Living at the Corner of Awesome and Pedagogy

Our valiant software developer, who’s helping us build out the eldritch shenanigans that make up the backend of any website, pointed out that one of the key failings of the current “infotainment” that you can find on our home page is that it does not appear to be connected in any rational way to the stuff that we talk about on the blog. Fair cop. Our identity crisis is a longstanding tradition. We’re like Edina Monsoon, wanting people to think that we’re all of these types of things. The good news: it’s the web. You can devise a system whereby people do in fact think you’re all types of things. Even better, your dodecahedron persona can be rotated, so the that proper face is front and center when such-and-such campaign, ad word, or referral arrives. Happily (maddeningly?), the process is never done.

Our specific problem (wedding the social media/web 2.0 ramblings with our consulting practice) has forced me to dig deep into the goals that we hope to achieve when people visit. What are we seeking to impart? What do we want a visitor to come away with? Luckily, Smashing Magazine just posted a brilliant article about Strategic Design. I highly recommend it even if you know exactly what you’re doing (and you don’t). It provides a scaffolding to ask yourself the hard questions about your site, how it is designed, and what you can do to make it better.

However, before you imagine that all you need are div tag jugglers with mad skills, consider Justin Kistner’s recent wise words to me (I’m paraphrasing): “I always tell clients to pour a year’s worth of content into their site before they spend a dime on design.” His point is that before you know what you need, you need to know who you are. The Smashing article helps with that. At the end of the day, however, you may need to define your terms amongst yourselves.

We’re doing that later this month, in anticipation of the Big Launch of the EASCI Store‘s Curriculum and Awesome Stuff divisions. As we collectively breathe deep in the aftermath of the election, consider your organization’s core values, and where they will take you in 2009.