The nature of email, of course, is communication.

I’ve worked with people who might have scanned the subject lines for something interesting but I could never rely on them having read an email I sent. Their inboxes became a communication void.

If I wanted them to read an email I had to send them an instant message or SMS to tell them I sent an email I wanted them to read. Other times I’d send the email and then print it out and put it on their desk. It was not a very efficient way to communicate.

It might take anywhere between 30-60 seconds to reply to an email.

Sometimes the reply might only require “Thanks” and then it takes even less time.

As part of my work with Boxcutters I often have a need to email US-based television publicists. It’s becoming an increasingly futile exercise. They never reply. I may as well shout my requests across the Pacific Ocean.

If they can’t help me, then I’d at least like a simple:

I’m sorry but we don’t deal with [Australians / Podcasts / People we've never heard of].

Or even the generic:

We can’t assist you with your request at this time.

An email that requires a lot of attention could be acknowledged really quickly with something like:

Thanks, I’ve flagged this to read later and I’ll let you know my thoughts within a week.

That says a lot. It says: “I know you’re telling me something you think is important but please understand that I’m busy and I can’t give it my full attention right now. I will read it and let you know what I think in my own time.”

This is called managing expectations in email. Email doesn’t need an instant response. A lot of email only needs a response at some stage that day. Some needs a response at some stage that week. Some doesn’t need any response at all.

You need to work out your own criteria for prioritising email but be one hundred percent sure that if someone has taken the time to write to you personally, they are hoping for some kind of reply or acknowledgement that you are paying attention.

Similarly, if you’re sending an email, maybe include a line about how soon you need a reply. It will help the other person formulate their response. And please, if something is really urgent, use the telephone.

Replying to email doesn’t take very long, doesn’t cost much but works wonders to strengthen relationships.

More importantly, in business we need to see what other people have done to learn from their mistakes and successes.

At Soupgiant we call ourselves Web Producers. We produce the Web. So I try to look for people who have successes in that field. People like Jason Calacanis and Leo Laporte have built success for themselves out of the web.

They could be compared to sporting greats like Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter. They never gave up, they tried to overcome their obstacles and they worked damn hard to become who they are. But there are more differences than similarities.

The difference in business is the risks we take. It can take between five and ten years to know if a business is ever going to be successful. In sport the wins and losses are almost instantaneous by comparison.

In business you have to sit with a decision for years before you see fruit. It could be years in which there is very little income. It’s also years in which you could be earning more money elsewhere.

It’s all about context. There’s no point in trying to be the Ian Healy of the Web. He was a cricketer and there is no comparison.

Everybody who succeeds in their area works hard. The people who succeed in our area work hard doing what we do.

It’s time we started sharing our own stories, our own opinions and our discussions of the risks we take. We can learn from each other in our own areas by making comparisons that actually make sense.

So we have this blog. Jason Calacanis has a mailing list that is worth subscribing to (even if he does make too many sports analogies). Leo Laporte has the TWiT network of Podcasts. 37 Signals has the Signal vs Noise blog and two books. Molly Holzschlag has her (rarely updated) blog and many books. Jeffrey Zeldman has a blog, a video podcast and many books.

Those are some of the people we look to for advice, examples, inspiration and experience. We’d love to hear you share some yours.

We may have been able to fudge it. Call us stupid, but we don’t think ‘fudging it’ is the way to keep clients happy or maintain a low client turnover.

In this situation there are two options:

1. Quote ludicrously high with the aim of missing out on the job. In the event the quote is accepted, the job can be outsourced with a tidy profit.
2. Tell the truth and decline the work

We chose the latter option and used the opportunity to explain our areas of expertise. Selling the company, not the lie.

The natural fear is the potential client will storm out of the meeting, muttering obscenities under their breath.

What actually happens is the potential client realises their current project – or at least the original part of their current project – is a bad fit. They also realise they’re not dealing with sleazy salesmen willing to say anything to get a job and deal with the consequences later.

The second realisation sells a company. It’s something that can be used to convert a single project into a long term relationship.

Ludicrously high quoting, lies or fudging a task may get you more clients but getting clients isn’t the aim, the real aim is to keep them.

My instant response, whenever somebody starts a conversation like this is to ask them why they want a website. At least that’s what it used to be. Apparently it’s bad business to tell people they don’t need what it is you’re selling. I held off for as long as I could. The conversation went something like this:

“How much would you charge for a basic website?”
“For a website with original graphic design using a content management system you’re looking at a minimum of a few thousand dollars. It varies depending on what functionality you want on the site.”
“OK. I called up this place that advertises on the radio. You know, ‘quick and simple websites from $495′?”
“I can’t say I’ve heard the ad.”
“Well, it got really weird. They kept calling me and now they keep emailing me. I don’t really want to use them now. They’re too much like stalkers.”

We’ve all heard about how, when something sounds like too much of a bargain to be true, it probably is. This was definitely the case with “quick and simple websites from $495″. It turned out that for $495 you could have 3 pages. Extra pages cost more money and then there were the ongoing costs of hosting, a monthly cost of licensing their CMS and who knows what other hidden costs.

Let’s go back one step. They were charging per page. I remember people charging per page back in 1997, when sites were static. In fact, charging per page implies that they’re not using a CMS. So why then are they charging for CMS licensing?

So I told her what I thought she needed. She’s a physiotherapist and her business relies on her expertise in the area. A blog about physiotherapy, new techniques, stretching the right way, and avoiding injury could really help build her profile as an expert in the area.

“But a blog is a lot of work,” I told her. “Not keeping it up-to-date can do as much damage to your reputation as maintaining the blog will improve it.”

She already works long hours and I knew she didn’t want more work. So finally I asked her what she thinks she can get from a website. I pointed out to her that her business is already at capacity. Not a single slot is left vacant all week.

It turns out that an organisation for a new technique she’s been accredited with wants to put a link to her website on their website. That’s all. In fact, that’s enough. The website could help her expand her business using this new technique.

It reminded me why I ask the question of potentially new clients. It means we’re going to build the right website for them if they actually need something built. If a client actually has a need for a new website then we can work towards that need. It helps us advise them on content, style and structure. These are all services that “quick and simple websites from $495″ won’t provide.

The problem, though, is that businesses like those that advertise web production services at prices that seem too good to be true create an expectation in the market-place. They prey on those who don’t know enough about what they’re purchasing, lock them into systems where they end up paying more over time without ever actually giving them value for money.

Thinking, on the other hand, can lead to something. Ideas come out of nowhere. We can’t hold onto them. We shouldn’t even try. Ideas are best blurted out and, subsequently, best thought over.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people talk about brainstorming and still it’s such a rarity in the business world. I can think of a few reasons why:

1. “Brainstorming” is a terrible word. It sounds like an activity one might do at a corporate retreat. Writers call it “workshopping” which is almost as bad but feels a little more consultative and inclusive.
2. Thinking is hard.
3. People are scared that maybe their ideas are no good. Further investigation might prove that their idea is bad and that could lead to a blow to self-esteem.

I’m guilty of this. I’ve sat in meetings and not wanted to speak up in case my idea was no good. I’ve also sat in meetings when other people have had ideas and responded internally or sometimes (and shamefully) orally that the idea was no good.

This is horribly destructive behaviour. Nothing good comes of rejecting an idea outright. The truth is that ideas are not useless. I lied. Ideas have one very important use. They are starting points.

I remember one meeting in which I was presented with an exceptionally startling idea. It involved completely abandoning all the work that came before and changing direction. “Let’s completely abandon all the work that we’ve done and focus on this other thing,” was actually the starting point of the meeting. It’s a terrifying prospect.

It’s terrifying because, apart from being precious about all the work already done, this idea might lead us down the wrong path. “Might” is an important word here because wherever there’s a “might” there is similarly a “might not”. Both paths need to be embraced when presented with an idea.

So we started doing something nobody else discussing the idea had done. We started investigating it. We drew sketches on bits of paper. We asked each other questions, answered them and made notes. We thought about ways we could make something that worked.

We all fought that instinct that causes us to say “no” instantly. Instead we asked more questions. “No” doesn’t get you anywhere but questions about potential problems can lead to solutions.

What we ended up with was a long way from the original idea. Instead, it was a set of building blocks on which to plan something new and potentially wonderful. At the end of it we all felt pretty positive about the work we had done.

Our final concept might never come to fruition but the client now has enough information to make a decision. That’s all they really wanted, and all we had to do was think about it.

Rather than try to convince me that anyone could answer my mobile phone, the operator agreed it would be foolish to give out such details. He gave me his extension number, and a phone number where I could verify he was from the tax office.

Being the cynical sort, or paranoid (I’ll let you decide), I googled the ATO’s website to confirm the number. It was legitimate. I called back and reconnected to the operator immediately. The entire process took less than 30 seconds.

It got me thinking: Googling ‘<number> site:ato.gov.au’ in hope the ATO had slipped up and the non-public number was on their website was an inefficient step.

A more efficient way to confirm the number would be for the operator to give out an ATO URL: ato.gov.au/<number> being the logical choice. At the URL, there could be a short message informing the visitor that the number is an ATO phone number. Robots.txt would be used to exclude search engines from indexing that URL.

It’s a simple fix that costs the ATO very little and protects them and their tax payers.

I was running this idea past fellow giant Josh, and he put forward a problem with my solution. Rather than spoil the fun, I’ll let Josh put forward his side of the story at a later date.

There are many reasons I respected my grandfather. After all, he was my grandfather. I could have chosen to write that he became a full-time carer of my grandmother in his 80s, how active he was in his church community, or any number of things.

But it’s his decision to get a computer and onto the internet about three years ago, aged 94 that prompts this piece. Not that this was his greatest achievement, but because we write about the internet here.

To put this into perspective, he was 25 when Alan Turing described the Turing Machine and 65 when the Apple II launched. He was already 80 years old when Microsoft released Windows 3.1.

It would be re-writing of history to say that granddad was the most competent computer user in the world. A few months ago he left this message on my answering machine:

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. <click>

I called back a few minutes later and he was slightly upset because he’d lost an email he’d written to my sister. For people my age, this wouldn’t be a big deal — we know how and where to look for a stray email. If the message is completely lost, using computers and sending emails is our second nature so it takes only a few moments to recompose ourselves and the email.

Another time, he’d managed to block my aunt and uncle’s email address in Outlook and needed help unblocking it.

Aged 94, Granddad gave it a try. Years later and weeks before he passed away, he was still trying to learn more about the software on his computer. I could not be prouder of having a man like that as my granddad. He learnt from us and we learnt from him.

If you’re not willing to try something because you think you’re too old, try anyway and you might surprise yourself. If you don’t want to try, that’s fine too.

Dedicated to Ron Feltscheer, Jan 1^st 1912 ? Nov 22^nd 2009.

Web design is the skill of creating presentations of content (usually hypertext or hypermedia) that is delivered to an end-user through the World Wide Web, by way of a Web browser or other Web-enabled software like Internet television clients, microblogging clients and RSS readers.

So, ‘creating presentations’ you say. To call oneself a ‘Web Designer’ is about as accurate as saying ‘I work with computers’.

Saving files in HTML format is now a common feature in Office 2000 programs. In other words, you can save Word documents in HTML format and you can publish Excel workbooks as Web pages.
– taken from Opening and saving files in Office

For years now we’ve been able to export Microsoft Word documents as HTML files. By Wikipedia’s definition, everybody everywhere who has ever created a word document could be called a ‘Web Designer’.

This topic came up recently because we had the phrase ‘web designer’, or something like it, on our About page. Meanwhile, on our portfolio page we had some, admittedly ambiguous, text about a specific piece of work we had done before Soupgiant was created.

This caused confusion. We received a demanding email from the graphic designers responsible for that work that we explain ourselves. Apparently their client saw our site and said “somebody’s taking credit for your design work”.

It took a little while before we worked out where the confusion. At no point did we intend to take credit for the design. As a matter of course we outsource all our graphic design because that is not our skill-set.

The common term is ‘Web Design’, but we don’t do design. Can we be ‘Web Engineers’ without having an engineering degree? What about ‘Web Architects’?

We’ve decided to go with the term ‘Web Production’ because what we do is more akin to a Producer’s role than anything else. We coordinate the production of websites and content. We can create, or organise the creation of, audio and video for podcasts. We can code but we also work with information architecture, testing, usability, and accessibility.

We bring together all the things that go into making a website. We stay up-to-date on technologies to ensure our clients get the best product possible for their budget. We coordinate, we define, we build, we code, we acquire, we provide, but we do not design. At least, we don’t do it well. We hire graphic designers to do that because that’s their area of expertise.

Our area of expertise is creating excellent, accessible and functional websites using every resource we have at our disposal.

I firmly believe that it’s only in a podcast such an interview is possible

Neighbours, in Australia to this day, twenty [odd] years down the track, for me, poses the odd problem. The old guard of casting agents in Australia still don’t take you seriously.

Post Neighbours [a] small role in [My Husband, My Killer] had people [saying] “Crikey, Craig, who knew” We think the boy may be able to act.

Craig McLachlan

On traditional media, it’s possible the guest would have been more guarded. I don’t know if that’s the case for McLachlan but certainly other guests have worried that they’ve caused trouble following a podcast interview.

As the interview went past its allotted time, Josh looked over the running sheet and started bumping other segments. 33 minutes later, all other segments had been bumped and it was time to finish the show. Having worked around the edges of mainstream media previously, I know this couldn’t happen; while a schedule isn’t set in concrete, it’s beginning to dry.

The key to this flexibility is a niche audience. While, by definition, the audience is small, it’s loyal and it’s interested. Without the boundaries of broadcast media, niche can take on a new meaning. Leo Laporte’s TWiT Network claims 2.6 million downloads a month — small compared to network television, but nothing to be sneezed at.

Advertising to a Niche

Advertising on traditional broadcast media, such as TV, is advertising with a scatter gun. Anyone could be watching: from a 34 year-old man to a 62 year-old grandmother. One will be more interested in the next generation iPhone than the other. Ratings will indicate which programme the 34 year-old is more likely to be watching but there will be a few grandmothers watching too and the network will charge for their eyes. How the television is being watched needs to be considered too: Are they watching while eating dinner? Reading with the sound down? Or have they left the room to make a coffee?

On a single subject podcast, every member of the audience is interested in the subject — so interested they’ve actively sought out a podcast. Using Boxcutters as an example, the audience may or may not be interested in the next generation iPhone, but they’d be interested in box sets of the Wire, the West Wing, Deadwood, and Six Feet Under.

If you need assistance setting up a podcast for your business, event, or group, Josh and Peter at Soupgiant can help.

Boxcutters is presented by Josh Kinal, John Richards, and, Brett Cropley.

Much like everything else that needs doing when starting up, it is the most important thing to do. Books about building a new business are full of suggestions about the most important thing to do. I suppose listing something and just saying it’s a helpful tool for getting the business on track is just not strong enough for the self-help book market.

I first read about assigning roles in The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber. It seemed to make sense. It’s a really good way to get a quick understanding of all aspects of the business.

We sat down and tried to list all the departments that a business has: HR, Accounts; Sales; Legal; Project management; etcetera. Then we started thinking about all the other tasks that don’t have a “department” as such: copy editing; version control; domain name renewals; social networking; anything else we could think of.

There are only two of us and it can feel silly to assign roles when there are only two people in a brand new business. The thing is, there won’t always be only two of us. We plan to grow quickly and well. The only way to do that is make sure we have all the roles in the business outlined so that a new employee can take over some of those roles.

The thing is, we’re both going to be working on every part of the business. So what we did, instead of saying “I’ll do this and you do that”, is to just split roles into who’s taking the lead on each.

That way there’s no demarkation issue on roles. We don’t step on each other’s toes or cut each other’s lunch. A partnership is still a partnership. We are both involved in every part of the business but now, when a process falls over, we can see whose responsibility it was. We can look at why it wasn’t taken care of.

And that is a really important part of running a business.