Some (rather extensive) thoughts on the Endeavor presentation

The team did an admirable job of introducing Endeavor and its mission, also of giving us a sense of the challenge that the organization has set for itself: turning high-impact entrepreneurialism into the next microfinance. Specifically, Endeavor aims to
*provide financing for the kinds of businesses that will create hundreds of jobs at a time.
*highlight role models in the developing world (initially in Latin America but now expanding) that will inspire others to think big: what they call the "Endeavor multiplier effect."

The team went on to do a thorough job of hitting the main points on the project outline.

I found quite a few things troubling, though, about the presentation, which I'll attempt to summarize here.

1) ON LINDA ROTTENBERG: Linda Rottenberg is a big star in this field: one of America's Best Leaders 2008 (US News and World Report), Business Woman of the Year (Veuve Cliquot), etc. Though I certainly don't want her talking at me when I come to the site, I do think the site should leverage her as much as possible. It should also do what it can to humanize her (right now she comes across as a robot). After all, she is Endeavor's best example, a young woman who wasn't afraid to think big, beyond what other, similar organizations, like Ashoka (where Linda used to work), are doing. Maybe there could be a tab just for her: "Meet Linda." And, given that she's young and charismatic, could she also be encouraged to blog, podcast, twitter? (See my comments on IDJH's Brian Concannon, below.)

2) ON THE AUDIENCES: The team mentioned current entrepreneurs, potential donors, and potential mentors. But, having read Endeavor's "high-impact entrepreneurship" statement, I think the organization is looking to cultivate other audiences as well:
*developing country governments that want to draft policies along Endeavor lines,
*universities that might partner w/ Endeavor in creating case studies, and
*individuals who want to spread the word about their unique take on the entrepreneurial process.
With these further groups in mind, my own inclination would be to focus on:
1) entrepreneurs
2) donors/mentors
3) partners/spreaders of the Endeavor method.
Also, when developing the personas and storyboarding the user experience for each of these three groups, the team would do well to take a leaf out of IJDH's book and think about the difference between brand new site visitors and returning visitors. (There's where your "current vs. potential" comes in...)

3) ON THE NAVIGATION: The team did a good job rethinking, as well as reducing, the number of "buckets." And they were right to propose consolidating the information that is now spread across various pages into single pages, thereby limiting the number of clicks. But I was bothered by the inconsistency in their nav bar nomenclature. Whereas "Get involved" is a verb, inviting visitors to take action (appropriate for a group w/ such a dynamic mission), "The Endeavor Process," "Our Impact," "Entrepreneurs," and even "The Hub" are all nouns, hence seem a little clunky. How about playing with verbs for the other items: eg, Learn about us / Explore our philosophy / View our impact / Meet our entrepreneurs / Join community / etc.

4) MORE ON THE NAV: Endeavor, as compared w/ the other three clients, is trying to do something rather more ambitious and complex. Thus it may require a sub-nav. If you take a look at Ashoka's front page, you see that they have a primary nav bar at the top of the image and a secondary nav below. Something to consider?

5) ON THE MESSAGING: There are three points about the messaging that strike me as being very important to the client, but that the team kind of glossed over:
1. Endeavor is about business; thus the issue of metrics--how Endeavor measures its impact and chooses to portray this on the site--is central. The visual on the current site is overwhelming--a case where less would be more. For what it's worth, when Fast Company gave Endeavor an award in 2005 for social capitalism, they cited the following: "The businesses of over 195 Endeavor Entrepreneurs support an average of 125 jobs and have collectively generated revenues of more than $655 million." These are the kinds of stats that are easy to scan and absorb. While the team doesn't have to come up with the final answer as to which metrics to spotlight, I was hoping they would at least take a stab at this--and on how best to portray other than the current (looks like a thermometer!) method.
2. The organization is expanding. It used to be known for its work in Latin America but now it is opening offices in other parts of the world. Would a map visual of some sort convey this best? (Again, Ashoka has a fairly primitive map at the top of its Regions of Work page.)
3. Endeavor is involved with some pretty major players such as Warner Bros. Music CEO Edgar Bronfman and former World Bank prez James Wolfensohn. What's the best way to leverage these big names? Clearly, not the way the site is handling at present, but will sticking them under "Our Team" on the front page work? I'm skeptical--see 6) below.

5) ON MISSION STATEMENT & TAGLINE: I really like the shortened version of the mission statement on the Home page mock-up--an effective example of good Web writing. But I was disappointed that the team didn't take a crack at honing the tagline. As Nancy mentioned, having a tagline really helps with a group like this. But for me, "High-impact entrepreneurs. High-impact change." doesn't quite do it. I have no idea from this that Endeavor is concerned w/ the Global South.

6) ON THE HOME PAGE DESIGN: I agreed with Nancy's comment that the three boxes underneath the big visual--"What's New," "Our Impact," and "Our Team"--aren't really on the same level. As for the big visual of the guy on the boat, I just didn't get it. Is he supposed to be an entrepreneur? If so, am I supposed to think he's now so rich he was able to buy his own yacht? Maybe I missed something, but the combination of that photo and the one of Wolfensohn under "Our Team" made me think of an old boy's club--albeit one that apparently now includes people in the Global South. I for one would have been much more impressed had the Home Page mock-up highlighted stories of entrepreneurs Endeavor has helped who are now doing great things. For instance, I understand from the Fast Company citation that Endeavor helped an entrepreneur in Patagonia who is now on their board. Why not show a pic of this guy with deep cap:

Endeavor helped XXX set up a financial-services company by connecting him to capital, finding a COO, and developing a growth strategy. Later, his firm was bought for $300 million. He donated $200,000 to Endeavor, started a bank for the poor, and now sits on Endeavor's board.

Another idea would be to highlight stories of the change Endeavor entrepreneurs have brought about--in the above example, perhaps an interview with a poor person in Patagonia who rec'd a bank loan and is now doing X, Y & Z as result? (Don't be afraid to use dummy text.)

7) ON THE HUB IDEA: I'm not entirely certain that Endeavor should hive off social media into a "site within the site." With so many high-powered people on board and w/ so much money as compared to the other clients' sites, I see no reason why they couldn't consider investing in social media and committing to making it work. (Even Ashoka is touting its Twitter feed on its Home Page.)

*****
By the end of the presentation, I had the feeling of the whole not being greater than the sum of its parts. There were lots of good ideas, but the team's vision for the site never really came together.

That said, I did appreciate their attempts to liven things up by introducing props and the Baron Wuffet persona. (I might have suggested cigars in addition to mustaches...)

Teacher Critiques: IJDH

Hi all,

Just wanted to weigh in with my impressions from the presentation that the IJDH team gave last Thursday night. First off, I want to say that it was a very impressive presentation, with an interesting emphasis on process -- the ordered steps that they were recommending IJDH take. It struck me how there are so may ways to present your strategy, and this seemed like a great framework for doing so.

What I liked most about what I saw was that it was evident how the team had allowed each step in their own process shape the decisions that they made for susequent steps. Once they had an idea of the mission, the audience followed from that; the narratives followed from the audience decisions; the IA and interaction design followed from that narratives, etc. I also was very impressed that you defined two different sets of narratives for new vs. returning visitors (an often neglected distinction).

The one area that I though could be impoved on was content management, particularly with respect to the news and the blog. It may have just been a blind-spot in your planning, but many of us thought the blog could just replace the 'news' function and take center stage as the organization's main value-adding activity.

All-in-all a job very well done though. Congratulations.
Ravi

Teachers' Critiques Continued: UNANIMA

Well, first of all there are a few words of encouragement to your team that I want to offer, because I have the sense that you may feel somewhat demoralized after last night.

- Multiple language sites are very difficult to figure out. It truly is a bear of a problem, and I appreciate the fact that you made a sincere attempt to address it. You missed an important UN standard (equal representation of languages) in your research on the constraints of the organization, but it's ab very particular problem that nobody else will have to face. Your solutions weren't necessarily incorrect for all cases (they were perfectly reasonable) -- they just happen to be wrong for this client

- presenting to a difficult client and having to justify your ideas is stressful and often frustrating. That said, try to see this as a very valuable life experience -- the kind of interaction you will have many more times if you are in this field as a professional. That said, it should be recognized that you had to deal with an added layer of pressure to which the other groups will not be subjected.

On the whole, you guys did an impressive amount of work and there were some really good elements to what you presented. I'll try to briefly summarize what I saw as the strengths and weaknesses of the presentation here.

I thought it was very good that you took advantage of the meeting to do some market research and I was impressed that you created a survey and really thought through how you might pose questions to your stakeholders. I was disappointed though that I couldn't here some more detail about the user personas that came out of that process and thought that the 'audiences' that you outlined were not always audiences so much as groups or types of people. So more detail and specificity here would have helped.

I thought your re-work of the site-map/information architecture was excellent, and one of the big strengths of the presentation.

I thought your home page wire-frame was also excellent. I loved the information hierarchy and the use of big, highly visible action items (buttons) for donating etc.

I want to say that the suggestion that they have a high-bandwidth and low-bandwidth web site is pretty unrealistic, given that they already have to manage 4 sites for the different languages (this would effectively double that number) Similar, but better would be to suggest an altogether low-bandwidth-friendly site, which includes progressive enhancement of the content (through the use of video, animation, etc) whenever that is appropriate.

The biggest weakness in your presentation was that I thought you really tried to add too many things to their already understaffed operation. It seemed like you were suggesting everything but the kitchen sink as far as social media (facebook, blogs, a wiki(!) etc. etc.) I think for an organization that has blatant content management problems, partly related to their internationalization needs, adding new streams of conten to manage would be a counter-intuitive suggestion. The idea that they might be managed by stakeholders in the UNANIMA network seems implausible to me, but also really creates an even bigger content management headache for the people who are ultimately answerable for the content of the site.

That's all I have for now. Congratulations on getting to the finish line and gracefully handling a pretty challenging situation and project.

Further thoughts on last night's Lend-a-Hand India presentation

I jotted down a few notes during the Lend-a-Hand India presentation that I wanted to share. Overall, it was effective. I particularly liked the way the team trimmed down the nine+ menu items to just five. That seemingly simple change made the site seem a lot less daunting.

But I thought the team's topline recommendations could have gone even further. Specifically:

1) The presentation of the three personas was useful. I got a good sense of Lend-a-Hand's three main audiences, both actual and aspirational. At no point during the presentation, though, did I become clear on what the site can (or should) offer each of these groups. A map showing content types for each of the five main sections would have helped. For instance, what would press get out of visiting this site? If Lend-a-Hand really wants to target journalists, then perhaps they need to develop some press-friendly contents--e.g., photo library, background briefings on poverty in India, interviews w/ leading development economists, reviews of Slumdog Millionaire by Indian youth... Also, what's in this site for donors? As our two judges hinted, Lend-a-Hand should be taken to task for not doing more to highlight their on-the-ground work and local partners. One obvious way for them to go would be to adapt the Kiva approach to their needs.

2) Like Craig Zheng, I liked the fact that the team's mock-up for the Home Page urges visitors to "Donate Now" and "Take Action." That said, "Take Action" is vague. Maybe "Get Involved with Us," with two sub-categories: "Donate" and "Volunteer"?

3) Also on the team's proposed new Home Page: I kept thinking that some of the language was clunky. Maybe you could play with the organization's name more: e.g., "How can you lend a hand?" Also, the logo, showing people holding hands, is quite clever. Could the photos on the Home Page echo that somehow--close-ups of people's hands or some such? It would help to reinforce the message...

4) Also, the branding doesn't convey the message that the organization is focused on India, apart from the name. The tagline, "Making a difference in the lives of the poor through self-help," could apply to many groups. How to bring in India more prominently--would a map visual help?

5) The team mentioned several times Lend-a-Hand's attachment to its video. That's all well and good, but what do others make of it? Are the contents good enough to inspire people to donate to, volunteer for, or write about Lend-a-Hand's work? If not, how might the contents be improved? To get maximum mileage out of the video, the audience question needs to be tackled. Also, and as Constance said, the team should consider whether other kinds of multimedia--e.g., a slideshow of photos taken in the field--could be just as (if not more) effective.

6) During the presentation, I was taking two, somewhat contradictory impressions of Lend-a-Hand's work: on the one hand, it runs high-profile fundraising events in NYC that staff members could be blogging/twittering about; on the other, there are all these poor young people in India they're trying to help. This puts in mind Kipling's "the white man's burden"--but is that Lend-a-Hand's intent? I don't think so. Still, it's hard to reconcile the image of chocolate tasting at MadamX Lounge in Soho w/ images of India's rural poor. I'm not quite sure how to address, but at the very least, the client should be cautioned about it.

7) Finally, I had a kneejerk reaction to the notion of the site being divided between "static" and other kinds of contents. "Static" has a very special meaning in Web world.

Well, enough of my critique. Time to give a hand to the Lend-a-Hand team!

class last night

I really enjoyed Devin's unplugged presentation last night and hope the students found it useful.

That $%^^*% projector is becoming the bane of my existence. Hopefully we won't have similar problems next week. Just in case we do, I want you all to check out an audio slide show that I created at EI, something I would like to use as the start of a discussion about multimedia and what it can do:

Have a look at that and we will definitely talk about this and things like it next week. MLC and I will probably shuffle things a bit in our syllabus, and I really think we will have time to still cover everything we have intended to this semester.

Further thoughts about the class projects

After having had some time to mull over the status report that Group 2 gave us last week, I'd like to express some concerns:

Try not to get hung up on specific technologies like RSS feeds, CMS, etc. At this point in the process, you should be thinking in broad terms about their communications goals and the scale of their operation. The first problem you need to solve, after figuring out the above and their audience questions, is what overall shape the site will be able to take. If the org has a very limited staff to work on the site, and that's likely to continue, then the site should be modest in complexity, and pose less of a content management problem. Start to think about what the key functions are that it must provide, and based on those, start mapping out the sections of the proposed site and the hierarchy of elements on the home page (not the visual hierarchy -- we haven't talked about that much yet -- but the literal hierarchy).

I'm kind of regretting that we set up the "explore possibilities for new media" stuff in the middle of the semester. It's important work to consider because it can amplify the organization's web outreach to have a YouTube page (for example), and blogs are a very very important outreach and audience-building tool, but they're also kind of tangential to the development of key functions for the central web site (the web 1.0 part). So I would encourage you to actually defer incorporating this element into your overall plan (or addressing it -- it's perfectly OK to recommend that the organization not have a blog because it's not the right audience or because they don't have adequate staff to do it well) until you have a better idea of the big picture. Mary-Lea might disagree with me on this.

Not bad, but we're a little behind

Class went pretty well last night, but there are some topics I wish we had had time to get to:

Podcasting

• what is it
• what's useful about it
• what practical considerations attend to it

Audio vs. Video content

Other types of interaction and media:

• audio slideshows
• quizzes
• games

Hopefully we'll be able to fit them into next week's class