'Net Features : information

Information Efficiency Survey from Iron Mountain

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 31 May 2011 18:54:00 GMT

According to a recent survey of 5,500 company records managers conducted by Iron Mountain, it sees that while improving core business processes make more successful organization, few understand how to improve them.

Iron Mountain's survey on business efficiency asked respondedents to weight the importance of improving processes through better information management against the current state of those processes within their organization. As you might imagine, few are happy with how their core processes run. Key findings include:

- 90 percent of respondents rank process efficiency as imperative to their business goals and to the overall success of their organization

- 93 percent of respondents are dissatisfied with their revenue-generating and business-support processes and/or are actively trying to improve them;

- More than half of respondents (58 percent) have not yet experienced a “trigger” event like an audit or lawsuit that would spur improvement of records and information management processes

- Three-quarters of respondents are managing their records and information themselves, but only 35 percent of the respondents believe their program is being used by everyone in the organization.

“Information drives businesses today and can be a real competitive advantage if managed properly and efficiently,” said Sue Trombley, director of consulting for Iron Mountain. “It plays a vital role in the revenue-generating and core operational processes that keep organizations running. And it can provide valuable insight into not just your own organization but your customers, your industry, your partners and your competitors. The right policies and procedures, implemented across the entire organization, efficiently executed and regularly enforced, can give you a tremendous opportunity to unlock this advantage.”

Designing to be The Best

Mike Phillips — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:30:00 GMT

Web users have options -- thousands of them. It's one of the reasons the Web is so useful but also one of the great challenges of Web business. How do you make sure your site is the one that stands out amid the rest and that users keep coming back for more?

The answer is to provide the most relevant experience to users' expectations. Largely, this can be accomplished with a well thought-out design.

We can often get sidetracked by ideas that might seem innovative but, in the end, don't deliver on the promises our brand makes to consumers. For instance, if you're running a business blog it doesn't make much sense to have a lengthy Flash intro -- your readers are likely busy professionals that want access to information as quickly as possible.

Below are three examples of websites that are designed to cater to their core audiences. They know their users' preferences and deliver exactly what they want without delay and in a way that reinforces the brand as the best in the business.

E-commerce: Columbia Sportswear Company

Columbia's focus is durable, high-quality outdoor gear. As soon as you land on the page, the outdoor mood is set -- a lake and trees frame the page and each product photo features an outdoor scene.

What's most impressive about this website can be seen at the top-right and bottom-left of the page, "shop by activity." Columbia knows that its customers are looking for specialized gear that will be appropriate for an outdoor activity -- fishing, hunting, trail, water, etc. So, users can click on the activity then be presented with appropriate jackets, pants, shoes, hats and more, for each activity. Not only is this convenient for the shopper (as most of these activities require more than one piece of special gear), but gives Columbia an opportunity to cross-sell in a most sensible way.

Content: National Geographic

National Geographic is known best for amazing photography and exploring the farthest corners of the world.

Landing on the website, the user is immediately sucked in by a stunning photograph. Or, transfixed. And that gives the site just long enough to scroll through five featured stories ranging from nature to culture and science. There's a photograph of the day, featured video and highlighted links to encourage exploration of National Geographic's award-winning content.

Further down the page is the Nat Geo TV schedule, options to get involved with the community and links to subscribe to their publications. The site does an outstanding job of presenting exclusive content -- exactly what visitors want. Apart from links to Facebook, Twitter and other social sites, there is no encroachment of content from other sources.

Information: Baseball-Reference.com

It's not pretty, but Baseball-Reference.com delivers exactly what its users want -- quick and easy access to information, and lots of it.

This site is a stripped-down treasure trove of baseball statistics. When landing on the page, users are immediately presented with some of baseball's most important statistics, the standings, and a highlighted section that invites searches of its ginormous database. Further down the page is the ability to sort through data about specific teams, managers, minor leagues and even past drafts -- by year, college, position, team and more. The page is actionable and presented in a way that encourages classic research (right down to the standard underlined links) and avoids distraction, much like Google and craigslist.

What Are Users Searching For?

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:30:00 GMT

A research study from Penn State revealed that roughly 80 percent of searches are "informational" (looking for a specific fact or topic), 10 percent are "navigational" (looking to locate a specific website) and the remainder of searches are "transactional" (looking for information related to purchasing a particular product or service).

The researchers analyzed more than 1.5 million queries from hundreds of thousands of search engine users. "This research has broad implications for search engines and e-commerce if they can classify the user intent of queries in real time. This is why we wanted a computational undemanding algorithm," said Jim Jansen.

So what's the takeaway for Web professionals?
I've long been a proponent of a four step "communication" process that focuses on raising awareness, educating consumers, building trust and making the sale. The paper (Determining the informational, navigational and transactional intent of Web queries" presented by Jansen and Penn State work well with this approach and it lasers in on how we as business owners should be focusing our promotional efforts - fostering consumer reviews, engaging in SEO and SEM for branding and producing content which informs and educates prospects.