The talk presented some very sensible sounding ideas on software “design”, and few more on “architecture”. Stephen has covered some points that stood out for him in his post, and here are a couple more that I consider worthy of mention or additional comment.

Software is not a Bridge

Ford articulated a few points in Jack Reeves’ article “What Is Software Design?” (which I haven’t yet read in full) that apply as much today as they did 8 years ago.

• The final goal of any engineering is some kind of documentation (the “design”) - once the documentation is done it is passed on to manufacturing to be built
• In software engineering the design document is the source code, and the manufacturing process is linking and compiling
• Software is expensive to design, and essentially free to build (manufacture)
• Therefore the cheapest way to verify the design is to build and test (this of course does not work so well for bridges)

Stephen has already mentioned that “requirements gathering is a lossy compression algorithm”. You start with an idea about what you want/need, it is compressed into requirements (and information is lost in the process), then the requirements are “re-hydrated” back into code (in which the developers must try and fill in the gaps in the requirements to recreate something like the original idea).

Conclusion: Get from the idea to the code as directly as possible, then build and test. Emergent design and evolutionary architecture (and Agile principles/practices in general) are ways to do this better.

Emergent Design

When you start designing software, there are unknown unknowns which make it difficult (if not impossible) to design a perfect solution upfront. Emergent design is “doing enough design to get by until you work out what you didn’t know when you started”.

Abstracting too early is just speculation without facts. Emergent design is about “effective” abstraction - discovering abstractions and idiomatic patterns in your code that work, and reusing them. Idiomatic patterns are not the Gang of Four design patterns, but are ways of solving problems that work well for the problem or enterprise in question (and therefore should be abstracted for reuse).

Ford posed the question - “how do you know when to abstract?”. And the answer - “experience”. An experienced architect is someone who has seen enough to know what’s good/bad. It is difficult for someone to explain exactly how to do this because the knowledge and understanding required to do it is innate.

There were additional points here about technical debt and complexity (which Stephen has covered), TDD, refactoring and code metrics (most of which we have already found from other sources).

Evolutionary Architecture

Ford explained that architecture must “evolve” (rather than “emerge”) because it has to be there from the beginning.

I personally have never been clear on the difference between design and architecture (which would be required to understand the need for the different verbs). Ford offered a few definitions pulled from the article “Who needs an architect” by Martin Fowler, ending with the chosen definition - “stuff that’s hard to change later”. I haven’t been able to work out what “evolutionary” architecture is (yet) to a degree that would make this information useful, but there is a technical explanation in this IBM article.

Build vs Buy

The question of whether to build or buy software for some of our internal systems has been on my mind for quite some time. Ford offers this flowchart as a method of answering the big question:

The key point is that software that meets a strategic need should be built. If the software will perform a commoditisable business process (aka. overhead), then you can consider buying. Software should only be bought if it is useful to the business straight away (without requiring customisations which can take a significant amount of time), and if it is extensible (as opposed to merely customisable).

For us, this means we might consider buying our Customer Relationship Management system, but if (hypothetically) we wanted to make our licensing system a strategic point of differentiation, then we would need to build it.

In Closing

Emergent design and evolutionary architecture is all about delaying decisions until the last responsible moment, to minimise unnecessary complexity, to give your software projects the best chance of success.

The presentation had a few nice lessons, but it was just an overview of the subject - there is much more detailed and practical information on “doing” emergent design in the IBM technical library.

With the awards as the center of the event, Jason’s presentation fell more on the side of novel entertainment than groundbreaking insight. He made an entrance with a song of the broadway variety, accompanied by a pair of dancing girls in bowler hats.

The Worst Jobs with the Best People

Jason spoke at length about his dance career, highlighting his disdain at being called “just a dancer”. One of his more relevant points was the necessity of the everyday little jobs that “sustain you”, though they may not be recognised or publicised like the “big jobs”. He described his experience working on the movie Happy Feet, in which dancers were required to spend hours on end wriggling around like penguins in uncomfortable motion capture suits, to empasise that even the worst jobs can be the most enjoyable when done with the best people. Whenever his agent identifies a potential job, he asks two questions - how much will it pay? (”it’s showbusiness“) and who else is working on it?

Language

A recurring theme in the presentation was language, and the universality of the language of dance. He told of a trip to Kazakhstan in which he was several hours late to a rehearsal after being held up in customs because he (and his companions) and the officers did not speak the same language. Upon (finally) arriving at the rehearsal, he stood at the front of the room, clapped his hands twice, and the dancers immediately gathered on the floor and started warming up. He described this as one of the best rehearsals he’d had, despite the fact that he could not speak Kazakh or Russian.

He mentioned also the loss of information through translation. When the director and choreographer for a film are two different people, the director must explain his vision to the choreographer, who then translates this into instructions for the dancers. He highly recommended watching any film with a single director/choreographer (here he rattled off a list of names, but all I recall is “Sweet Charity” by Bob Fosse) to see how awesome the final product can be.

Management

Jason spoke a little about his values as a manager. He stated two rules that he places great emphasis on: “be on time” and “be prepared” (two things I personally strive for). He considers it mandatory that his dancers enjoy what they do (”if you enjoy it, it’s not work”), and has sent people home from rehearsal due to lack of enjoyment. He noted that a large part of a manager’s job is to keep people happy.

Everything Else

There were numerous other stories about his work on the “big jobs”, including the logistics of managing rehearsals for the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, and how he explained to 5000 Qatari Muslims that they were tricked into being a part of the opening ceremony of the 2006 Asian Games. He also mentioned the strong sense of community in Queensland dance schools, and how dance (being surrounded by hot girls) is less gay that football (showering with other guys).

To conclude the presentation, he was accompanied off stage with his dancing girls singing “Lady Marmalade”, during which their artificially amplified voices constantly fluctuated between near-silence and caterwauling, making the whole thing a little painful. It was a good effort though.

The presentation was entertaining, the food was quite good. It’s always nice to see excellence recognised and encouraged in any field, and the finalists for the awards certainly had impressive track records (I can only hope that one day I’ll be that good at what I do). All in all it was an enjoyable lunch, well organised by the Australian Management Institute - but next time I should probably take care to choose an event with a little more educational value.

Why are we interested in internet marketing?

Our business is a little different than the “typical” internet marketer (though I guess they all say that).

Yes, we do deliver “information products” (ours is software) over the web, but our clients are mainly large corporates who operate in a narrow, vertical industry.  Our software is priced well above the typical level of the typical e-book, and it’s for a pretty specific target market.  That said, there’s pretty much noone who’s life (and business) is not touched by electricity in a significant way - hence there is a broad potential market for us to tap into, in the future, as we seek to find other unmet needs for understanding of of the electricity market.

Given our type of client, a degree of one-on-one interaction is still necessary, so we are looking to internet marketing to augment our holistic approach to marketing (online and offline) - as part of a larger project of upgrading (and part-automating) our “Business Management System”, as I like to call it.

Over the past 18 months I have learnt a great deal about marketing, and am continuing to explore other avenues for learning, such that I can help the company meet its ambitious growth targets over the next 10 years.

The System Seminar 2009

In March this year I attended The System Seminar in Chicago. We weren’t sure what I would bring back from the experience, but if it turned out to be a poor investment at the very least we would know not to attend in future years.

The seminar featured presentations on a broad range of areas of Internet marketing. For each presenter, I have highlighted a couple of points that I found most useful or relevant to our company.

Perry Marshall: On things learnt about internet marketing

A semi-biographical piece peppered with general marketing and business advice. Significant points:

• Mastermind groups are good for learning more about internet marketing and improving your business.
• Your unique selling proposition (USP) is an intersection of what you are good at, what you are passionate about, and what there is a market for.

Ken McCarthy: Twelve things you absolutely, positively must know about Internet marketing

A nice collection of fundamental concepts. While I had already heard much of this from other sources, reiteration has increased my understanding of and ability to practically apply these principles.

• Traffic + Conversions = Profit (restated throughout the seminar)
• Challenges of email marketing: get it open, get it read, get action
• “Road repair” method of product creation: Walk down the road (your market), look for potholes (problems) and fill the potholes (create products to solve problems).

Ben Jesson: How to get to know your customers fast

One of the more useful presentations (for us) at the seminar. It explained part of the methodology and tools used by Conversion Rate Experts to increase conversion rates on websites.

• Don’t guess at what will improve your conversions (e.g. arbitrarily changing headlines, colours, offer, etc.)
• Objection/counter-objection approach: Identify what objections your visitors have to buying, then make changes to your site that directly address these objections
• Tools for understanding your visitors (this article covers most of what was presented)

Trevor Claiborne: How Google does it

An introduction to Google Website Optimizer - a tool for testing alternative versions of a webpage to determine which has the highest conversion rate.

• Test the changes to your website - let your visitors decide which page is best, not the HiPPO, or anyone else.
• Get 100 conversions per variation in a test before choosing a winner.
• Test micro-conversions (e.g. adding product to cart) if you don’t have enough traffic to test sales or signups

Gauher Chaudry: Lead Generation

On generating leads using PPC for CPA (cost per action) marketing. This presentation covered a few different PPC networks, some keyword strategies and other tips. This document covers almost everything in the presentation.

Our company has tried Adwords in the past (before my time) with little success. We have decided not to use PPC advertising again until we come up with a simple offer and “sales-letter” type page for which we can easily select keywords, write ads and monitor/test conversion rates. At present the information from this presentation is of little use to us.

Timothy Seward: Google Analytics + pay-per-click advertising: The search for the holy grail in online marketing

Tips for getting more money out of Google Adwords. There were points here that could be useful for us if we use Adwords in the future, and others that applied to general use of Google Analytics (which we use currently).

• Track monetary value of conversions in Google Analytics
• Use keyword level negatives so your ads don’t show up for similar but unrelated keywords (e.g. if you’re selling a “night stand” you don’t want people looking for “one night stand” to see your ad, so add “one” as a keyword level negative)

Sean D’Souza: How to increase prices (without losing customers)

On pricing. Mr. D’Souza explained the “yes-yes” factor which you can read about here if interested. We offer different models of each of our products, so this does not suit us particularly well. However, we have deduced from this presentation that:

• There should be a visual difference between models or between different packages
• The additional value of any product should be clear (e.g. the “Save x%” on the NEM-Watch prices page).

Mr. D’Souza also covered “sequential escalation and de-escalation”.

• Give your customers a sequence in which they must purchase your products
• Customers start at the cheapest product (might be free) and work their way up through the products in order of price. See pages 23-41 of Mr. D’Souza’s slides from the 2008 System Seminar for more.

James Martell: An SEO friendly web publishing model

A step by step process for outsourcing the writing of blog articles to improve SEO.

• Make a list of press releases and youtube videos with primary keywords identified
• Make a spec detailing what your writers need to do (e.g. keyword usage, formatting, how to submit articles)
• Find writers on elance to write an article for each press release or video in your list

Outsourcing articles for our electricity supply industry commentary blog is something that we could consider doing once we confirm the value of these articles. However, I suspect that writers on elance (and similar outsourcing sites) would not have the understanding of the NEM required to author articles that are useful to our customers.

Kim Dushinski: Mobile marketing: the next wave

• Mobile marketing is very similar to internet marketing (it’s another form of direct marketing)
• People searching the internet from their mobiles are often looking for things to do on their mobile device, or real-world information related to their physical location
• Mobile search uses a different algorithm to desktop search

Our product NEM-Watch has the ability to send customisable alarms on electricity market data via SMS. We should continue to consider how we can use mobile technology (as it becomes increasingly widespread) to make current and future products useful to our customers.

Karl Blanks: It’s not rocket science

A list of techniques to employ on your website to increase conversions. Ben Jesson’s presentation covered how to understand your customers, this presentation covered some possible changes to make to your website to address your customers objections. I had read most of these before in various marketing books.

• Reason why - Objection: “Too good to be true”. Counter-objection: Explain why you are offering a deal
• Advertising in Disguise - Objection: People don’t like to be sold to. Counter-objection: Position yourself as a trusted advisor, or give your clients something for free
• Simplicity - Often people don’t buy because your website is too complex, so make it simpler
• Test any changes you make to your website so you know what works, and so you don’t make changes that decrease your conversion rate

Our goals for the seminar

Goal 1: Find out what kind of language to use when marketing to engineers

Glenn Livingston kindly answered this question for me (he’s a cool guy - he can juggle 5 balls). He recommended that we speak to our customers in English. We can also survey our customers to see how they express their problems and how they feel when their problems are solved. This will allow us to talk to them using the same terms that they do.

Goal 2: Find out how to test websites when you don’t have the “numbers”

This question is less “how to test” and more “how to get a statistically signification result from a test”. Another attendee asked this question after Trevor Claiborne’s presentation on Google Website Optimizer. His response was:

• Test for a longer time (e.g. 2 months)
• Test microconversions (e.g. adding a product to a shopping cart)

Goal 3: Find other attendees that we can work with to improve our marketing

A couple of the attendees I spoke to thought networking was the best part of the seminar, and I agree that it should have been so. While I collected a bunch of names and handshakes at the seminar, I didn’t find anyone that I thought would be mutually beneficial to keep in touch with. In retrospect, this may have been due to my lack of marketing experience and weak grasp of the marketing issues concerning our company. As a result I haven’t yet contacted any of the people I met, but I will get in touch with them very soon to see how they are doing 4 months after the seminar.

Goal 4: Find marketing coaches or courses to learn from

We currently have stacks of marketing material in our physical and electronic libraries, all of which could contain information that (when implemented) could have positive effects. I didn’t see any marketing products offered at the seminar that I thought would be more worthwhile than the material we already have.

Coaching is a slightly different story. I imagine that to get the most out of a coaching service, we would need to take the time to implement what is learnt on a regular basis. I am still unsure whether something like this would be a good investment for us. If you’ve been coached before I’d be very curious to hear about your personal experiences (you should definitely leave a comment).

What we’ve done as a result of the seminar

• Implemented tools on our websites to help us understand our customers.
• Incorporated some points by various speakers into our email marketing campaigns and website.

What we haven’t done, but is likely to benefit our business

• Analyse the data collected on our websites to determine our visitor’s objections to purchasing/subscribing
• Design alternative pages addressing our visitors objections to increase our conversions
• Experiment with split testing changes to websites
• Develop unique selling propositions (USPs) for our products
• Find other small B2B businesses like us to collaborate with in learning about Internet marketing

Should we attend The System Seminar 2010?

I don’t think it was worth the time and money to travel across the world to get the information that I did. As the presenters at the seminar are quite thorough at “maximising return on one-time investments”, the majority of the information they presented is available for free online. A couple of the things I learnt could potentially be very valuable to the company, but there was a lot of information that did not seem immediately relevant to us.

I feel that it would be more beneficial for me to spend a couple of days “researching” various Internet marketing topics of interest online. Paul has suggested having a 2-day intensive study session and comparing the outcomes of this with the seminar. Perhaps the results will form another blog post some day.