June 2010
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New & improved – it’s www.oomphgroup.com V3! |
Jun 16, 2010 10:05 PM
Johanna Hoffmann |
After a few intense months of researching and exploring graphic platforms and content strategies, of working with designers and of transferring and reformatting mountains of content, we are finally ready to welcome visitors back to the new www.oomphgoup.com!
The redesign of our website has been a long and time-consuming process, but one that makes for an interesting story, because it vividly illustrates how companies must adapt their online presence today to stay apace of the vast changes that have swept the Internet in the past couple of years.
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Our first site, launched in late 2006, was a standard HTML website. To get it done, we retained a graphic designer for the interface design and a web designer to code the site and get us up and running on the Internet. When the site went live it was a hit; the colours and the graphic elements resonated with our target markets and the site gave us instant credibility.
The HTML site’s lifespan was very brief however. It quickly became apparent that directing a web designer to update the content was very time-consuming and expensive; we would need a different approach. Luckily, at that moment we were introduced to Your Web Department, an innovative start up with a unique ‘content management system’ that would allow us to make all the changes ourselves.
To say that YWD changed our work life is not an exaggeration. We could not have developed and marketed our company the way we did without the ability to quickly add pages, sections, copy, widgets and forms and without YWD’s built-in SEO tools to optimize the site and help us grow our web traffic. The pay-off for being in control of our site has been incalculable: not only have we saved a lot of money, but being able to test and tweak content according to response and traffic has enabled us to adapt to Internet changes and trends while learning important 21st century marketing skills.
Fresh content brought a new challenge however: as the volume increased and the way in which we used the site evolved, the graphic design and the site’s layout began to get in the way. The colours, figures and content made for a cluttered interface: instead of attracting and retaining visitors, the rich content we had spent so much time developing was having the opposite effect: people would land, become overwhelmed and leave.
It became clear we would have to redesign the site. Being ‘educated consumers’, this time around we approached the exercise in a completely different way. Instead of starting with the graphic platform, we asked Your Web Department’s CEO Paul Chato to help us create a system for organizing the content in a simpler, more intuitive manner that would allow us to ‘flatten’ the site and cut out sub-pages.
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Once an infrastructure and ‘wireframe’ were developed, Flavio Mester, YWD’s creative director, developed a graphic concept that retained our lively colours but that is based on an interface that is simple and lets the content stand out.
The results have been phenomenal: our workshops are now much more prominent and traffic in those pages has gone up; the vast amount of rich content we have collected is now much more apparent and more easily accessible; the ‘stickiness’ of the site has improved tremendously: many more people stay after landing and visit duration has gone up: the average visit time is now 5:15 minutes – not bad for a non-media site…And last, but not least, the number of people who are inquiring about our services has gone up and who landing on the site and sign up for workshops has gone way up!
What do you think of our new website? Do you find it easier to find and read content? Do you have any suggestions? Let us know! We want visitors to really enjoy their experience and are happy to look at suggestions to improve the site. |
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Life @ Oomph,
Marketing,
Practice Tools
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October 2007
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Total Computer Meltdown |
Oct 15, 2007 5:41 PM
Johanna Hoffmann |
Was it synchronicity, the universe testing us or just a garden-variety fluke when my computer went on the fritz exactly one month before launching a tour of southern Ontario featuring ‘What If?’ – our risk management workshop?
Who knows, and who cares if it was some grandiose Jungian principle at play or just a *&%@$! computer doing what computers do – the result was the same: total paralysis for a couple of days and [self-induced] partial paralysis for two-and-a-half weeks…
Three hard-drive reformats + one new computer setup later, we still don’t know if the operating system got corrupted when a Microsoft system update ran at the exact same time as a Symantec virus definition update and our remote backup, or if the hard drive just broke – I’m still trying to catch up with work and haven’t taken the computer back to the shop [trip # 2] – but whatever it was was pretty traumatic and the worst computer occurrence I’ve had since I learnt my way around WordPerfect 5.1.
As with everything else, there was good news, bad news and big lessons.
- Good news first: the chapter on computer safety in What If? works. Thank goodness I follow my own advice and back-up faithfully as prescribed – so we didn’t lose any data.
- The bad news: the degree of enslavement to a gizmo. Without a computer it’s very, very, very difficult to work or run a business. This is depressing.
What did I learn?
- Backing up your data is just step 1. To truly minimize the pain and inconvenience of a complete meltdown you need a ‘ghost’ of your hard drive – a duplicate of your entire system and all its settings so getting up to speed takes no more than a day. Otherwise you’re in for a prolonged nightmare to reconnect, reconfigure and reinstall everything from the e-mail accounts [half-a-day and 5 techs @ the e-mail host] to every password you need for logging on to the dozens of websites we seem to log on to nowadays… [printed list of computer & internet passwords anybody?]
- Lesson # 2: Do not underestimate computer occurrences/don’t be lazy [same thing in this case]. My undoing, and the reason why a three to four-day headache turned into a two-and-a-half week nightmare: I didn’t want to waste a couple of days reconfiguring a new computer we had because I was certain that mine was going to come back with everything miraculously restored. Right.
- Lesson #3: The blue screen of death? It’s now black.
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Life @ Oomph
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September 2007
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The Making of an Oomph Program |
Sep 4, 2007 6:49 PM
Johanna Hoffmann |
Creating a new program requires extensive research and dozens of interviews with practitioners. The process starts off with a list of issues we think need to be addressed. Once the list is done, we test it by interviewing three to five practitioners. A thorough review of our findings results in a revised questionnaire that is given to another five practitioners. Once that round of interviews is complete, we collate the findings and draft the program's outline, which we test again with another round of interviews. After the full scope of the program is finalized we begin writing. All along we ask practitioners to review the content and do the exercises to make sure the content is relevant and accurate and that the exercises work the way they're supposed to. A final edit, and the first full version of the program is complete and ready for submission to accreditation organizations.
Our process results in programs that truly reflect professionals’ and knowledge-workers’ unique culture, ethos and approach to work and that effectively address the complex set issues they need to manage in order to practice successfully. As well, talking to practitioners on a daily basis means we have our finger on the pulse of what’s happening, enabling us to include content that addresses the major trends sweeping the professions and the industries practitioners work in.
We are always looking for program suggestions and for practitioners who are interested in particpating in our surveys and research. If you would like to do so, please contact Johanna Hoffmann at 416-977-5402 or via e-mail at: mail@oomphgroup.com. |
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Life @ Oomph
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