Watch this: http://youtu.be/a0qMe7Z3EYg

Lyrics

Your site design is the first thing people see
it should be reflective of you and the industry
easy to look at with a nice navigation
when you can’t find what you want it causes frustration
a clear Call to action to increase the temptation
use appealing graphics they create motivation
if you have animation
use with moderation
cause search engines can’t index the information
display the logos of all your associations
highlight your contact info that’s an obligation
create a clean design you can use some decoration
but to try to prevent any client hesitation
every page that they click should provide and explanation
should be easy to understand like having a conversation
when you design the style go ahead and use your imagination
but make sure you use correct color combinations
do some investigation, look at other organizations
but don’t duplicate or you might face a litigation
design done, congratulations but it’s time to start construction
follow these instructions when you move into production
your photoshop functions then slice that design
do your layout with divs make sure that it’s aligned
please don’t use tables even though they work fine
when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time
make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide
remove font type, font color and font size
no background colors, keep your coding real neat,
tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet
better results with xml and css
now you making progress, a lil closer to success
describe your doctype so the browser can relate
make sure you do it great or it won’t validate
check in all browsers, I do it directly
gotta make sure that it renders correctly
some use IE, some others use Flock
some use AOL, I use Firefox
title everything including links and images
don’t use italics, use emphasis
don’t use bold, please use strong
if you use bold that’s old and wrong
when you use CSS, you page will load quicker
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker
they stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
and then they convert now that’s the real kicker
make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker
design and code right man I hope you get the picture
what I’m telling you is true man it should be a scripture
if it’s built right you’ll be the pick of the litter
everyone will want to follow you like twitter
competition will get bitter and you’ll shine like glitter
if you trying to grow your company will get bigger
design and code right man can you get with it

I like reading and listening– especially if the authors talk about new and different ideas. But I admire people who study rather than read. I realise that the authors write some things (insights or facts) in their books that the reader might take casually but a student wouldn’t.  BTW, I don’t read fiction. So I am talking about business related non-fiction.

When I read Peter Drucker’s statement that business is about finding out what the customer wants and giving it to them I didn’t really get what he was saying.  Only after several years did I understand what that really meant.  When we find out what the customer says they want, we interpret those statements in a way that is convenient or conducive to what we are doing in our business then we put our own bias on those statements. We then end up developing and delivering something they were not expecting.  Makes sense?

Business is about understanding truly what they want and giving it to them.  There are tools to understand what they say they want. But if we don’t delve deeper in to the statement ‘understand what they want and give it to them’, we will never look for the tools and keep carrying on with our own interpretation.

Guy Kawasaki once suggested ‘Eat like a bird and poop like an elephant’. Maybe he had different point in mind when he wrote that in his book but I think the statement it is relevant here. In this information era, a new information product or training comes out every other month claiming of a new and improved way to succeed in your business (whatever type of business you are running – whether it is an online business or an offline business). We open our wallets and buy them to read.  As we keep reading  (or listening) to the new or re-hashed ideas, we never get time to implement them.  Wouldn’t it be better to implement what a small proportion what we read? Wouldn’t it be better to study, maybe one or two ideas, and implement them?

Pooping like an elephant is implementing a lot of  ideas (small and big) we study, testing them, tweaking them. That is the way to make a difference.

You agree it is better to study than read?