Blinded by the light

Day by day the Web is becoming more approachable and open to people. Now almost anyone can have his own website without spending much money. Furthemore he can configure it the way he wants without too much effort. That’s good news. What comes next is how a website can become a really valuable tool.

Things are pretty simple when we are talking about e.g. a personal blog. Nonetheless, there is a wide range of professionals who can use the Web to promote their activities easier than ever before. These people need more than a standard solution. They need customed ones.

Before Web development there are several issues to be addressed such as:

• How any activity is going to be presented?
• Which part needs to stand out?
• Visits are good. What comes next?
• How a website becomes a source of earnings?

Such questions deploy non technical decisions. Is everyone capable of taking them? No. The Web is a vehicle which needs special treatment. Text and articles for example should be treated a different way than in a newspaper.

Similarly, there also some technical questions of great importance:

• What is going to be the hierarchy of information?
• What is going to be the aesthetical approach?
• What is going to be included in the end? Is there a need for a lot of different components e.g. a forum or not?
• Which piece of software is going to be used? Why?

This set of questions works seperately from the first group and afford all websites. Combining both sets and adding all the relevant issues becomes prominent the fact that any success is determined before the real development. Someone must be able to provide answers to the questions above. But who?

Who can answer such questions?

Let’s see first who can’t answer. By all means a business consultant is not capable to solve such problems. Most of the times people who are experts in business can’t tame the Web because they don’t know how it works. Usually, business practices cannot be applied to the Web. Here different things are required. On the other hand Web technicians very often are experts in a specific IT area whereas they can’t see the whole picture. As a result they get lost.

So, people who aim to give specific answers which will work need to have a good view of the Web as a whole, they must be able to create a strategy and to communicate effectively. At they same time they should know how to use modern technology, know the details of certain techniques and what is proper for a specific client. This is what I call Web culture.

Who are these people? Where are these people?

I don’t know. I may be able to count a few who live outside Greece. But in Greece?

In Greece someone looking for such a person would come to nothing I suppose. It doesn’t have to do much with how to find him but with the general idea that Web cultured people are considered non important. I tend to believe the same happens everywhere, not only in Greece.

How many companies would look for such people? How many CEOs and other consultants would sacrifice their ego in front of someone who would come and go? How many half educated technicians and managers would admit they don’t stand a chance when compared to these people? Almost none.

Things are getting even worse if one considers that Web cultured people should be fairly paid for their services. What does this “fairly” mean? I won’t answer to this - consider the width, the quality and the difficulty of the job and do the math.

However the gap still exists. Certain needs exist too. Reality shows that most of the websites fail. I am not talking about design or coding. I am talking about websites which have no reason to exist even if they have been designed by the best designers and coded by the best developers. I am talking about a holistic view of the Web and about people who are professionals or amateurs who want to act like professionals. You get my point.