a school administrator has said something like this. In print, no less. For people to see! No hiding from it now, Mr. Maxwell.

Continue reading “A Matter of Time” →