When launching a new or redesigned website with a hundred or more pages or other pieces of content you quickly confront the question of how to supply, track and manage it all. And when dealing with thousands of pages to publish divided among an equal number of Word and text and PDF files, the headaches and margin for error increase
accordingly.

That’s why we created Comet, our own Content and Media Transfer system. Comet allows Netwise customers to upload their content in just about any format to an online repository which tracks the status of the content at every workflow stage, from upload to publication to review and approval.

The system keeps track of the status of every content item registered in the system in real-time, making it possible to know at any time which content items are missing, ready for review, waiting for revision, complete, etc.
The Comet workflow system is email-based, and notifications are sent to the appropriate project member whenever a workflow action is required. Detailed notification settings allow you to get just the right volume and detail of messages.

The Comet workflow is modeled on the typical workflow process for supplying and publishing web content, but relies on a database and web application instead of email for supplying and tracking the status of content. With Comet–and unlike email–nothing gets lost, overlooked, or published without review.

Comet was designed and developed in-house by Netwise as a service for our customers and costs nothing to use.

Netwise worked closely with Fabricant, Co. Ltd. (the company in charge of the Lacoste brand in Japan) to develop the look-and-feel of both websites, and–in the case of the keitai site–employed the expertise of Tokyo-based mobile specialists Infinita. For the PC site we worked from the existing European site template to create a design for the Japanese market which would preserve the overall brand image while making improvements and adjustments necessary to help the site to succeed here.

In addition to localizing the interface, we also reworked the product details page, created a new product zoom function, added an improved store locator, and optimized the shopping and checkout process.

Next we then conducted usability testing with a range of test subjects drawn from Lacoste’s target demographic. Based on the feedback collected in the course of testing we made further tweaks before handing the site over for development. In this area had the good fortune of working with the talented folks at The Plant, the company charged with developing the content management system and handling all of the back-end coding work.

Here at Netwise our platform of choice for most medium-sized websites is Joomla, and every now and again our clients ask us why. Why Joomla, and not, say, something from Microsoft or a built-to-order system coded from scratch? With so many options out there to choose from, why did we choose this one?

Before we answer that let’s get clear about what Joomla is. Full details about Joomla can be found on the Joomla website and in this Wikipedia page, but put simply: Joomla is an award-winning open source content management system (CMS) for publishing content on the web and intranets. It’s written in PHP (an open source scripting language) and stores data in a MySQL database. With Joomla it’s possible to create fully dynamic, database-driven websites with full control over the content via a web-based back-end administration area.

There are many such CMSs out there, and new ones are being created all the time. here are the reasons we use Joomla.

So that covers the reasons why Joomla is a great platform choice for many of the sites we build, but what about the other options out there? What makes Joomla a better choice than those? Doesn’t Microsoft or one of the other software companies make something equally useful or functional? Indeed they do. Microsoft makes a powerful content and document management system called SharePoint which is great for intranets and Windows-centric networks, but is limited in the terms of customization and is notoriously difficult to configure and manage.

There is also the issue of cost. With SharePoint you have to pay for a Windows server operating system, MS SQL Server and SharePoint itself, meaning the cost for just the platform itself quickly runs into thousands of dollars. While hosted SharePoint is available there is are very few options for that here in Japan. SharePoint is a great platform for serving content in a Windows-based network environment, but for made-to-order medium-sized websites is an expensive and inflexible option.

There are other commercial options as well, products like Sitefinity and Cascade Server and IBM Webshere or a hundred others, but by and large they share traits that make them unsuitable for the kinds of sites we build: expensive, difficult to customize and proprietary.

Looking closer to home we can compare similarly-positioned open source solutions like WordPress,  Drupal and Plone. These–with Joomla–comprise the top tier of the open-source CMS market and are where most apples-to-apples comparisons are made. Rather than write yet another one of these here I’ll show you this nifty chart from Devious Media which does an excellent job of highlighting the differences.

So what’s our rationale for choosing Joomla over the others?

WordPress is a great CMS and one we use ourselves for blogs and smaller sites (like the one you’re viewing now). However, it still has mediocre multilingual support and isn’t as extensible as Joomla. Drupal is wickedly powerful and a dream platform for coders, but for “typical” users (like most of our customers) it is simply too complex and difficult to use.

For us, Joomla strikes the just right balance between functionality and user-friendliness. Check out the portfolio for some examples of sites we’ve built using it.

Finally, what does this mean for you? How does using Joomla benefit you, the customer?

Lower Development and Running Costs

With Joomla much of the “grunt work” of development has already been done, which means less code to write and test. All of the fundamental pieces–user account management, log in functions, content creation and editing, image and file management, menus and navigation, etc.–are built and working from the start. This means less development time and thus lower cost.

Extending and adding features to Joomla later is also easier than coding them from scratch, which reduces running costs for upgrades and improvements.

Quicker Time to Launch

Less coding means shorter time to market for your website or application. Using a platform like Joomla can shave weeks or even months off a project’s duration.

Freedom from Vendor Lock-in

Joomla and all of the technologies behind it–PHP, MySQL, Apache–are open source well-known among web developers around the world. This means that if you ever want to change vendors you won’t have to look hard to find a company or individual with the necessary skills.

Improved User Experience

As anyone who’s used a custom-built CMS knows, these are rarely designed with the user experience in mind. Hidden behind a login function and visible only to site administrators, these screens are typically primitive and offer only the bare minimum in terms of functionality.

The Joomla administration area is well-designed and laid out, and looks and behaves like what it is: a professional web publishing platform.

And there you have it. This is why we use–and love using–Joomla. You will, too.

A familiar refrain in such discussions (particularly when the speaker is a provider of such services) is that getting and doing social media are no longer merely optional. In business today, the story goes, social media should be considered essential, much like, having a telephone line or carrying around meishi. And today, as with every time I hear this, I had to ask myself: should it really? For all businesses? Really?

Okay, sure, if your business is selling sugared water or sneakers or speakers then, yes, it’s a no-brainer: you should be using social media to promote your products, to tell your story, and to engage your customers. For companies operating in the B2C world, I would agree that calling social media “essential” is hardly an overstatement.

But what about all those unknown entities toiling in the B2B space? What about the thousands of low-visibility SMEs right here in Tokyo, mostly in the business of selling services to each other? Services like IP telephony, and disaster recovery, and web hosting? Companies who provide services like accounting, translation, executive search, or interior design? What kind of story does someone selling rack space in a data center have to tell? What use does a supplier of outsourced payroll and accounting have for Facebook?

Not much, you could argue, particularly when one considers the hurdles you would face trying to make your unglamorous field–perhaps technical translation or life insurance–seem cool.

However, for these folks I think there is one realistic social media option: when it comes to social media, forget about products and services. Find a way to focus instead on the people that make up the organization, particularly:

• The CEO, or Senior- and executive-level members of the staff. In most cases these individuals best personify and embody the core principles of your company, and as such are well-suited to represent you in the social media space. Just google CEO blog to get a sense for how many others out there share this option.
• Your most talented employees, or those with the most experience and expertise. These people represent your “product” if you happen to be in the business of providing services, and social media can be a great forum for promoting your company through them.
• Customer service reps and other employees who interact directly with your customers. Personalizing the customer-facing portion of your enterprise can improve customer satisfaction, and also make prospective customers feel more comfortable approaching or being contacted by you.

Personalizing your company or organization this way is the best way to create and publish a narrative of what your firm is and does. The face you offer the world via social media shouldn’t be about products and services. Where possible it should be actual faces. The faces of the very people that make your organization what it is.

A good example of this is a company in the Philippines we recently hired. They offer a range of decidedly un-sexy services, from accounting to investment consulting to office setup. Like every other company in the world they have a website, wherein resides all of the content you would expect to find there. About. Services. Clients. Contact. Yawn.

But really, is it supposed to be not yawn? No. It’s just a website. It’s supposed to provide information on the company, what they do, etc. No one expects anything more than that from a website for a company selling business support services. But at the same time you really have no idea, having looked at it, who they are. There is no “face” in the website. It’s the same website you’ve seen a thousand times and will be forgotten the day after you visit it. The same fate awaits the company name. “What was it? Triple something…”

They also have a Facebook page.  Have a look.
Now go back and look at the website again.
Now back to Facebook.

I’ll bet the first thing you clicked on was the photos. How many did you look at, and how did viewing them change your perception of the company? “Change” might not even be the correct term here. More accurate to say the pictures created your perception of the company. In my case my perception of the company went from “2D non-entity” to “fully realized human.”

What adjectives could you use to describe them having only seen the website? If you’re like me? None. “Company.” End of story. But now? Cheerful. Friendly. Diligent. Capable. Pretty.

What do you know about Triple i Consulting now? Let’s assume you’re looking for the kinds of services they provide. Are you more or less comfortable with the idea of contacting them? I was more so, and I did. Not bad a bad return for uploading some photos, wouldn’t you say?

Now, understandably, chances are good this kind of thing is not an option for your particular company. Maybe no one there–yourself included–even wants to be the “visible” face of the company. Perhaps your kind of business prizes anonymity over exposure, preferring obscurity to the bright lights of social media. If so, well, you belong to that group  for which social media has little to offer, and exist as poof that, no, not all companies need to get, use or do social media.

But for the rest of you? Personalize your company. Humanize your brand. Find a suitable medium and get out there. Perhaps it’s video content on YouTube, or a company page on LinkedIn or Facebook, or someone clever or witty in your organization armed with a Twitter feed and a mandate to be vocal.

Your products or services may not be especially interesting or hip (to the rest of us out here), but the people behind them? There is a good chance they have something to say, even if only with a cheerful smile.

The result? Your social media strategy can be as simple and easy as letting them say it.

We tried using Microsoft Project off-and-on over the years, but always found it wanting. Although the features evolved very little, Micro$oft nonetheless felt justified in increasing the price year after year.  Now even the Standard version costs over $800 here in Japan, and it’s still just a standalone, bloated MS app. No thanks.

There are a lot of web-based applications out there, so many, in fact, that you could spend days just listing them all. We’ve already been through that (more than once), and it was only recently that we found a tool that brings together all of the features we’ve been looking for at an attractive price. The product is called SmartSheet, and we love it.

What do you get with SmartSheet?

• Fully web-based. Access project plans from anywhere.
• Close integration with Google Apps.
• Works great on an iPad.
• Easy sharing and collaboration.
• Gantt and Calendar views.
• Publish to iCal and Google Calendar.
• Export to MS Project, PDF, Excel, PNG, Google Spreadsheet.
• Inline discussions.
• Alerts.

But best of al, it just works. And it looks great. Here is a view of the Gantt display:

And being out and about doesn’t mean you have to leave your project data behind. SmartSheet works on lots of mobile devices as well.

What the app might lack in high-end features such as resource leveling it makes up for in speed, ease-of-use, data portability and looks. We manage all of our projects with it now and couldn’t be happier.

You can sign up for a free 30-day trial on the Smartsheet website or add it to your Google Apps via the Google Apps Marketplace.