A friend of mine recently reviewed a book chapter for me, in which I examined what lies behind the concept of information overload. She asked why I’d chosen not to touch on information entropy. My answer was simple and somewhere along the lines of: “Duh?”

In the physics lab “entropy” is used to described certain states in thermodynamics. I’m no physicist, so bear with me on this one; the lab rats have been doing their best to explain things to me. So, in lay terms, entropy is used to describe

1. Energy that is no longer available (an example of this would be a car where the brakes have been applied and where energy has been lost in road friction / heat).
2. The amount of disorder or randomness in a system. Gas, as it whooshes about, being more random / disordered than a solid. (Or a group of adults who get up from the dinner table on New Year’s Eve and start dancing to Jeff Beck and Hi Ho Silver Lining being more random than the same group when sitting and eating.)

Okay, that’s the end of Thermodynamics 101.

But there’s also Information Entropy. This is very different but you need to know about the physics one  (entropy as the second law of thermodynamics) so you can ignore it completely (for the time being).

Anyway, you can trace Information Entropy back to the 1940s and Claude.E.Shannon (1916-2001), known as the father of modern digital communications and information theory and his paper, “A Mathematical Theory of Communication” (1948, Bell System Technical Journal), which looked at the engineering challenges involved in getting a message from one point to another.

The information content of a message, he theorized, could be reduced to the number of ’1′s and ’0′s it took to transmit it. This idea was gradually adopted by communications engineers and stimulated the technology which led to the binary language that underpins the digital information age. Shannon also coined the term “bit” for a binary digit.

Shannon Entropy, sits within Information Theory, the mathematical discipline that looks at how information is stored, transmitted and reproduced. It measures it, accounting for the possible variables eg a flipping a coin (2 sides) will have less entropy than rolling a dice (6 sides). While Shannon Entropy is strictly applied to the the minimum amount of binary code required to transmit a message from A to B it is also being deployed by non-mathematicians as a way of showing how much information is unequivocally captured within a message (its meaning to the recipient). Shannon himself didn’t get sidetracked by the semantic value (language comprehension and connotation) in the message, just the engineering challenge of transmitting it from A to B intact. In fact, the application of entropy to wider semantic issues of meaning hacked Shannon off quite a bit, apparently.

Time for a joke I think…

Back in the days before email. Way, way, back. People used to send messages via telegram. Such communications were expensive and often charged by the word, so people became very economic with their phraseology. This was particularly evident among professionals who used telegrams regularly – ie journalists.

Back in the 1960s a journalist sent a telegram to the home of veteran Hollywood star Cary Grant. It was a simple question, in theory, designed to establish the actor’s exact age. The telegram read: “How old Cary Grant.” The reply that came back was: “Old Cary Grant fine. How you?”  The joke, I believe, establishes the potential difference between the minimum character / bit count for information delivery and minimum required for accurate message comprehension / connotation. It would have been worth paying for the “is”.

You can also argue, well, I do, that the journalist was also applying data compression – the minimum number of words / bits required to convey the information. They fact that the journo failed shouldn’t prevent us acknowledging that they tried. You can also argue, well, I do, that the problem wasn’t the data compression but in its decompression by Cary Grant and what was probably a very knowing attempt to sidestep the sensitive subject of age.

Data compression is useful because it reduces space in information transmission and storage. But, at a language and messaging comprehension and connotation level, we ‘re also trying to apply reduction (compression) techniques so that we can dispense meaning the the minimum space / time possible. On one level this may be a practical desire to reduce issues around “information overload” but that doesn’t explain the phenomenal success of Twitter where the 140 character limit is almost winsome. Data compression at a semantic level is becoming more important if we believe that one key to resolving information overload is to reduce the amount of information people have to deal with. I have an alternative view about this which relates to how we feel about information and this was the subject of a recent survey on this blog. But I’ll save that for another day.

Okay – back into the physics lab

You remember I told you to forget all about the second law of thermodynamics for a bit? Now’s the time to start thinking about it again. What happened with Information Entropy was actually a bit of a hijack. The mathematicians kinda stole the word entropy and messed with it’s meaning a bit, on the basis that most of the population wouldn’t notice or understand. But there are aspects of thermodynamic entropy that are interestingly applicable for information and how it becomes more random / disordered as changes take place. In thermodynamics the classic example involves the ordered structure of sugar crystals compared with the disordered / random nature of sugar dissolved in water.

If you think about information and how it changes, it’s remarkably like the sugar dissolved in water. Over time, different bits of information get de-structured and mixed with other bits. It can become impossible to disentangle this information and restore it to the order of its original components. Looked at one way, this could result in knowledge. High quality information brought together, some bits lost / discarded along the way, but resulting in something different but useful. (It’s also entirely possible that there is a negative outcome possible where poor information is brought together resulting in dissatisfaction and misinformation.)

This makes for a slightly more refined version of the basic knowledge pyramid, which CDA used as the starting point for its Hierarchy of Mutuality and which is loosely modelled on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs*.

* Maslow argued that human beings required basic needs to be met in a hierarchy before they were free to realise themselves creatively and intellectually.

Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs

Knowledge Pyramid

» CDA’s Heirarchy of Mutuality

The question is, where are we going with all this? CDA is currently actively engage in development measurement systems for online engagement. We believe that these have to be a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data to be truly meaningful and that there comes a point where you have to park interpretation of the metrics; dwell times, page views, bounce rates and simply ask “How was it for you?”

Contribute to the debate

I’m currently working on a second part to the article above which will also cover The Triangle of Truth (thanks Clodagh). I’d been interested in any feedback on the argument so far.

» Email me at the lab cdacontentlab@webwordsworking.co.uk

Do me a huge favour and complete this simple survey. It will only take a 5 minutes. Work your way through the questions in the order they’re presented (don’t you dare peak ahead). Let your intuition take over. Simply opt for the answers that comes closest to your own views. And always go with your first choice.

As with so much online – there is no right and wrong.

I’ll share my findings with you, so watch this space.

» Take the lab rats’ questionnaire

Increasingly organisations understand the importance of creating the right Tone of Voice (ToV) for their communications. That tone needs to be ‘modulated’ for online delivery, where communications must be conversational and reply-focussed. Organisations are beginning to understand even that these days.

But when we converse with people face-to-face so much of what we infer and derive is based on visual cues rather than verbal ones. Online, what’s the equivalent of maintaining eye contact? As well as tone of voice think – the face of delivery.

This came to me this week when Mark Tyrrell, a very talented hypnotherapist and hypnotherapy teacher (I was lucky enough to attend one of his courses a couple of year’s back) Tweeted a New Scientist article about how we’re more likely to think other people are attractive if they’re looking straight at us and smiling.

A study at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, UK, paired nearly identical photos of computer-generated faces, with smiling or disgusted expressions. The pairs only differed in where the irises were pointed: straight at the viewer, or off to the side.

Hundreds of participants then rated the faces for sexual attractiveness, and (what I’d like to focus on) for ‘likeability’. Both men and women found faces looking straight at them to be more attractive and more likeable, even if the faces looked disgusted (though smiling faces were preferred). I think we’ll leave the sexual attractiveness of websites for another day.

I think this face of delivery is very important online because of the conversational and even intimate nature of the communication.

• We know that a brochure is not an exclusive communication (even if our name is lasered at the top).
• A letter may be personal but it isn’t (generally) intimate.
• Online communication is an intimate space because of the way we engage with the delivery system – leaning in to our computer, cradling our Blackberry in the palm of our hand…

Reviewing web content against the above – starting with the visuals

So, online, how do you give your tone of voice eye contact and a smiley face? And, when you’re reviewing web content, what measures might you use to determine the face of your current online delivery?

One place to start might appear to be the visuals you use. Ideally they should be of things and people who ‘connect’ in some way with your business. Be aware of simply purchasing shiny toothed  smiley faces from an image catalogue. There is something about model poses and a trick they use, pointing their eyes at the camera but allowing their gaze to soften. This widens the iris – in theory more attractive – but reduces the intensity of the eye-to-eye engagement.

I’m also very grateful to Richard Sedley at cScape for drawing my attention to a study that looked at how web users attention could be drawn to different parts of the screen by using the eyeline of the person in a photograph. Eg if you wanted somebody to look at a product / product offer, have someone else in the ad’ looking in the direction of the offer.

The question here is: do you want to engage with the user (in which case do you want the eyes on the screen to connect with the eyes of the user), or do you want them to be drawn to a product or service offered on the screen (in which case should the eyes on the screen connect with the product or service)? Something to ponder

But don’t stop with the visuals

But the more I thought about it the more that focusing on the visuals alone seemed to be missing the point. When we port a concept online we have to rework it for the new space. It pays not to be to literal in your interpretation of offline best practice for online. All of which begs the question… what is the ‘face’ of your website and who is it focusing on?

Welcome to my hypothesis…

I reckon the face of your website is your Home page. And in the case of larger sites, you may have several web personalities grouped together, so you might also have ‘faces’ on primary landing pages – such as the start of a big section. I’m a great believer in treating your website with the same respect and governance you would any other member of your organisation, so logic dictates that the Home page is the face. (What do you think?)

So, above and beyond the basics of a good Home page; clear layout, clear and consistent labelling, easy to follow nav, good tone of voice… how do you assess the eye contact?

Here are the basic proportions of a human face:

• traditional rules of proportion (Disagree? Take it up with Vitruvious) show the face divided into six equal squares, two by three
• the upper horizontal section ends at mid-forehead
• the lower at the base of the nose
• the eyes rest on the horizontal centre, the mouth on the centre of the lower third.

Just for fun I then overlaid these proportions on some web Home pages I liked or solicited from others who didn’t know what I planned to do. I situated the top of each Home page at the forehead line.

What I find interesting is just how much important stuff is going on in the mid-face section, around the eyes . And much of the very practical information – including links, T & Cs etc – lines up with the mouth area.

So, lab rats, where are you going with all this?

Firstly, check out how much interesting stuff is going on in and around the eyes above (about the only exception is Philips).

The lab rats are still working on this one but I strikes us that, in terms of the way you evaluate your web (and particularly, Home) page real estate, you might want to draw a smiley face on your wire frames.

1. Is there something your users can make ‘eye contact’ with – a responding human face, other strong visual, focusing information?

2. Is there a face-like quality to the page? (Keep in mind that faces are not totally symmetrical.)

3. How do you ‘feel’ when you engage with your Home page?

Not only is very engaging information concentrated around important facial elements on our examples above, but this content is written and displayed in a very ‘likeable’ way. I don’t think you should disregard the basics, including the role of the F Pattern.

But… it makes you think.

Useful links – each one takes you away from the lab, so we’ve opened them in new windows for you

>> New Scientist article

>> The eyeline of models

>> The F Pattern

>> The cScape Customer Engagement Unit blog (CDA are CEU members)

>> Mark Tyrrell’s new website – Uncommon Help

Useful links within this blog (we want to keep you here, so they open in the same window)

>> Reply-focussed communication

PS I’d be very interested to hear about the role of ‘eye contact’ and conversational tone in Asia where the rules for appropriate interaction are different.

The Stanford Prison Experiment looked at what happened psychologically when you placed some people in positions of power and other’s in positions of vulnerability (wardens and prisoners). Irrespective of their previous internal moral ‘clock’ – how would they behave?

The simulation carried out by Stanford University in the summer of 1971 was ended prematurely because of the impact it had on its university participants. Those students who were given the role of prison guards showed themselves capable of brutality. The students consigned to prisoner roles became stressed and depressed (as if their confinement were real).

Stanford, and the earlier Milgram experiment conducted at Yale University, opened up interesting questions, not just about the deeper, darker side of human nature but how we behave when we assume a role, or are put into a certain situation. As psychology professor Phil Zimbardo, who led the Stanford research team, puts it: “Situational variables can exert powerful influences over human behaviour, more so that we recognize or acknowledge.”

Okay, now the digital communication segue…

While I’m not suggesting that digital content ‘controllers’ will ever resort to beatings and electric shocks, there is often a divide between those who police the content and those who do not. These schisms can exist between online content commissioners / editors and content producers / authors. Or between active members of the content team and ‘the rest’. The rest being anybody in an organisation that doesn’t take an active role in web, email, digital messaging strategy, development and delivery. It can also exist between on and offline teams (marketing, editorial, brand…).

The Stanford experiment didn’t end prematurely because the research team had learnt everything there was to know, but because they became alarmed at how quickly the abuse of roles and situations occurred.

So in any situation where there is authority and lack of authority there is the opportunity for abuse.

I can’t make over entire organisational hierarchies on the basis of the above premise, but I can suggest discreet changes to the way online content oligarchies are handled. That may seem a small change but just think about the influence your online content has on your brand and therefore on how wider audiences perceive your organisation. Plus online is relatively young and still relatively fluid. In-house content processes are not set in stone. Change them while you still can.

Where to start?

Who are the content controllers and what power do they have? A healthy content process has checks and balances in place reflecting different content steers. This shouldn’t be a cumbersome process but a light matrix approach to ensure that core organisational values, the needs of marketing and sales, corporate information, plus the rigours of online execution and presentation are held in balance.

When changes are made to online process and / or presentation – a new website, extensions to email campaigns etc – who is consulted (and who isn’t)? It’s hard for people to be all fired up about the company website if the only time they’re consulted about it is retrospectively: “Oh, the new website launches in 3 weeks. We need your new page content ASAP. Did you not get the email?)

How do you regularly test the water in terms of existing content processes and how they are viewed internally? Zimbardo points out that at some stage there is a shift from what’s reasonable to what isn’t. How would you know if this shift happened within your organisation’s digital content process?

If existing online content processes and manifestations aren’t working, do people (outside any content claque) feel empowered to say ‘this isn’t working’ or ‘our new website is rubbish’? If the emperor is in the buff you need to know quickly. Online is everybody’s business.

Checks and balances

A qualitative content audit can throw up weaknesses is existing systems. It needs to be carried out by an external team (but this could involve different departments or areas of online activity critiquing each other’s work).

Content should be reviewed against organisational values and Tone of Voice, online ambition and audiences. You may want to read an earlier post on personas (I’ve popped the link at the bottom of this post). I’ll work up a personality for any site I’m reviewing (as if it was a flesh and blood member of the team). If your website sat at the next desk, would you share your sandwiches with it?

I also came up with this acronym. I think you should be answering ‘yes’ to 6 out of 9 points.

1. Can a wide range of people within your organisation suggest a digital change and / or refinement and know someone will take notice?

2. Have they got a clear idea about who to approach if something isn’t working right – broken website links, poorly coded emails, spelling mistakes online… (or know where to find out)?

3. Are new digital projects only embarked upon after a well-rounded opinion-seeking process and shared collective understanding?

4. Little digital errors (page not found, spelling errors, broken links…) rarely happen.

5. Large digital errors (website down, email campaigns producing little or no response…) rarely happen.

6. Everyone takes an interest in what rour company is doing digitally, even if they’re not actively involved.

7. No faction, department, skillset, business unit, or organisational activity feels excluded (frozen out).

8. Guards need walls. Are the processes and decisions made about how your brand is communicated online done in clear view?

9. Eyes (2), ears (2) mouth (1). Is your organisation watching and listening to what’s been done and said online rather than simply talking about it. You should watch and listen more than you speak.

Internal link

>> More about personas

>> The 7 ages of content maturity table (towards the end of this post)

Find out more about the Stanford and Milgram experiments (I’ll open these links in a new window):

>> Stanford Prison experiment website

>> The Stanley Milgram Experiment

Here’s a question – if content is king, how come it hasn’t got a seat on the board? Or a top of the range company car? How come content doesn’t sit in on senior management team meetings? Hm?

At best most organisations treat content rather like a middle manager that everybody believes has been promoted beyond their competence. Nobody disrespects them to their face but neither do they give them any real power. And they certainly don’t need to keep content in the loop.

I know what you’re thinking. The Lab Rats have got a bee in their bonnet and are blowing it up out of all proportion. (Can you blow up a bee? Isn’t that apian cruelty? Ed.)

Okay, the title ‘Content Manager’ is a fairly common one, but Content Managers are very rarely – if ever – at the top of the management food chain. And what about Content Directors? Visit one of the big jobs’ websites, put Content Director in the search engine and see what comes up. Then put in IT Director. See what I mean?

Yet everybody pays lip service to the fact that content is critical. Content is what allows us to engage with and shape the experiences of our customers, prospects and users. Content is what we use to create conversations online. It’s what we use to create usefulness – ‘this is how to buy in our online shop’, ‘this is where you download the form you need’, ‘here’s how this website / email /digital message will enable you to do what it is you want to do’.

But we still treat content as something that just needs to be sliced and spliced. Content is something we control – not something that exerts control in its own right. We ‘chunk it’, ‘cut it’, ‘edit it. We approach content with mental scissors (or by in scissor expertise to keep content under control).

(The sound you can now hear is a million Content Managers, and one or two Content Directors, hammering at the lab door and baying for my blood. A few of them are waving scissors. This could turn nasty.)

So I need to state here and now that if I ruled the world content would be supreme commander and Grand Poobah in every organisation. When the CEO played golf on Saturday he’d invite content to tee off with him. Content would have dinner with Alan Sugar and Barack Obama regularly. I rate content, okay? Put the scissors down.

Why Content needs a seat on the board

Content and its keepers must be elevated is we are  to truly exert its power to communicate and influence. Those who control it within organisations need to conduct peer to peer conversations at the higest level; not just about its use but its governance, budgets, its strategy and the wider social responsibilities that come with publishing and broadcasting. Particularly when the platform is as powerful as the internet.

The larger and more influential the organisation the more critical that its key content personnel are recruited and deployed at the most senior level. (This should be so for all organisations, not just the farsighted ones.) This is especially pertinent for public sector, goverment and quasi govermental organisations whose brands are also trustmarks for people seeking advice or reassurance. To ensure content is relevant, accurate, up to date (or suitably archived); to ensure is is adequately budgeted for and considered at a strategic level, it needs its own big cheese.

I’ve just joined a Google Group on Content Strategy. At the moment I’m just observing from the corners of the room but I’ve been struck but some of the arguments (and who’s doing the arguing). Serious hitters, every one. For example, Rahel Anne Bailie, Content Strategist / CM Consultant,  Intentional Design Inc, who observes how the customer value proposition may suffer if those developing the content are taken outside their knowledge base and not supported into new skills and knoweldge sets (which is, I think,  increasingly likely to happen as we harness a growing range of socio-adaptive, potentially vetuperative, user-centric platforms).

We need to bring on our content keepers, so that they are mixing on a daily basis with higher management and boardroom echelons. This is the level at which serious strategic skillsets are traded and mashed. Get content into that arena and we are creating (for the future) more rounded senior people who understand content as well as they do a balance sheet. Your current CEO may well have previously been a Director of Finance. Might your future CEO once have been the Director of Content?

Content and what happened with HR

I’m tempted to draw some parallels between Content now and  the position of Human Resources / Human Capital some years back. HR has a much higher profile these days. It reflects the fact that organisations became increasingly aware of both the potential and potential risk that was encapsulated in people. And not just senior people, but the employee driving a van or working the post room. It’s the same with content. It’s very easy to get excited about the content for the ‘big, new website launch’ or the ‘bumper annual report’, while that PDF languishing at the back end of some deserted, 4th level down, sub-page heirarchy, (out of date and poorly worded), still has the ability to bite you on the corporate bum and shame your brand.

So, I’m wondering, could you interpret an organisation’s content maturity, in part, from the seniority of its content keepers? (See my visual musing below: 7 ages of content maturity within orgnisations, with apologies to William Shakespeare.)

The maturation of HR function wasn’t just about watching out for the bad stuff that could happen – unfair dismissal claims, workplace bullying and the like – but also about providing the structure and support that enabled an organisation’s human capital to be the best it could be. HR maturity (and increasingingly senior titles for HR players) brought with it huge leaps forward in terms of equality and diversity, mentoring, workplace learning… Oh the wonder if content was treated and respected in the same way.

Seamus Walsh of Vazt, also part of the Content Strategy Google Group, sent out the rallying cry ‘Has the time come for a Chief Content Officer?’ at the end of April this year. It was his clarion that prompted me to join the group (that and the very bossy co-founder of CDA). As Walsh put it: “Enterprise content is a corporate asset, yet it is  one of the only assets that is not represented on the executive leader team.    I firmly believe that an ‘enterprise content strategy’, with gap  analysis can help a company be more effective and efficient.  Frankly, I think removing IA role out of IT and moving in into the business in  an executive capacity will do the trick.’

So far there are about 33 messages triggered by Walsh – not all gung ho by a long chalk. One concern is that as debates about roles can quickly become political. The implication being that the thoughtful conversations about content and its management will be dismissed as talk designed to facilitate greasy pole climbing.

Another message that caught my eye was someone saying that they wouldn’t want to go into a job as a Chief Content Officer if the organization didn’t already have high content values. Just appointing someone senior with a fancy title doesn’t change orgnisational structure or culture. What we’re talking about here (well, what I’m talking about here) goes deeper than simply a title.

I believe that senior content appointments could have a profound influence on our industry. After all, it is acknowledged that leadership plays a major role in organisational change. Why shouldn’t content leadership have as important an influence?

Me? I’m holding out for the title of Grand Poobah.

With due credit to the big hitters and the Content Strategy Goggle Group

>> Content Strategy – Google Groups

>> Rahel Anne Bailie, Intentional Design Inc

>> Seamus Walsh, Vazt

Sometimes it’s worth stating the obvious because so often the obvious gets overlooked, particularly in the current climate.

We’re all off looking for the cash cow, the life raft, the new horizon, the thing that’s going to get us through the rough times. If what you’re seeking is the Holy Grail you may miss the paper cup and plastic spoon that are just under your nose. But they’ll help feed you just the same.

Training is a case in point. So many organisations are sitting on their budgets and trying to figure out whether they can spend a little money on a bit of website tinkering, or a pared-to-the-bone email campaign, when what they should be doing is growing their own skill base. If they do it right, they may be surprised to find how much they can do without throwing money at new projects.

Don’t just take my word for it. The European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA), Europe’s main advertising lobbying group,  is launching an initiative aimed at raising skills.

The main thrust seems to be aimed (Can you accurately aim a thrust?) at Central and Eastern Europe, where the skills gap is seen as more pronounced. But EACA International School of Advertising and Communications courses will also dovetail with UK schemes run by the IPA.

But it was the final paragraph of the story about this in a Brand Republic news bulletin that made me all warm and fuzzy inside. I quote:

Gary Leih, the Ogilvy Group UK chief executive and EACA president, said: “We’re very aware of the harsh economic climate facing agencies today, but research and experience has consistently shown that those who invest in training during an economic recession are those best placed not only to survive, but also to recover fastest.”

Well hello Mrs.Obvious and how beautifully you’re stated for us all to see.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not taking a pop at Gary Leih – far from it. He’s so on the money that I wish I could place a bet on him at Goodwood.

But I suspect the ‘swishing’ sound that keeps me awake at night is the sound of training budgets being slashed along with everything else. What a waste.

The really great thing about training (apart from the fact that your organisation ends up with people with more knowledge and a greater capacity to ‘do’) is the way it meshes with all elements of an organisation’s culture.

It raises self worth and self esteem, it supports a myriad of professional qualifications and continuous professional development (CPD) that, in turn, may be the stepping stones to career advancement. Yes, trained staff may eventually leave you (but that’s what they’re supposed to do). Plus you get a more skilled workforce in the process. People who are trained regularly and who work in organisations where the acquisition of knowledge is encouraged, tend to exhibit greater loyalty. Bring an employee on (grow your own) and the chances are their skills will always be one step ahead of their current pay level but their lifetime earning potential is enhanced. You win. They win. Everybody’s happy.

Having recently stepped down as a non-executive director of a NHS organisation I remain highly envious of the priority given to training and knowedge advancement that can be found in the public sector. I’m now a visiting lecturer in communication for our local medical school; medical and social care professionals appear ravenously hungry for a huge range of communication skills.

Training is organisational yeast. Companies with a culture of training and learning just tend to grow (even when the global economy is, apparently, going to hell in a hand cart). I say ‘apparently’ so I don’t get pilloried for using Armageddon language on my own blog.

Perhaps part of the problem is that people taking the term ‘training’ too literally.

Alot of CDA business activity centres around training. What’s the point of having the lab rats working on stuff and coming up with new ideas if all you do is sit back and feel smug. You have to set a good idea free.

Training can take a mutitude of forms. We often talk about workshops. When we ‘train’ attendees seem to get through an awful lot of colour tape and balls of string (email me and I’ll explain cdacontentlab@webwordsworking.co.uk), because we hate to see people trying to Hoover up knowledge whilst stuck behind desks pushing bits of paper about.

Training can go hand in hand with a project being progressed by taking an approach I like to call Tada! (It’s kind of a fanfare sound if you say it right.) Tada! stands for Train. Apply. Develop. Apply.

We’ve used Tada! to get a massive new website project off the ground, breathe new live into email newsletter programmes, underpin style guides and CMS systems, or just give an overworked, under-resourced marketing department some renewed fizz and enthusiasm (plus some energy conserving processes).

And then it suddenly struck me. We can just be a little iffy about the whole training thing. Consider the phrase: those who can do, those who can’t teach. What an upside down, crazy concept is that? Teaching, training, passing down knowledge… that’s a really serious project and it’s worth throwing money at. Those that can teach. Those that want to survive – learn.